Page 24 of A Malicious Menagerie (Fangs & Fables #1)

The Man

I ’m frozen to the spot, still trying to process what I just witnessed, when a familiar voice draws my attention.

There are a few stragglers who haven’t moved on yet, most engaged in their own private conversations.

Among the leftovers are Mathis and the Bollywood actress Radha Gupta.

“Ms. Gupta,” Mathis calls cheerfully as he approaches her where she’s chatting with another stunning woman.

Radha says her goodbyes to the svelte brunette and meets Mathis partway, her smile serene. “Mr. Mathis,” she greets him warmly. “It’s been a pleasure getting to experience your collection of rare creatures. They are beyond imagining. The mermaids are particularly fetching.”

“Favorites of my daughter as well,” Mathis notes with a nod. I can’t even begin to unpack that particular statement and what it implies about the whole damn family. “Though you may find you change your mind after you receive your auction prize.”

The actress’s chocolate-brown eyes gleam. “Yes, I have been counting down the minutes. Is it time?”

“It is.” Mathis offers his arm to her. “If you’ll allow me?”

She accepts his offer, and the two stroll off further into the woods. My hackles immediately go up. I can’t prove that they’re going to see my wolf, but if there’s even the slightest chance, I have to follow them and try to protect him .

Keeping a discreet distance is easier than it would otherwise be when I can’t move very quickly in heels and especially with the way my feet ache and my blisters rub after a whole night in these torture devices.

Still, I manage to keep the pair in sight until they stop in front of the wolf enclosure.

My heart sinks into my belly. I can see the dire wolf standing close to where I last saw him, his stance stiff and eyes guarded and watchful.

Hoping my presence might keep them from doing anything unsavory, I feign nonchalance and stroll up behind them.

Just out for a casual stroll after watching a public execution, nothing to see here.

“Ah, Anna!” Mathis exclaims. I manage a stiff smile as he waves me over. “You’re just in time. I doubt this is something you’ve seen yet.”

“Now, Mr. Mathis, I paid good money for this grand reveal, and here you are, giving it away for free,” Radha teases, but she doesn’t seem sincerely irritated.

“Come now, the job has to have some perks,” he replies slyly.

“What haven’t I seen yet?” I ask, trying to keep the caution out of my voice. I look at the wolf, and as his eyes meet mine, there’s something I can’t define in his expression. Something a little like dread and a lot like an apology.

“You’ll see, my dear, you’ll see.”

Unable to staunch my curiosity, even if it comes with a healthy dose of foreboding, I watch as Mathis pulls a black box tiny enough to fit in the palm of his hand from his pocket.

On closer inspection, it seems there’s a single gray button on the face of what must be some kind of remote control.

Once the wolf sees it, he begins to back away, his expression dark and angry but also almost… resigned.

“What is that?” I ask sharply, my gaze flicking from the object in his hand to the wolf and back again.

“I learned early on that he won’t listen to commands,” Mathis responds, not quite answering my question.

“He understands, of course, but he wouldn’t be tamed.

Until I found the right motivation.” He turns to look at the wolf with a smug smile that turns his usually jovial expression into something ugly.

“Of course, you can always change your tune. This need not hurt.”

“Hurt?!” I yelp, instinctively reaching for the remote.

Mathis grabs my wrist in a surprisingly firm grip to keep me from taking the ominous black box. “You’re such a gentle soul, Anna. It will only last a—”

Before he can finish his statement, a loud bang startles us, causing Mathis to release his grip. When I turn toward the cage with a gasp, the wolf is against the bars again, his teeth bared in a violent snarl. So, it wasn’t a fluke, then. He reacts when he thinks I’m in danger.

One moment, the wolf is glaring daggers at Mathis and keeping up a continuous stream of growls and snarls.

Then, suddenly, he yelps and collapses to the ground, his body writhing as his paws scrabble at the metal collar around his neck.

I’d gotten so used to seeing the silver ring peeking through his black fur that I hadn’t given it much thought, but now I realize with horror that it must be a shock collar.

“Stop!” I blurt. I reach again for the remote even as Mathis holds it away from me in a perverse mockery of a child’s game of keep away.

I’m about to climb Mathis’s tuxedoed body, heels and skintight dress be damned, when a gruesome cracking sound snaps through the air.

Pausing my assault on my boss, I whip around to find the wolf changing, transforming, right before my eyes.

The hair-raising sounds accompany the shortening and realignment of his limbs, and I can almost see the bones shifting and tendons and ligaments restringing themselves under his skin.

And speaking of skin, his fur is receding, leaving behind smooth, tanned flesh the color of warm honey, though a shock of black hair remains to tumble over his brow.

His muzzle shortens and bluntens until a narrow nose remains, and pink lips grimace from behind an unkempt dark beard.

Though his frame shrinks significantly, he’s still bound in thick slabs of muscle from his rounded biceps to the heavy slabs of his pecs down through his defined abdominals to his thick thighs.

My wolf is… a man.

Not a dire wolf.

A werewolf .

“I see you didn’t suspect,” Mathis says smugly, shattering my shocked trance. “He keeps it well hidden.”

It suddenly comes back to me that my… the werewolf only shifted because he was in pain.

Before I can demand again that Mathis stop—and honestly, this night has wrung me out so thoroughly that I’m not sure how firm a demand it would be—he clicks the single button on the remote, killing the electric current.

The moment the shock ceases, the werewolf pushes himself up on shaking arms and legs until he stands, shoulders squared and feet planted, solid and ready to fight despite the lines of pain etched into his angular face.

My frantic eyes don’t know where to look: at his unruly hair, dark as a raven’s wing and curling at his neck and over his forehead, or the high cheekbones exposed above his dense beard, or his broad, muscular body with that deep, sculpted V leading down to his…

Nope, no, absolutely not, no way am I blushing right now with everything else that has happened tonight.

Desperate to redirect, I fling my gaze up to his and find him watching me intently, his topaz eyes just the same as they were as a wolf. The sight somehow slows my heart rate, and my tense muscles ease just a little.

“He’s beautiful,” a lilting female voice purrs, and until that moment, I’d forgotten that Radha Gupta was even here.

I’d all but forgotten about Mathis, too, but the reminder leaves me flinching.

This, all of this, this moment —it feels important.

Sacred. This should be for just me and my wolf.

But there’s an audience, one member smug and the other awestruck and, dare I say… aroused.

“Yes, a fine specimen,” Mathis agrees, though his assessing gaze is far more clinical than hers. “My men caught him in Denali. A shame he was alone at the time. I would have liked a second.”

Finally, the wolf looks away from me, leaving me somehow both bereft and relieved.

He turns his glare on Mathis and bares his teeth at him, revealing that his incisors are now flatter and more human save for his canines, which are long and pointed.

The growl that rumbles out of him is no different than in his other form.

Even without being directed at me, it raises the fine hairs on the back of my neck.

“To look so like a man, and yet to be such a beast,” Radha muses, and I want to slug her right in her perfectly proportioned face.

Because even with four legs and fur, he was never a beast to me.

Suddenly, the loudspeaker goes off again, and I jump. “Hello, esteemed guests. The menagerie will be closing shortly, but you are all welcome to relax with a glass of champagne by the carousel and place any last bids at the silent auction tables.”

As the announcement ends, a metallic sound catches my attention.

I look back at the wolf enclosure to see that the divider is sliding open.

The werewolf dives through the opening the moment it’s large enough, his body already stretching back into his lupine form, and I can hardly blame him for running.

I wonder if Nathan is ready to go, because I’d like to do the same.

Turning toward the entrance, I’m ready to march back toward the carousel but halt abruptly when a hand catches my arm. When I spin around, it’s to find Mathis grasping my bicep in a grip that toes the line between firm and painful.

“Anna.” He waits until I meet his eyes to continue.

His voice is deceptively soft but no less authoritative for it.

“Do not interfere in my affairs again.” He leans closer, his words barely louder than a whisper but as forceful as cannon fire.

“Those who do tend to disappear. Do I make myself clear?”

Disappear? Like the vampire’s victim? My stomach plummets at the thought, and icy-cold dread prickles my arms.

Mathis’s eyes are flat black, his expression eerily blank, and a shiver of unease coasts down my spine.

Suddenly, I remember that feeling I had the first night we met, as if I were a fly caught in the spider’s web.

He hides it, but there’s a predator under that genteel veneer.

Maybe a more vicious predator than the vampire.

“Yes, sir,” I answer, falling back on years of training in not rocking the boat even if, internally, I’m seething.

His smile doesn’t touch his cold eyes. “Good.”