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level.
    “Holly!”
    She couldn’t take her
eyes off the black were contorting in misery on her floor.
    “Holly!”
    Only when Dustin—the
man, not a furry half-wolf—bent over her and jerked her to her feet did she
shake herself out of the stupor induced by the black wolf’s mortal distress.
    “We’ve got to get out
of here while he’s down,” Dustin insisted and dragged Holly from her townhouse
while she squirmed and dug in her heels.
     
    CHAPTER
FOUR
    Holly, clearly in
shock, fought Dustin all the way to his SUV. He had to use more strength and
force than he’d have liked, more than a human would have had even in his
weakened state, to stuff her into the vehicle through the driver’s side door
and over the center console. With one hand locked around her wrist, he still
managed to shift into reverse and peel out of the parking lot backwards,
spinning right way round only once they were out of the complex and on the
road. From the passenger seat, Holly kept squirming and scratching at the hand
binding her to him. She was whining and huffing but not actually talking, not
really focusing on anything but freeing her wrist.
    “Put your seatbelt on,
Holly.”
    She ignored him as
completely as if she hadn’t heard him, and maybe she hadn’t. The woman had just
come face to face again with the shifter who had shattered her whole idea of
the world less than a year ago, who’d assaulted her, sunk his teeth into her,
left her bleeding on the freezing asphalt of a dark empty lot. And she’d seen
Dustin half-shift, as well, right after he’d kissed her.
    “Put your seatbelt on,”
he told her again, and again she didn’t react to the command.
    So Dustin yanked Holly
up against him and, driving blind, took her lips in a sudden, ferocious kiss.
His hot, hungry tongue in her mouth and his sweaty, rough face against hers.
Then, for good measure and because he couldn’t help it, Dustin nipped her lip.
She yelped and reared in the seat, pressing herself back against the door. But
at least her eyes were focused now.
    “Put your seatbelt on,
and I’ll let go of your hand.”
    From his side of the
vehicle, Dustin had control of the door locks and windows anyway. He didn’t
tell Holly that. It took her a few seconds of processing his offer before she
secured the belt, and she shifted her weight into the seat only as much as
absolutely necessary to snap the metal tab into place. Then he made good on his
word and let her go and watched her from his peripheral vision for the next two
miles as she eyed her door handle.
    Only when she sagged in
the seat, the muscles of her arms releasing their tension, did Dustin let
himself relax—and truly weaken. He used the back of his hand to mop the stream
of sweat from his forehead. Now that his pulse had slowed, the moisture chilled
his skin. Then the shivering set in.
    He heard Holly ask in a
soft rasp from the passenger side, but sounding much further away than that,
“What’s wrong with you?”
    Dustin counted out the
painted dashes on the roadway as they darted past in the glare of the
headlights, in time with the pounding behind his brow, as he debated telling
her. “It happens with the shift, afterward. We get weak—sick—for awhile once we turn back.” If we turn back , he thought but kept that to himself. “The longer
the shift, and the more complete the transformation, the worse the
aftereffects.”
    “You’re just like him.”
Holly’s voice rang out louder, stronger, accusing.
    “No, not in a lot of
ways, lupa.”
    “What does that mean?
Lupa. Is that another word for a wolfkin?”
    “Wolfkin? The varg told
you about that?” Christ, how long had the Fenris-blooded shifter been in there
with Holly, terrorizing her? If Dustin hadn’t been so fucking preoccupied with
his cock, he’d have smelled the bastard sooner. He’d have come for her before
the rogue wolf had filled her head with…. Well, Dustin couldn’t say lies
exactly. “Lupa,” Dustin repeated and