the long folds falling to the ground at his feet.
The creature in the alley rumbled again, launching itself toward him.
Caught in midtransformation, Gryph was helpless to defend himself.
The wolf, equal in size to Gryph’s inner lion, hit him full in the chest, knocking him back into the side street. The air slammed from his lungs.
His attacker flew past him and hit the opposite building, his feet glancing off the bricks, then landed on all fours, launching a new attack within seconds.
His transformation complete, Gryph dodged to his side and sprang to all fours, reaching out to pound the animal with a powerful swipe from his forepaw.
The wolf tumbled across pavement, sprang back on his feet and tore into Gryph, his fangs slashing for Gryph’s jugular.
Gryph twisted to avoid the worst of the bite, but not all of it. The wolf’s teeth sank into his skin, ripping through his shoulder near his collarbone. Pain rocketed through his senses, blinding him briefly.
The wolf pounced on him, pinning him to the ground. Had the creature wanted to finish him off, it could have with one more fatal bite.
Instead it stared down at him, its chest heaving, and it growled low and menacingly, like a warning. Then it leaped over Gryph and disappeared out of the alley and around a corner.
His shoulder bleeding, Gryph pushed to his paws, his racing heartbeat slowing.
A moan alerted him to another being’s presence in the alley. With his focus on survival, Gryph hadn’t moved on to the source of the long, thick bloodstain.
He staggered toward the banded stack of compressed cardboard boxes, his nostrils filled with the scents of blood, woman and fear.
Before he reached her, his body began its transformation back to man, the change made more difficult given his wounds.
His arms and legs completed before his face and head, allowing him to reach out to the woman and feel for a pulse.
Her eyes blinked open, widening, a scream bubbling up in her throat.
Gryph tried to reassure her with words, but all that he could emit was a rumbling growl.
The woman’s eyes rolled back in her head and she passed out.
The pavement was soaked with her blood from a wound in the back of her neck. If she had any chance at survival, she had to get to a hospital as soon as possible.
He left her on the ground for only a moment to retrieve his cloak, his cell phone tucked in the inside pocket.
Quickly he dialed 911 and gave a description of the victim, her injuries and her location. When the dispatcher asked his name, he clicked the off button and pocketed the phone.
He returned to the woman and applied pressure to her wound to stem the flow of blood from her body, but her face was deathly pale.
As he leaned over her body, blood dripped down on her.
Until now, he hadn’t realized how much blood he’d lost. He could tell he was weakening, but he couldn’t leave the woman until the police or ambulance were close.
A siren sounded in the distance, growing closer by the second.
Gryph had to leave before the emergency personnel arrived—how else would he explain his tattered clothing? And given his injuries and the pain they caused, he couldn’t risk being around surface dwellers should the pain increase, summoning his inner beast.
He stayed until the last possible moment. When the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle pulled into the side street, Gryph leaped over the chain-link fence behind him, raced for the opposite end of the alley and rounded the corner to the next street.
Keeping to the shadows, he ran until his feet slowed, the blood running in a stream down his arm, dripping onto the sidewalk, draining his strength. The police would follow his trail. He couldn’t let that happen, he couldn’t let them find him. Then he remembered how close he was to the river, its scent drawing him to the corner of Washington Street and Wacker Drive. Making a sharp left, he stumbled toward the bridge. An ambulance passed him, its lights blinding. A police car followed, slowing as it passed by.
Exhaustion pulled at Gryph—he wanted to sleep, but he knew he couldn’t. He leaned against the bridge railing and stared down into the water.
The police car stopped and backed up.
Gryph leaned out and let himself tip over the edge. Then he was falling, racing to meet the black shiny surface of the river.
When he hit the water, the force of the fall sent him deep into the murky black depths.
His shoulder burned, the effort to move it too much. But he kicked his feet, propelling himself upward, hoping the current would carry him far enough away they wouldn’t find him.
He surfaced a hundred yards from the Washington Street Bridge. A cop stood at the rails shining a flashlight below, sending a sweeping arc back and forth across the water.
Gryph sucked in a breath and sank below the surface, letting the current carry him farther away. As he flowed downstream with the river, he wondered what it would feel like to drown, to let his lungs fill with water and the river claim him. His chest burned for oxygen and he kicked his feet to send him closer to the river’s edge. Dying in a river wasn’t in the cards for him tonight.
When he came up again, he had drifted far enough that the cop’s light couldn’t find him. Tired beyond endurance, he kicked and pulled with one arm to the side of the river, searching for a place he could crawl out. Several minutes later, he found a metal ladder pinned to the concrete walls of the river and dragged himself up the east embankment onto a walkway, where he collapsed, the night sky of the city fading to black.
Pain...tired...can’t breathe.
Selene staggered to the door of her basement apartment below the vintage dress shop she owned that was situated among the quaint little buildings of old-town Chicago.
She could barely breathe and her shoulder ached unbearably, the pain draining her strength, sucking the life from her body.
Holding on to the handrail, she pulled herself up the steps to ground level. Headlights flashed on the street in front of the building.
Once outside the door of her shop, Selene met Deme, as her sister climbed out of her Lexus SUV. “Thank the goddess, you’re here.”
“Were you going somewhere without me?” Deme asked.
Selene lurched toward the car and leaned against the door. “We need to get there.”
“Are you all right, sweetie?” Deme started to round the car.
“I’m okay, but we need to move fast.” She opened the car door and slid into the passenger seat. “Hurry.”
“Where
