Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels by V.J. Chambers

spring days, and Dana could feel a little bit of sweat slick under her arms.
    She’d put on deodorant, hadn’t she?
    Want to smell nice for Cole? taunted a voice in her head.
    She grimaced. So what if she did?
    But it was pathetic that she was standing here waiting, the feelings bubbling up in her more like a girl waiting for her prom date than a woman going to grimly confront her captor and would-be murderer.
    He couldn’t kill me. Something stopped him.
    What did it matter? He’d killed other people, hadn’t he? Lots of other people. But Dana was special to him. They shared something that no one else shared. A bond that no one could understand. While she’d been locked in that basement, chained up, Dana had changed. Cole was the only one who’d been there. The only one who understood.
    Chantal said it was perfectly natural to feel that way. Logical, even.
    Dana knew it wasn’t. It was twisted and disgusting. She rolled her shoulders, hoping that the deodorant would overpower the smell of her sweat. Telling herself she shouldn’t care what Cole thought. She shouldn’t want to impress him. She should hate him.
    “Gray.” It was Avery, walking down the hallway. He was wearing an old t-shirt and ratty jeans.
    Dana had changed her outfit three times, each time finding fault with it. She wanted to find the perfect thing to wear. She wanted to look casual, as if she hadn’t put any thought into what she was wearing. But she didn’t want to look sloppy. Just... accidentally beautiful. That was tough to pull off, and she didn’t think she’d quite found the right balance. But her clingy green blouse and deep blue jeans were the best she’d been able to come up with. She’d put on makeup too but had washed it off at the last minute. It was too strange to be putting makeup on for Cole Randall.
    “Hi Brooks,” she said. “Are you ready?”
    He hit the button on the elevator and swiped his access badge when prompted. Without a badge, they couldn’t access the maximum security floor. “Anxious to get this over with?”
    She nodded. Let him think that.
    Inside the elevator, it smelled faintly of some kind of take-out food. Maybe Chinese. Dana couldn’t be sure. Staff often went out to get food and brought it back. There weren’t a lot of culinary-minded workers at the SF. The elevator doors closed.
    Dana’s stomach clenched. She tried to tell herself it was dread. She knew it was breathless anticipation.
    “You look nervous,” said Avery.
    She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
    “You know, we don’t have to do this,” he said. “If you don’t want to see that guy, we can tell him to go fuck himself.”
    “It’s okay, Brooks.” She tried to smile. The elevator settled on the bottom floor. The doors slid open. Dana gazed out at the hallway of the maximum security floor, which stretched out almost infinitely. The walls were painted white. The doors were white too. It looked sterile, like a hospital or a morgue.
    She squared her shoulders and stepped out of the elevator, Avery right behind her.
    “You guys were coming to see Randall, right?” asked the guy working the desk outside the elevator. He had a mole on his chin. A hair was growing out of it. “Brooks and Gray? You got your badges?”
    Dana showed hers. Avery too.
    The guy got up. “We got him in one of the conference rooms. He’s waiting for you. Follow me.”
    The guard wore a uniform—brown pants and a brown, collared shirt. The pants were too tight. As she walked behind him, Dana noticed how the waist cut painfully into his flesh.
    Without warning, the wolf surged up in her. Flesh , it whispered. Rip. Tear. Eat.
    In horror, Dana realized that claws were already pushing out of her fingertips.
    She shoved the wolf down, forced the claws to retract into her body. She had to keep it together. Seeing Cole was no reason to lose control.
    Shift for me, Dana.
    She shuddered, reaching inside her shirt to finger the scar on her belly. Willing the