To Live and To Love (Black Wolf Agency Book 1) by Jessica Swan Page A

‘There’s no way I could have hurt her, is there?’ he thought. “Are you alright?! Did I hurt you?”
    “Um, no, I’m alright,” she replied, absentmindedly rubbing her wrists where he had gripped too tight. This is definitely not normal for James or any human to be able to hurt her.
    “Did I hurt your wrists? I can’t believe I did that! I’m so sorry, honey,” he said, gently holding her hands as he studied her wrists. They appeared to be fine, but were still a little sore. If she was human, she knew they would be red right now and would form bruises later on.
    “I’m fine– I’ll be fine,” she said, still wondering how that had happened. Anytime he did that before, no matter how much force he used, he never hurt her. Then, it occurred to her. She didn’t know for sure, but this must be one of the early stages of a werewolf conversion. For now, she would try to ignore it, in case she was wrong or simply imagining things after their traumatic experience earlier. Pretending to be clueless, she said, “I wonder what happened.”
    “I don’t know, but, just to be safe, I don’t think we should do anything right now. I don’t know what happened, and I don’t want to hurt you.”
    “Oh, yes, we should,” she interrupted, kissing him again. She knew she had to get him to continue or the fear of hurting her would start to eat at him; he was so protective of her.
    When their lips parted, he took his glass of wine, drank the whole thing, and set it down.
    “On second thought,” he said, taking the bottle, which was still halfway full, and drinking a good portion of it. He knew he was going to need a little liquid courage to continue. Perhaps it would relax his nerves as well. “It’s been quite a night so far, and after all that’s happened, it could get a lot worse.”
    She took the bottle from him, drank about half of what remained, and added, “I’ll drink to that.” At this point, she would drink to anything to try and erase some of the things that went on this evening, even if it was only temporary.
    With all that had happened, and all that was going to happen, to lose themselves in each other was exactly what they needed to do. With that one thing on their minds, the happy couple made their way to the bedroom together.
     

     
    There was a strange taste in James’s mouth. It didn’t take him long to realize that it was blood, but whose blood? He rolled over and found that the place next to him in bed was empty.
    Concerned, he got up and walked to the other side of the bed, finding Kate’s body lying on the floor, lifeless. He rushed to her side and pulled her close, hoping she was only unconscious.
    “No, please, no!” he said frantically, looking her over. Her body was completely limp and lacking of all color. When he turned her over, he saw that the front of her body was soaked in blood, originating from a large, fatal bite wound on her throat.
    “NO!!!”
    He woke up screaming, covered in sweat and shivering.
    “What’s wrong, my love?” she asked, her sweet, loving voice helping to bring him back to reality. She knew if her heart was beating, hearing his scream would have made it skip a beat.
    He looked at her and forced a smile, letting out a sigh of relief. There was no way he could tell her about this dream. It had really frightened him.
    “A nightmare. It was just a nightmare,” he said, still breathing heavily, his heart pounding in his chest. She wrapped her arms around him and held him close.
    “You’re really hot,” she said, holding her hand to his forehead. “I think you have a fever.”
    “I’m freezing. What time is it? I don’t want to be late for work.”
    “It’s 3am, honey, and you’re not going to work today. Have a little common sense. I’ll call Yvonne in a little while and tell her you’re sick.”
    “Thank you, sweetie,” he said, lying back down and going back to sleep immediately.
    Kate couldn’t sleep any longer, so she lay next to her