The Better to Bite by Cynthia Eden Page B

place for me and dad to escape. From the outside, the place had almost looked postcard perfect. From the inside… “It’s not supposed to be some wolf’s all-you-can-eat-buffet.”
    “Your grandmother didn’t tell you?”
    Now that made me pause. Carefully, with no inflection in my voice, I said, “My grandmother didn’t exactly talk to me. Like, ever.” There it was again, the gnawing ache in my gut that came whenever I thought of the woman who’d never even once contacted me in sixteen years. Not once.
    Hadn’t she ever been curious about me? Wanted to see me? Talk to me?
    Her belongings had already been gone from the house when dad and I arrived, so there’d been nothing for me to
see
of hers, and I’d been…disappointed by that.
    Who had she been? And
why
hadn’t she cared enough to at least meet me?
    I hadn’t talked to my dad about her. I’d tried that once, a few years back, and he’d shut me down fast.
    “
She’s a bitter, mean-spirited woman, Anna. She’ll regret what she’s doing one day. Trust me. You’re so good, you would have been the best thing in her life.”
    Would have, right.
    “Lamb to the slaughter,” Rafe muttered and he yanked his hand through his hair.
    I blinked. “Excuse me?”
    A knock sounded at my bedroom door. “Anna?” My dad’s voice.
    “
Go!”
I whispered to Rafe even as I yanked down the window and the blinds. I spun away, just as my dad opened the door.
    “Baby, are you okay?”
    He was in his faded robe and pajama pants. The pants with smiley faces all over them. A gag gift from me last Christmas, but a gift that the guy wore all the time.
    I nodded. “Yeah, sorry, Dad.”
    His gaze swept the room. I knew suspicion when I saw it. “I thought I heard you talking to someone.”
    You did
. I exhaled. “I had a bad dream.” I never liked lying to my dad, so I usually just avoided the fake stories all together. He could see through lies too easily. Evasion worked better for me.
    “A dream about the wolf?”
    I’d told him about the attack. Brent hadn’t been able to remember anything, so it was just my word that a big, crazy wolf had charged at the truck.
    My dad had believed me. He always did.
    “Y-yeah.”
    He came toward me. Put his hands on my shoulders…and moved me away from the window. So much for a comforting hug. “Dad!”
    He pushed up the blinds and peered outside.
    So busted.
    I craned to see over his shoulder. I only saw the empty tree limbs. Rafe was already gone.
    I exhaled.
    Dad looked back at me.
    I didn’t give him a fake smile. It was too late. I was too tired.
    But he gave me a hug now. The kind that I needed.
    I got back in bed. He checked the lock on my window, then he picked up my mace.
    My eyes narrowed on that leather case. “Dad, where’d you get the mace?” I know I’d asked before, but he’d just given me a smart ass answer then.
    He shrugged now. “From the station.”
    My hands curled into the covers. “When I sprayed the wolf, the mace burned its eyes.”
    He dropped the mace. “That’s what it’s supposed to do, you know that—”
    “No.”
    He frowned.
    “Not burn as in…it hurt his eyes and made them water.” Not even close. I licked my lips. “I mean smoke was coming off the wolf. Its eyes looked like they were bleeding, and the wolf was
burning
.” I pressed my lips together, waited a beat, then asked, “Just what, exactly, is in that mace?”
What’s happening? Tell me!
    My dad walked toward the bedroom door. I thought he’d leave without responding, but then he stopped. His shoulders drooped a bit, and my dad looked…tired. “Back in the city,” he said slowly, “I didn’t think there was anything worse than the killers I faced on the streets.” He turned his head and met my stare. “But there are worse things, baby. Much, much worse.”
    And with that, he left me.
    It took me a very long time to get back to sleep.
    ***
     The bell of the spell shop jingled when I walked inside. My dad had