they didnt want me now they cant have me dailymotion

The night air smelled like rain and regret.

I pulled my worn cardigan tighter around my shoulders, cursing myself for staying so late at the library again. Six hours of reshelving, three argument with the microfilm machine, and exactly zero human interactions that meant anything. Just another Tuesday.

My apartment was a twenty-minute walk through the older part of the city, where streetlights flickered like dying stars and the sidewalks cracked into puzzle pieces no one bothered to solve. Most of my coworkers had cars. Most of my coworkers also had lives, boyfriends, dinner plans that didn't involve instant noodles and a cat I couldn't afford.

I was halfway down Birch Street when I felt it.

A prickle at the back of my neck. That ancient, animal instinct that screams someone's watching even when there's no one there.

I walked faster.

The sound came first. A low growl, so deep I felt it in my chest rather than heard it with my ears. Then the shadows at the end of the alley to my left moved-not like wind, not like anything natural. They gathered, thickened, and stepped into the dim pool of a dying streetlight.

Three of them.

Men? Not quite. They wore human shapes the way a wolf wears sheep's clothing-badly, with violence peeking through the seams. Their eyes caught the light and threw it back yellow. Their smiles showed too many teeth, all of them sharp.

"Well, well," the tallest one said. His voice scraped against my ears. "Smell that, brothers?"

The one on his right inhaled loudly. His nostrils flared. "Sweet. Clean. Human."

"Alone human," the third corrected, circling to my left like he was herding me. "Tender human."

I should have run. Every survival instinct I possessed screamed at my legs to move, to flee, to do anything except stand there frozen like prey. But my body had betrayed me. My feet were concrete. My heart was a trapped bird throwing itself against the bars of my ribs.

"Please," I whispered. The word tasted pathetic. "I don't have any money. I don't-"

"Money?" The leader laughed, and the sound was wrong. Too rough. Too much like something that had forgotten how to be human. "We don't want your money, little lamb."

He stepped closer. The smell hit me then-wild, earthy, like wet dog and blood and forest after rain. Wrong. All wrong.

"We want," he said, and his face shifted-jaw extending, teeth lengthening, eyes going fully gold, "to play."

The transformation happened in heartbeats. One second they were men, or something like men. The next, fur exploded from their skin, spines curved, and three wolves stood where the men had been. Not ordinary wolves. These were the size of ponies, with shoulders that brushed my waist and jaws that could snap my arm like a twig.

I screamed.

The sound had barely left my throat when the first wolf lunged.

I threw my arms up-stupid, useless, as if my forearms could stop teeth designed to crush bone. I felt the heat of its breath, saw the pink of its mouth, smelled the rot of its last meal-

And then it wasn't there.

One moment, lunging. The next, flying sideways through the air as if something had hit it with the force of a freight train. It crashed into a dumpster with a crunch that made my stomach turn.

The other two wolves snarled and spun to face the newcomer.

I pressed myself against the alley wall, my heart trying to escape through my throat, and I saw him.

A man. No-a presence. He stood at the mouth of the alley with the streetlight at his back, casting him in shadow. Tall. Impossibly tall. Dressed in black that seemed to drink the light around him. His face was all sharp angles and hollows, cheekbones that could cut glass, a jaw carved from marble.

But it was his eyes that stole my breath.

Red. Deep, ancient red, like embers from a fire that had been burning for centuries. They fixed on the wolves with an expression I couldn't read-boredom? Annoyance? The mild interest of a man watching ants fight?

"Leave," he said.

Just one word. Quiet. Almost gentle. But it carried weight, that word. It pressed down on the air itself.

The wolves hesitated. I saw the leader-the one who'd spoken first-take a half-step forward, then stop. His fur bristled along his spine.

"She's ours," he snarled. The sound came out half-human, half-animal. "We found her. The hunt is ours."

"You found nothing." The man in black didn't move. Didn't raise his voice. "You stumbled across something you don't understand, and now you have three seconds to run before I lose what little patience I possess."

The wolf on the left-the one who'd circled me earlier-growled low in his chest. "You have no authority here, blood-drinker. This is pack territory."

"Three."

"You can't kill all of us before we raise the alarm. The Alpha will-"

"Two."

The leader's eyes darted between me and the stranger. I saw the calculation happening behind those yellow irises. The risk assessment. The survival instinct warring with pride.

"One."

The wolves ran.

They didn't bother with dignity. They turned and bolted down the alley, scrambling over the dumpster, disappearing into the shadows at the far end like roaches fleeing light. Within seconds, the only evidence they'd ever existed was the lingering smell of wet fur and the ache in my back where I'd hit the wall.

I slid down to the ground. My legs simply stopped working.

The man in black watched me for a long moment. Then he walked forward, and the light caught his face fully, and I understood why the wolves had run.

Beautiful. That was the word that came first, before sense or fear or gratitude. He was beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful-perfect lines, deadly purpose, no forgiveness in its edge. Pale skin that had never known sun. Dark hair that fell across his forehead in careless waves. Lips that looked like they'd forgotten how to smile centuries ago.

And those eyes. Those terrible, beautiful, burning red eyes.

He stopped a few feet away and looked down at me. Up close, I felt it-a pressure in the air around him, like standing too close to a high-voltage wire. My skin tingled. My breath came short.