Under Wraps: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Werewolves vs. Mummies Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

spat out the vile, disgusting meat. The stench of foul death filled my nostrils. No… no, this thing wasn’t alive. He was unclean. He was not food.
    “You are unclean!” I bellowed.
    The creature beneath me scurried backward into a corner, trying to wedge himself between the stones like a disgusting, bleeding insect. I reached out, my claws ripping him open. Only… only there were no gooey, tasty inside bits. They weren’t there. Why weren’t they there?
    I howled in frustration as I lifted his bleeding, torn carcass into the air, and the fear in his eyes was a small consolation. He screamed, swinging his blade at me, but it did not matter. Too quick for him to stop me, I grabbed the pretty, shiny object from his hand.
    It shattered beneath my strength, exploding into a million sparks of pink flame. “Be gone!” I cried as his blade slipped from his hand and hit the sand with an empty thunk.
    The creature wailed, screamed, and thrashed. The sound was like music to my ears. Strips of fabric burst forth from his torn garments and wrapped around his body, burying him beneath a blanket of linen. I dropped him, still struggling, to the sand and turned away.
    “Please Aziza, I can tell you where Khufu is. I can tell you more…” he trailed off as Aziza’s eyes flashed in interest. “Don’t let me go this way…”
    She rushed past me, grabbing the mummy by the shoulders and shaking him. His eyes began to dim, fading into little pin pricks as whirling shards of metal filled the air between us like a swarm of angry hornets.
    “Where? Tell me where, and I will,” she lied. I knew because I could taste her lie in the air like sour candy, smell it on her skin like old milk.
    “He’s after the Staff of Ra in the hidden city,” Amon said, his body stiffening.
    “But only the priests of Ra…” she trailed off, thoughts blanketing her face as she stood up. The swarm descended like a cloud of angry crows in a whoosh that hurt my ears.
    “Change back, Thes,” Aziza said, staring past me and into the distance. “We need to get to the temple of Ra before Khufu does something stupid. Maybe they can help us get to the staff...”
    I shook my head. I did not want to go back to the soft, puny cage. I did not. I was strong. I wanted to hunt. To bite, to kill, to feed.
    Aziza slapped me, hard enough to rattle my brain. “We don’t have time for this, Thes.”
    I looked at her, and her face told me it was not the time, but that there would be a time… soon. My body melted back into its normal shape, all traces of my wounds gone.
    The wolf within receded. It lay down in the back of my mind and licked its lips, yellow eyes burning into me as it buried its snout in its paws to wait.
    “It’s getting harder to control,” I said, not to her or myself, just out loud.
    “You need to get better at not getting beat up so much,” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder as the last of my flesh shifted into place like it was made of flowing sand. “Then you wouldn’t need to change at the drop of a hat.”
    I glared at her, my temples throbbing. “How about we trade? You attack the guy with the sword, and I’ll stand back looking pretty.”
    “You think I’m pretty?” she asked, quirking a slender black eyebrow at me.
    You know those moments where you can’t think of anything to say? You know, just know, that later when you’re waiting to drift off to sleep, you’ll think of a million and ten things you could have said that would be awesome? I had one of those moments.
    I was quiet for so long, I actually watched her face harden into granite as she turned and stared off into the distance. “I’m not sure why I bother,” she mumbled, shaking her head so that her ebony hair fluttered around her head.
    “I’ve been asking myself the same thing,” I muttered with a shrug. “Now, what are you talking about with the staff thing?”
    “The Staff of Ra is the most powerful weapon in all of Egypt,” Aziza said, still