He was leaving in three days. Two now. It was after midnight.

I didn’t want him to go.

It was absurd, and stupid, and when I thought about him leaving, it hurt. He’d lived. It was enough. He had his life, I had mine, and after tonight we would go our separate ways. It was for the best.

There were so many things I wanted to ask. None of them mattered.

Derek sat up. His ears twitched.

A strange shape squeezed through one of the empty windows and perched on the balcony, staring down at us with disturbingly human eyes.

She was the size of a female lion and most of her was built like one, but instead of a sandy-colored pelt, her hide was covered with fine brown hair, like the flanks of an Arabian horse. Two massive wings thrust from her back, their feathers a matching tawny brown flecked with white and gold. Her feline legs didn’t end in paws, but in monstrous hands with oversized cat-like fingers armed with sickle claws. Her thick neck supported a nightmarish head, her face a strange evolution of a lion muzzle with a flat feline nose, split upper lip, a large maw revealing fangs, and disturbingly human cheekbones and forehead. If lions had evolved the way humans had, they might have looked like her.

A golden circlet crowned her brow. Thick gold armbands studded with red stones clasped her wrists. The gold necklace around her neck was splattered with dried blood.

A female sphinx. My first time seeing one.

The sphinx stared at us with glowing turquoise eyes. Creepy.

She opened her mouth. “Do you burn the funeral herbs for yourself or for the wolf?”

Her whispery voice raised the hair on the back of my neck.

“I burn them for you,” I told her. “I brought a coin with me so you may take it to the ferryman. I know the local Thanatos. He’s a kind man. He will guide you well.”

“How thoughtful of you, human.” Her claws scraped the stone. “The wolf hasn’t touched the treasure. He may go.”

“You killed my friend,” Derek said. “A holy man.”

“He touched the treasure. He had to die.”

“He helped many people,” Derek said. “He healed the sick, he fed the hungry, and he shielded the weak. He didn’t steal the box, yet you killed him.”

Her eyes shone. “His heart tasted like any other.”

“You knew he no longer had the box. He wasn’t the one who stole it. You could have chosen to spare him,” Derek said.

She seemed to think it over. “Yes.”

“You could have given him a swift death.”

She flexed her fingers, and her claws scraped the stone again. “I like prey that fights back. You have not touched the treasure. You are not my prey. Leave.”

Slowly, deliberately, Derek put his clawed hand on the box. “How about now?”

The sphinx dove off the balcony. Derek leaped off the floor, meeting her in midair. The wolf and lion collided in a whirlwind of bodies and fur. They rolled around, snarling, growling, biting, and clawing.

I stirred my herbs. It was his fight. That’s why he’d returned to the city. I had to let him have it.

The sphinx clawed Derek’s side, ripping through skin and muscle. He gripped one of her wings and bit it where it joined her body. She screamed, and they rolled again, smashing against the columns. Dust rose in the air. I coughed.

Blood splashed the marble. Derek grasped the sphinx by her hind foot and swung her at the nearest column. Her back smashed into stone with a crunch.

Outside one of the wolves snarled. Hopefully, it was nothing. If they snarled again, I’d have to go and check it out.

The sphinx broke free and leapt at Derek, sinking her claws into Derek’s shoulders and kicking, trying to disembowel him with her hind legs. He grasped her by her throat, tore her free of him like she was a feral cat, and bit her neck.

Blood washed over them, spurting out between his teeth. He chewed on her, carving through flesh with vicious focus. She raked him with her claws, but he kept biting.

The sphinx sagged. Her strikes lost their power. She went limp. The light in her eyes dimmed.

Derek let go. She fell to the floor in a crumpled heap. He drove his hand into her chest and ripped her heart out.

She shuddered one last time and went still.

Derek dropped the heart. He raised his bloody face to the moon and howled. It wasn’t triumphant, it was mournful. It gripped your heart and squeezed it, telling you that life was not forever.

The last notes of the howl died, melting into the night.

Derek turned. His warrior form condensed in on itself, folding into a human shape. His eyes were full of golden light.

Uh oh.

He started toward me, naked, bloody, his eyes on fire.

I stood up.

He kept coming.

“Earth to werewolf, mission complete.”

He lunged at me. I had no time to dodge. He pressed my back into a column. His face was inches from mine. An electric thrill dashed through me, fear and excitement rolled into one.

He was looking at my face, at my eyes, at my lips…

“I get that killing her was very exciting…”

He leaned close, resting his forehead on mine. No rational thought remained in his eyes. Only hunger and need. Mayday, mayday.

“Stop.”

He took a deep breath, sampling my scent.

“Stop! Derek!”

Oh shit.

He leaned back an inch. A slow smile stretched his, lips but there was no humor in it. It looked harsh and bitter. “Well, look at that. The illustrious Julie Olsen remembered my name.”

Cold drenched me. “You knew.”

“Yes.”

It had to have been the blood armor. “Since when?”

“Since the beginning. I saw you ride into the city.”

“How? My face is different; my scent is different.”

He leaned closer, his lips almost touching my ear. “I don’t need to see your face or smell you. I could tell it was you by the way you rode your horse.”

My brain screeched to a halt.

He straightened, giving me more room, and I saw his eyes. They brimmed with cold fire. He was pissed off beyond all reason.

Really? He was mad? He had some nerve.

“You knew and you didn’t tell me. Was it fun?”

He pondered me. “Not sure. Let me think about it.”

“I sense some hostility.”

He pretended to ponder it. “Really? Now what could’ve caused that, I wonder?”