Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91636 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91636 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“I…”
I am gripped by the back of the neck as I raise my voice again.
“Go outside and calm down,” Conroy growls the words in my ear. “There won’t be any yelling to distract the doctor while she tries to save Damon’s life.”
“Come in here, go out there,” I gripe under my breath, but I go outside.
I actually go way, way outside.
I walk out from the physician’s house and I go toward the hills, furious at myself, and furious at them. They should have taken better care of him. I should have taken better care of him. They should never have decided to mate me. It was stupid. They could have let me go when they found out that I was smuggling through their stupid smuggler’s port.
There is blood all over my hands. Damon’s blood.
I love him.
I’m probably not supposed to have a favorite, but he is mine. He is kind, and he gave me the gift of his voice, even though he could barely manage it. He’s done nothing but love me and now he’s bleeding out in a back country town. He doesn’t deserve it. I deserve it.
Tears are flowing from my eyes as the memory of being with him in the back of the car keeps replaying in my head. I was trying to hold him together. I was willing him to stay alive. I was hoping for every breath he took. I was dying along with him, bleeding out just like him, but in some intangible way.
I’ve never wanted to take my animal form voluntarily before, but there’s a moment in which I can’t stand being in my skin at all.
I shift into my wolf form. I fucking hate it. I am still small and weak, and it still is an animal humiliation, but it absolves me of having to think what I think and want what I want.
I’ve come to a conclusion. A conclusion that will hurt me more than I’ve ever been hurt before. I need to get away from my mates. It’s the only way to save them. Every time I am involved, they get hurt.
I am going to disappear completely.
It is afternoon when I start running, and I do not stop as night falls.
I am aware of the setting of the sun, and of the increase in danger as the darkness creeps over the land. Vampires are rising. My enemy is coming back to nocturnal life.
I keep running. It feels like there’s nothing other than running. I am not thinking. I am not doing anything besides putting a great deal of space between me and the men I am responsible for hurting.
My hunger grows with every new pace, until suddenly a rabbit runs out from some bushes. Either it didn’t hear me coming, or it was flushed out by my furious pace.
Regardless of the reasoning, fate or fickle mistake, it pretty much throws itself into my jaws. It would be rude not to eat it. It would be out of character and against my nature, so I crush the life out of the little beast and fuel my flight with it. I do it with great hunger and absolutely no mercy. I have close to no feeling at all, thank god. Feelings hurt. Having none is perfect.
But still, I think about how unfortunate that little creature was as I start running again. It thought it was doing the right thing. The natural thing. It thought if it ran it would be safe, but there was no safety for it to be found. Only my mouth, the end of all things bunny.
Much like the rabbit, I don’t see the trap that catches me either.
Silver white rope snatches me off the ground, sweeping me into a net that burns as much as it contains me. I let out an animal scream, fall out of my wolf form, and end up writhing naked in the trap.
I know instantly that something terrible is happening. It’s obvious, of course. I’ve been caught. I’ve either been caught by the Rock City guard, which makes me feel like I’ve run a lot further than I intended to, or…
“And there she is.”
A voice that has haunted me since childhood looms through the dark. I might not have feelings, but I do have instincts. I still have fear. And anger. And hunger. In that order.
“There. You. Are.”
He sounds so fucking dead and so fucking satisfied. I fill with rage, snapping against the net with human teeth that have absolutely no chance of making any indentation. Every bite only serves to hurt, but I do it anyway because that is what trapped animals do.
“Shhh shhh shhh,” the shadows try to quiet me, but there is no soothing this reaction. I tried to run it away, but I cannot get it out of me. My teeth need to sink into something. I need a target for my anger. I need someone to suffer. The right person.