I tried to imagine Ben being purposefully violent to anyone, but I couldn’t. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about Ben’s broad hands gripping my thighs so hard they bruised, or gently resting around my throat in a firm but tender sign of dominance, but I’d banished those thoughts out of my head. It was the respectful thing to do. Ben was still processing his grief. It simply wasn’t right for his son’s teacher to drool over him.
Even if he was so freaking drool-worthy.
I had no idea what to say to the man. Heck, I didn’t even know if I should say something.
It turned out I didn’t have to worry about it, because avicioushowl split the air, echoing hard enough to compete with my racing heartbeat and the blood rushing in my ears.
I jumped, and I swore that was the nail that would seal my coffin, but my kidnapper relaxed visibly, and tipped his head up to the star-strewn sky.
“Finally,” he muttered.
And then he turned into a giant wolf!
TWELVE
BEN
The Never-ending Cycle of Revenge
It all happened too fast. One moment the server was handing Giselle’s purse to me and thanking me for the generous tip, the next my car was speeding away down the street.
What the fuck?
I stood there for maybe half a second, so shocked by the sight that I didn’t know what to do. Of all the things I had expected on my date, a kidnapping situation wasnoton that list.
But once reality came crashing in and I was able to move, I took off at full speed, ignoring the server’s shouted question about whether she needed to call the cops.
Even though I could move incredibly fast in my human form, it had nothing on my wolf body, and my first instinct was to burst into my bestial half. But I couldn’t do that in a busy street.
I raced to the closest spot where Icouldshift—an alley down the road. Every single cell in my body felt like it was being attacked as my skin rapidly split and waves of fur and muscle rushed out of the gaps.
Shifting wasn’t a necessarily agonizing process like it was so often portrayed in books and movies, but it wasn’t a breeze either. I’d streamlined a process for it, but nothing about the situation was part of my usual process. My date beingkidnappedwasn’t usually a thing.
Myhumandate.
I fell down onto all fours as my limbs extended and reversed their joints. Cracking, snapping, and the sloughing of flesh filled the space of the alley until, finally, I was fully in my wolf form. Once I was completely shifted, I recognized a faint scent in the direction my car had taken off in. In fact, that recognition struck me like a lightning bolt.
Because the person that scent belonged to was supposed to be dead.
Was… was it possible that he was somehow still alive?
No.
It couldn’t be.
Although we shifters had an uncanny healing ability and could recover from stuff many other species could never hope to, I’d ripped out his heart and crushed it in my clawed hand, half-wolf and half-man, as I’d stood over his bleeding body. A wolf couldn’t heal from that.
Yet as impossible as it was supposed to be, I was smelling him. It was a faint scent, barely there, but it called back to an era of my life I thought was so firmly behind me that I knew I wouldn’t—no,couldn’t—lose it.
And so I chased it. I chased it as pure rage flowed through my body. My wolf waslivid. It didn’t understand the intricacies of a ghost somehow returning and haunting me when I was trying to move on, but itdidknow that an enemy was back and threatening someone he was supposed to be protecting.
I wasn’t going to fail again. They had already taken too much from me. I wasn’t about to let them destroy the only connection I’d made since Natalie.
Giselle didn’t deserve what was happening. It was hard to feel the intense guilt through the rage, as the more primal side of me was at the forefront of our shared mind, but it was still there. After everything Giselle had gone through, this was the last thing that should have happened to her. She was still recovering, and I’d put her in danger. How selfish could I be?
I hoped she was okay. I didn’t know if Graves’ disease could have acute complications in situations of high stress, but if I had to put money on it, I’d bet it did. And that thought sent a whirlwind of images through my mind—her passing out, gasping for air, growing cold and gray on the ground.
Fuck, I had to runfaster.
