And just like that, I was in heat all over again.
No. Oh gods,no!
This wasn’t supposed to happen so soon, not after he’d fucked and marked me. And out here in the open, of all places.
My uterus clearly didn’t give a shit. It cared about him and nothing else. The ultimate betrayal my body could’ve made.
Carver swore.“I said give me a good reason not to breed you. If I don’t fill you up now, my pack might catch your scent, even with my mark.”
A shiver shot through me, cold and warm at the same time. I could barely function with the pressure of my polarizing instincts trying to cleave me in half.
I wanted to kill him, even ifit meant going down together.
I tried to scream, and immediately, his paw snaked around my throat, squeezing with enough force to leave me teetering on the edge of consciousness. “Don’t you dare. They’ll try to take you from me.” His voice turned dark and deadly. “I’ll spill pack blood if any of them so much as look at you.”
The ability to breathe was beyond me, but now it had nothing to do with his hold on my throat. “Y–you don’t get to pretend you care about me. I’m not b–buying any more of your lies. I know what you did to my sister.”
TWENTY-SIX
CARVER
Memories of the purple-haired girl from last year’s round of sacrifices came rushing back. I’d never forget her, as she was the one Casey had caught. The one where I, for the first time, joined in on the feast.
Fuck.
The one time I tried to “fit” in with my pack and participate in the feast following the Hunt, it had to be Ruth’s sister. Now I knew where I recognized that vibrant streak of purple running through her hair.
This was the moment where I was supposed to let my human side back into the driver’s seat, the part of me that was better equipped to explain what had really happened.
Ruth scrambled to her feet and put several steps of distance between us.
“I didn’t kill her,” was all I could gnash out as I advanced on her, prowling toward my prey, ready to pounce if she tried to run again.
“You’re a liar.” Her voice shook as the space between us shrunk. Her survival instincts, along with our freshly forgedbond, made her all too aware of what her heat scent was doing to me. I couldn’t resist the urge to fill and fuck her right here in the dirt for much longer.
Even if she was still under the impression that I’d murdered her sister.
“I’m not lying…” I said, taking another step toward her. “But even if I did, you butchered my brother. Would that not make us even?”
She held her ground, her hands fisted at her sides and the hatred in her eyes as sharp as daggers. “I— That’s not— I didn’t have a choice! You had a choice! You said yourself that you didn’t need rabbit shifter blood to sate your bloodlust. Or was that a lie, too?”
“It wasn’t.”
I rose up on my hind haunches to reach for her. She stumbled backward, her back hitting a tree. “S–stay away from me.”
“I can’t.”My mate smelled entirely too delicious for me to do anything of the kind. “My human should have known I wouldn’t let you leave these woods without me.”
Even though she hated me, her body was desperate for me. The delicious heat pheromones rolling up from her dripping cunt had my mouth watering and my dick hard.
Her attention dropped to my cock, and she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth at the way a thick rope of pre-cum oozed from the tip.
That look— It roused something savage inside me. Maybe I didn’t crave bunny blood like the rest of my kind,but, oh, how I longed to wring every last drop of cum from her.
“Maybe he did know.”I loomed over her now, one paw braced against the tree over her head.
She stiffened against the tree, fury licking up our bond like fire on a rope. Her chest heaved, dark baby hairs clinging to herbrow in perfect little curls.She’s so delicious. Every moment I wasn’t inside her was pure agony.
“Before, I thought this side of you—” she gestured to my furry chest “—was sweet and good. That you had this Jekyll and Hyde thing going on. But maybe there isn’t that much of a distinction between you two. You’re a monster in either form.”
