I run.
They chase me. I don’t have any hope, but they let me stay ahead, playfully snapping at me and bounding around me.
I can see the guys they could have been if this hadn’t have happened to them. That thought gets shoved out of my head when Riot appears in front of me.
I stop dead, and he changes forms, the familiar haze making it impossible to look right at him until he’s human again.
The others have run off ahead, but it’s just him and me, alone in this silent forest. I can feel it closing in.
“Riot…” I murmur and step backwards.
“You ran.”
He sounds so darkly pleased.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I admit.
“It doesn’t matter how you meant it; the fact is you did it. Oh, Casey, you ran. I’m never going to let you go now.”
I hear the words, but they still take a full minute to settle in my mind, and then my body reacts, flushing hot, breaking into goosebumps, every single cell on my body attuning to him.
I turn away, trying to give myself some space to control myself.
“Run again,” Riot whispers from right behind me. “Let me hunt you.”
I shiver and open my mouth, trying to find something to say, but I’m speechless.
“Run!” his voice snaps out, and I obey instantly.
This time, there is nothing funny; this feels like a race for my very life. I pump my legs harder and faster, throwing everything into it, knowing I’ll lose. I don’t know where he is, just that he’s behind me.
When I can’t run any further, I stop, turning around, but he’s gone. All around me is silence.
“Riot?”
No answer.
A raven calls and takes flight, but there is no wolf.
I take a step back, scanning the forest around me.
Where is he?
More to the point, where am I?
I shift my weight when I sense something behind me, heat, movement, an aura. I don’t know what it is that alerts, but I stiffen as his hand slides over mine, and then I’m pulled slowly towards him and into his arms. He continues walking backwards, leading me into the dark.
My heart is in my throat, but I follow him. All the secrets between us, the imbalance of power, all the reasons why disappear.
There is only Riot smiling that small smile that promises that everything will be okay.
He presses me up against a tree, under the thick branches of a massive pine, and leans in, his lips pressing to my throat. I swallow hard, breaking into shivers.
“Do you think-”
“No.” Riot cuts off my words as his tongue brushes over my skin leaving pinpricks of sensation in his wake.
“What?”
