Thisman defies the shadows. He controls them.
He came all this way.
Hunted me down like prey.
His green eyes narrow as if he can see right through me.
And then my omega whispers in awe…Mate.
Hands holding me down,
teeth buried in my neck,
blood pooling beneath me—
cruel, unrelenting, punishing—terror, pain, despair—
I can feel it all, like it happened yesterday.
"Get away from me!" The words tear out of me, scraping my throat raw. "Leave me alone!"
My legs tangle in the sheets as I scramble out of the bed. My foot catches, and I shriek, but before I meet the floor, the blond man catches me. Pain shoots through my ribs, ankle throbbing.
He shifts between me and the man who tried to kill me. I press my face into his chest but keep screaming. He's a wall of safety, but Beep, awake and frantic, keeps shouting nonsensically.Listen! He is our mate! Be calm!But I can barely hear her.
She just keeps yellingMate!and I just. Can't.
My lungs won't obey, and the memory is too strong.
Every night for months, his face has plagued my nightmares.
He was the gasoline, the match, the flame. Everything I had, my entire life, burned to ash because of him.
But what haunts me the most was that split-second of calm I felt when his teeth tore into me. His scent, that fleeting look of sorrow in his eyes—I hate that I feel it now, too. Sympathy for him, connection.
There's shouting. Animalistic snarling and growling, a chair thrown across the room. I bury my head deeper into the man that smells like hazelnuts, clutching his cotton t-shirt like a life raft.
Finally, the other man leaves, but my head keeps spinning. There's no stopping it now.
Can't think.
Can't breathe.
The panic edges into my vision, black spots swallowing reality. I'm panting too fast, hyperventilating, drowning in oxygen.
The blond man yells urgently, but it sounds muffled. His arms squeeze me tight, but the older man with wispy white hair remains calm. A sharp prick stings my arm. I glance over and see a needle plunged into my vein.
Seconds pass. Blissful silence greets me, and I'm out again.
Chapter 14: Grayson
If I run fast enough, I can escape my demons.
That's what I told myself as a kid when I took the blame for my brother's fuck-ups. Up the mountain, away from everyone, the pressure of my future seemed smaller, more distant.
When rogues killed our parents and nearly decimated our clan fifty years ago, after we put them down and made them pay, I shifted and ran up the mountain, fast and far. For a brief moment, the mounting responsibility, the weight of stepping into my father's role, of facing their deaths, lifted from my shoulders. It all waited for me at home in a neat little package of grief and anger, but if I kept running, then I wouldn't have to face it, to give in to the demons that begged me to unleash and raze the earth.
And when Silas abandoned us—after wreaking his usual havoc, whoring his way through the clan, leaving me to clean up his careless mess—I ran, fast and far.
