I pressed my hands into his torso, but it was like trying to move a tree. An infernally hot tree. His body wasn’t on fire but felt like it was, especially in contrast to my clammypalms.
He spun me around and pushed me against the wall until my cheek was flush with the glossed surface, then locked my wrists behind my back with one of hishands.
“Let me go!” Iscreeched.
“Not until you tell me the truth. Did you or didn’t you fuck JulianMatz?”
“Go to hell.” A tear snuck down my cheek. And then another. Andanother.
“You leave me no choice.” His knees clicked as hecrouched.
Horror shot through me, and I struggled against him. Was he going to rape me? Oh, God, Everest had been right. Liamwaslike hisfather.
Silence. And then a long inhale. He’d sniffedme!
White-hot rage undid me, and I spun, ripping my wrists out of his grip. He rose, and I slapped him. Not once but twice, and I would’ve slapped him again if he hadn’t caught my flailinghands.
“You are a pig! No worse than a pig!” I shouted. “How. Dare.You!”
His expression went slack. I ripped my hands from his and punched him in the gut. I would’ve punched him lower, but I didn’t want to violate him like he’d violatedme.
A groove formed between his slanted eyebrows. “You didn’t sleep withhim.”
I shook, trembled, quaked. “I hate you. Hate you!” I fumbled to find the door knob. “If you ever…ever…come close to me, Liam, I will injure you so badly even your wolf gene will be powerless to fixyou.”
Liam stood perplexed. I doubted it was my threat that was scaring him. I doubted he took me seriously. If he did, he wouldn’t have defiledme.
“Ness…” His voice soundedscratchy.
“Don’t talk to me.” I wrenched the door open and fled into the night, tripping on my heels. I kicked themoff.
Anger and humiliation throbbed against my spine, against my heart, against myskull.
“Ness!” I heard him call out tome.
I didn’t stop, didn’t turn around. I had no idea where I was, but I ran anyway. Any place was better than here. And as I ran, my muscles thrummed, my bones hummed, and my skin prickled. The claws came out first, and then the fur. My body changed so fast it tore my dress, and I fell hard againstasphalt.
Headlights blinked into existence up ahead, and I seizedup.
The car rolled closer, the light glinting like honey off the ends of my white fur, the beams burning into my retina. I blinked just as an enormous black shape rammed intome.
For a second, I flew and then I landed so hard on my rump I whimpered. The world spun like the car’s tires, and everywhere I looked was drenched in the blackest darkness and the shinieststarlight.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Fear shotup my spine at the same time as tiny aches exploded around it. And my lungs… They could barely expand underneath the weight of the body crushing mine. I squirmed and the black wolf rose off me and dragged himself a couple feetaway.
I waited with bated breath in the shadows of the ditch, half expecting car doors to click open and footsteps to pound the road. But the car didn’t even slow, zipping past where I lay hidden, spraying gravel over my dirt-flecked white fur. Slowly, I stirred, pressing up onto my limbs that were once again shaking, and blinked the darkness away. When my sight cleared and sharpened, I made out the gleam of Liam’seyes.
He let out a low-pitched whine. I backed away, but my bruised rump hit the slope of theditch.
Liam didn’t advance on me. He also didn’t backaway.
In that instant, I realized I owed him my life, but saving me didn’t erase what he’d done. I bared my teeth andgrowled.
He still didn’tmove.
I barked,Get away from me.He didn’t, so I shot out around him and into the forest, my sense of smell going haywire as it picked up a myriad of aromas. Dank moss tangled with Liam’s musk, and the cold sweetness of wood smoke blended with the crisp scent of insectbodies.
