Page 1 of Bad Blood Panther

Prologue

Three years ago

There was a monster wearing his skin. A creature straight out of a horror movie.

It had to be a nightmare—fucking had to—but it felt so real and it just went on and on without end.

Wake up,he told himself. You have to wake up.

But it had been days—weeks—who the fuck knew because he kept drinking to shut off the voices and the pain. Drinking, and running, but he could never drink fast enough or run far enough to make it stop.

Every cell in his body was on fire, and he couldn’t think.

Hurt kill blood mate hate love bleed die

He gulped some more whiskey, but the voices went on and on. Inside his head and outside. Screaming and gibbering and making no sense.

Women. Two. Yelling. They wanted something, but he didn’t know what, and why the fuck should he care? Because he was crazy and the monster just kept at him, kept at him…

Claw destroy hate hate blood hunt run die

He was in a motel room. What was left of one. Everything in it was broken or ripped to shreds—dresser, bed, chair. Bits of upholstery and mattress innards covered the ugly mustard-yellow carpet.

The women were yelling at each other. Not at him but it still hurt his ears and he growled at them. They impaled him with their eyes and their desire and their rage and the loud noise that hurt his ears and made no sense in his mind.

His growl turned to a soft snarl.

Females.

He loved one and he wanted to kill the other.

He loved them both, and he wanted to kill everybody.

Without warning, the nausea overtook him again. He lost his grip on the bottle and it dropped to the floor. He watched it fall and smash in slow motion: sparkling shards of glass, amber liquid splashing and spreading out on the cheap carpet.

Excruciating pain seized him—bones snapping inside his skin, breaking and rearranging themselves, muscles ripping like the worst torture anyone had ever invented.

And when it stopped, he was the monster.

He had an animal body, fur and claws and wicked teeth, and a lust for blood and terror and death. He sprang at the women. They snarled and leaped aside, and then they were monsters too, panthers black as night and evil as the depths of hell.

Bleed kill die

Emotions and sensations shook his body. Bitterness. Betrayal. Soul-deep wanting; furious agony.

His muscles quivered with tension. He was going to explode, shatter like the glass on the floor that cut his paws.

He smelled blood, and he wanted more.

Run.

The panthers boxed him in, but he bunched his hindquarters and leaped over them, smashing through the plate glass window into the cool night air. He could smell trees, and water, and he ran—

And ran. And ran.

But the pain and rage would never leave him.