Page 11 of Lost and Bound
I stared up at him in disbelief. “So you don’t need to kill me for spying on you, just for starters?”
He looked down at me, his lips quirking. Just a little. Not a smile, and if it’d turned into a smile after all, it wouldn’t have been a pleasant one.
“I’m going to end up killing you anyway,” he said, his tone oddly, horrifyingly gentle. “Ripping your throat out and draining you dry.” He laid his hand against my neck, his fingers stroking over the pulse in the side. “This collar drains me. My magic, my strength. It’s spelled. I can’t shift. And the need to shift is—you know how it feels.” He traced a little circle over my jugular, claws scraping my skin. Not breaking it. But close. I lay still, frozen in place. “I have a little strength right now. Enough to pop claws, but that’s it. From your blood, Jared the werewolf. But I want the rest of it. And I’ll take it. Even though it still won’t be enough. I’ll take it all.”
I swallowed hard, feeling my Adam’s apple bob against his palm. “You don’t need to. You don’t need to kill me.”
He leaned down, sliding his hand off my throat, and pressed his face to my neck. I tipped my head back without being able to stop it, and my stomach clenched. No, no, I shouldn’t react like this. I was—not an alpha, never an alpha. But stronger than other werewolves. More powerful. I never submitted to anyone.
Except him, and I couldn’t help it. His tongue flicked out, lapping up the drops of blood on my collarbone. Tasting me. Teasing out a few more drops from the closing punctures.
“But I do,” he whispered against my skin.
And then his mouth opened, lips sealing over my flesh.
And suddenly, I was fighting him like a madman, thrashing, shoving at his chest. “No! Not now, not yet, wait, please wait…”
I struck him a hard blow in the back of the neck, enough to have stunned a normal shifter, and he grunted, rising up and seizing hold of my arms, pinning them over my head with one hand.
The other hand landed in the middle of my chest, the force of it knocking the wind out of me. One of my ribs cracked with an audible pop.
“Wait,” I gasped, eyes watering from the pain of it. “Wait. Please. Not now.”
“There’s no reason to wait,” he growled, gazing down at me, his eyes glowing feverishly bright. “Why draw it out?”
Why indeed? Why should I want to live? What did it matter, after all?
But it mattered. Ithadto matter, because I’d been here for years, and my family hadn’t come looking for me. I’d brought that lack of care on myself, giving my cousin Matt—the young and inexperienced pack leader, who needed my support desperately—hell for having the position I thought I ought to have. Undermining him with the pack council. Trying to turn his brother Ian, who loved and trusted both of us, against him.
Fucking Nate Hawthorne, even though I’d known for years that Ian was hung up on the guy. Working with Jonathan Hawthorne, even though I’d known what a psychopathic piece of shit he was.
I didn’t matter to them, and I didn’t matter to anyone here, and so I had to matter to me. Right? I had to. Or my life had meant exactly nothing, to anyone, ever. Except maybe my parents, briefly, before they fucked off and left the pack when I was nine.
“Please,” I repeated, because I couldn’t think of anything else, because the corners of my eyes were wet and my chest hurt, and I couldn’t die like this. “Please.” That came out almost a sob.
He let me go.
I lay there, unable to move, as he got off me and crossed the room, running water in the sink, drinking from his hands.
Reprieve, for now, and my heart pounded away like a kettledrum.
I pulled my legs in and curled up on my side, burying my face in my arms.
He sat down next to me again a minute later and let out a long sigh.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “I’m not waiting longer than that. There’s no fucking point, for either of us. And I won’t be able to help it anyway,” he added softly.
I didn’t answer. There wasn’t anything to say.
***
Sleep would’ve been a blessing, but it didn’t come. I’d already been unconscious for as long as my brain was willing to give me.
I lay there, perfectly still, and gave in to all the thoughts I’d tried to repress. All the fears, and griefs, and regrets.
My life really hadn’t meant anything.
To me. To anyone.
