Page 19 of Ravaged Wolf
“I don’t really have dolls.” Aunt Catrin bought me one when I was little, and I named her Isabel because I always wished I’d been named that instead of Isolde, but Baby Isabel got donated to the charity shop years ago. Dolls are for pups.
“Izzy, focus.” Trevor’s voice drops, and I can hear his wolf. I want to meet him so bad. “I’m losing it, baby. I can’t hold on. Please. You have to go back now.” His voice is mangled with wolf, and his eyes are blue-black with pain.
“Okay.” I lean forward to take another breath of him. Just one more. Then, I’ll be able to go.
He groans, and his need burns in the bond, so I have no choice but to rise up on my toes, rub my cheek against his, and mark him with my scent to comfort the wolf thrashing inside him, because it’s wrong to leave my mate alone and suffering. As I tilt my head back, my hair falls away from my exposed neck. Cool air dances across my hot skin.
A tortured moan sounds in my ear. Trevor’s stubble scrapes my jaw. His teeth scrape along my jugular. The tang of copper fills my nose. Yes. This is what we both need—to belong to each other for real. For good.
And then Dad will destroy his family, and it’ll be my fault. Trevor will hate me, and he’ll be stuck with me forever.
I don’t know where I find the strength, but I hurl myselfaway from my mate. My wolf fights me, but I’m stronger. I take one step back. Then another. I stumble.
Trevor bellows, an unholy roar. No, not a roar, a word. “Run!”
Then a bloodcurdling howl rings out. I blink up, frozen with fear, and Trevor—is not Trevor.
The black of his pupils bleeds into the blue and then the white until his eyes are voids. He twists his neck and as he howls at the moon, his fangs tear through his bottom lip as they descend. His biceps burst from his shirt sleeves, his muscles lined with raised veins.
He’s still in his skin, but he moves like a wolf, swiveling his neck to stare me down like prey, his nostrils flaring as he scents the air. There is no hint of awareness in his face. Or pity.
He is an animal, and he is starving.
I run.
My wolf rises inside me, directing energy to my calves and thighs and lungs, but my feet are human and too used to resting under desks. I trip on nothing, and that’s all he needs.
He’s on me. His weight slams into my back, knocking me to my knees. I topple forward, and I reach out to catch myself, but it’s too late. He tackles me to the ground. My wrist snaps. My face hits the dirt, bounces, and hits again. This time my chin cracks on a rock. I scream.
A rough hand seizes the back of my neck in a vise grip, pinning my upper half to the ground. Claws rip through my sweatpants, slicing and slashing the soft skin of my hip, my butt, the back of my thigh. The tips of the claws wrapped around my throat pierce my skin. If I inhale, his claws dig deeper into my skin, and there’s dirt in my mouth. I can’t breathe, and I can’t spit the dirt out. My wrist throbs, but I can’t free it.
The air is cold.
I am fear, all fear, silent, screaming fear.
His wolf howls in his chest, and in the furthest corner inside me, my wolf presents, her limbs shaking, her rear legs incapable of holding her rump lifted. She whimpers, but so quietly that only I can hear.
Be still.
Don’t move.
Don’t breathe.
I can’t. I won’t.
This isn’t really happening.
Oh, God.
It is.
It’s happening.
It hurts.
His thrusts shove me forward, and my arm is caught under my stomach, so my broken wrist rolls, over and over, and I scream, but my lungs are crushed, and the sound is muffled. Snot drips from my nose in strings, so I can’t see or breathe or wipe it away, and there’s nothing I can do to help myself but rub my face in the dirt.
I feel his hot breath on the crook of my shoulder and brace myself, but there is nothing my body can do to protect itself—I’m trapped, overpowered—and his fangs plunge into my neck, tearing flesh, piercing to the bone. I fight, I swear I’m fighting, but I can’t move my legs or my arms or my head, I can only bend and buck my spine, and it does nothing but push him inside me deeper.
