Page 129 of Pretty Little Prey
“Shift,” the man repeated. “To avoid pain.”
“No, wait!”
Ice cold water—with the force of five supernatural football quarterbacks—shot out at her from the hose, shoving her back against the sharp cement wall, causing her body to scrape over the rough cracks. Several bones snapped under the pressure of the hit. She cried out in pain as it continued pressing her harder and harder to the wall.Too much, too much. Her bones shook under the force, trying not to shatter.
Finally, he turned off the hose.
She fell to her knees, clutching herself, aching from the cold and the broken bones. “Stop, please,” she begged.
“Aww, the cattle queen is begging?” the man mocked her.
Her rage spiked. “Fuck you!” she shrieked.
The hose erupted on her again.
“Damn it, just stop fighting already,” Sly yelled at Bastille and Daxton, who had been wrestling on the ground, punching, and breaking expensive vases over each other’s heads for over an hour. “You’re clearly equally matched without your powers.”
“Fuck you,” Bastille sneered back. “I have him.”
Daxton elbowed Bastille in the gut and added, “Like hell you do, snake boy.”
“If you kill each other, Luna will never forgive us. She’s already pissed at us,” the fox shifter said, for once the voice of reason. “She thinks we care more about the dark and light shifter rivalry than about her. Bastille, just revoke your contestation.”
“No,” he growled and slammed a fist into the dragon’s jaw.
“Share her,” Kobe grunted from his guarding stance in front of the bedroom they had locked Luna in for her safety. Knowing her, she might have jumped in the middle of the fight and gotten hurt.Best to keep her safe.
“I can’t.”
“Fuck, what is it with you two?” Sly threw his hands up in the air. “Why do you hate each other so much you’re willing to lose your mate so the other can’t have her?”
“I was willing to share,” Daxton countered, spitting a trail of blood from his split lip.
“Liar,” Bastille accused, tackling him to the floor once more while the other men rolled their eyes and impatiently glanced at the door where Luna was no doubt stoking her hatred for them.
“You act so high and mighty. So righteous,” Bastille growled. “But there’s no way you would have accepted my being with her. Be honest: when you saw she was a vampire, you were tempted to throw her out on the street.”
Daxton roared, moving Bastille under him for a harsh blow to the ribs. “You arewrong.”
“You hate dark shifters.”
“I don’t,” Daxton replied.
“Your father killed my whole fucking family because of what I am.”
“I’mnothim, Bas,” Daxton grated.
Bastille’s eyes narrowed at the old nickname as he seethed. “Don’t call me that.”
“We were friends,” Daxton held Bastille’s hands down, pinning him. “Brothers.”
“Never.”
“You were my best friend,” Daxton yelled into his face. “Then, one day, you left me here without so much as a goodbye.”
“Your motherbanishedme,” Bastille shot back.
“You could have come to me—”
