Page 19 of Moon Guardian
Yes.
The chase.
Her voice was my own, but at the same time not.
I tried to explain to her that I—we—had been rejected. This wouldn’t end well, except with my throat ripped out.
Just like Charlie.
Just like everyone I loved, given enough time.
The wolves only knew how to spill blood. And for that, they all deserved to die.
The warm voice inside my mind soothed me, assured me it would all be all right. I only needed to—
My thoughts cut off when a massive wolf slammed into me, sending me sprawling to the forest floor as all the air knocked out of me.
I sucked in a breath, stunned as I flopped over onto my side.
My vision blurred and the voice inside my head quieted, as if reevaluating what I had been trying to say.
Because the wolf facing me was an alpha. His scar over his eye had deepened, as if his shift had only made it worse. He bore a grey coat and russet brown irises, features that distinguished him as my captor.
He blamed himself for this, a mistake he intended to remedy here and now.
He stalked me, baring his teeth in a growl, but I sensed a struggle. It was the same one I fought.
The need to bite.
To finish what we had started in an entirely different way.
He snapped at me, as if discouraging that train of thought. This could only end in my death, the ultimate fulfillment of his rejection.
A human gaze watched me from those eyes, his mind overriding his beast, telling him to kill me instead of claim me.
“Why!” I shouted, my voice raw as power spilled over my skin. The foreign magic bled through my body, the rejection breaking down what had felt so solid moments before. “Why are you doing this?”
He was supposed to bite me, then shift into human form and make this horrible need in my stomach go away.
It sickened me, but the entity inside my head explained it all with a calm assurance that left me helpless.
This was my mate.
But, he had killed Charlie. I could never forgive him for that.
You don’t know that for sure,my voice insisted.
An excuse, I decided.
Perhaps this voice came from the Goddess herself, twisting the truth so that I did her bidding. Maybe I had crushed her heart, but she wasn’t dead. Far from it.
She was inside of me, absorbed into my soul just like the rains. Just like the corruption from the Moon Shadow Plague, it seeped into me, melding with me instead of being pushed out.
That’s why everyone else became ill. They knew what was right and what was wrong. They rejected this power.
In my grief and my rage, I had accepted it from the very beginning.
I released a scream. I hated myself. I hated him. I hatedHer.
