Page 14 of Veradel
I think we both win,she says slyly.
Wicked thoughts replace her previous ones, her smile stretching through my chest.
Three…I whisper.
Two…she whispers.
I crouch down, the shadow of my hulking form growing smaller.
Get ready, baby. Your punishment isn’t over.
One…we whisper together.
Then I erupt with a howl at the moon—and pounce.
The thump of my own footsteps rattles through my bones as I push aside branches and leap over fallen logs, but I don’t slow down—not because I’m afraid of Lucan, but because I’mfree.
I’ve never had the privilege of pushing my body to this limit before. Never felt my lungs burn like this. Even when I used to exercise at the Recreation Center, the movement was stiff and practiced, but this… this air cutting against my cheeks and adrenaline shooting through my veins—it’s wild and chaotic and beautiful.
And when Lucan howls, I almost do, too.
His presence doesn’t just chase after me. It surrounds me. I feel him in every shadow between tree trunks, in the way my hair lashes past my shoulders. Every rustle of the forest has me whipping my head up, my heart ticking as my imagination blooms with all the possibilities. The wind whistles through the trees, creating moving shapes with tricks of moonlight through the leaves.
Scared?Lucan taunts through our connection, the pounding of his chase somehow behind me and in front of me and around me all at the same time.
I laugh through the heaviness of my breaths.You’ll have to try a lot harder than this to scare me, Monster. In fact, this might be the best nightmare I’ve ever had. I’mrelishingin it, waiting for his claws to reach out and snare me.
Over here, he murmurs, and a branch snaps to my right.
I stop short, panting and nearly doubling over. But when I turn, there’s nothing there.
Behind you.
Whipping around, again—nothing.
I blink… until Lucan’s monstrous shadow steps out between two trees in the distance. With the moonlight shining through the fog, I can’t make out anything other than his outline and the piercing glare of his yellow eyes glowing in the dark.
My thoughts aren’t coherent, bouncing from incomplete ideas to unformed sentences. His mind twists with mine, and I can’t grasp on to anything concrete except the enormous pull between us. The craving. The eagerness. The ache. The both of us trying to climb right into the other’s reality. I want to keep running away from him and runtohim at the same time.
Giving up so soon?he asks, and I can practically hear the wicked smile in his voice.
Hardly. I stand firm, refusing to back away even an inch.I’m just weighing my options.
Which are?
Fight, flight, or freeze, basically. But they all end the same way.
A low, hungry growl permeates the dark.Which is?
I can’t think anymore, my brain conjuring up images instead—lewd, filthy ones that set Lucan over the edge.
With a ravenous snarl, he lunges again… but this time his shadow shifts as he does.
His coat disappears. His torso shrinks. His strong jaw and handsome face return, his body morphing from hulking to upright—all in the span of yards as he barrels toward me.
I grin, and just for the hell of it, whip around and break into another run.
He closes the distance in a few strides, snaking two long arms around my waist from behind me. I shriek. He lifts me off my feet, and then the world spins and tilts and I’m suddenly on my back. Pinned to the forest floor so quickly and painlessly I didn’t process the landing.
