“How does that feel, bitch?” she demands as rivulets of blood run down my face and the world starts to spin around me. She leans in close, her eyes blazing. “That was for Christian.” She throws me to the floor, and my head bounces off the hardwood.
She kicks me onto my back and pins me in place with one foot, her heel digging into my rib. She’s going to stab me with it, I realize, and I swing at her leg, at her knee, hoping to throw her off balance but all she does is dig in harder until she’s piercing my flesh. I grit my teeth against a scream, which only makes her slide the heel in deeper, between my ribs.
“Like I said,” she gloats, staring down at me, wearing a sick smile. “Better for you to find out this way. Another wolf might have taken you apart piece by piece, but I’m going to be merciful and kill you quickly.”
She’s not kidding. Through the pain and the agony, I know that much. She’s going to kill me, a non-shifted wolf. And she doesn’t even care that it would mean breaking one of our laws. She hates me that much.
I have to get away.
So I do the only thing I can think to do. I reach out and grab the heel of her other shoe, the one planted on the floor, then give it a quick jerk. She lets out a strangled cry of surprise before hitting the floor. Her shoe is still lodged in my side, but her foot is no longer in it.
“You fucking bitch!” She scrambles onto her knees and reaches for me.
I don’t know what comes over me in that instant. Instinct, I guess. It makes me pull the heel from my side and jam the fucking thing into her eye.
Whether it’s pain or surprise that makes her shriek the way she does, I don’t know. I can’t make out anything she’s saying—maybe she’s not saying anything, maybe she’s only screaming, now blinded in one eye. Her friends gather around her, horrified, shouting, and I use it to my advantage. I have to get away. I need to get away.
Once I’m on my feet and running, I think I have a chance. I look back over my shoulder to find Hannah still screaming on her knees with a stiletto pump sticking out of her eye. If I wasn’t so afraid of what was going to happen next, I might smile or throw my fist into the air in victory, but I don’t. I scramble to get away.
My escape is short-lived when I run straight into a wall of muscle. A wall of muscle that reaches out and grabs me by the throat, holding me in place before using the other hand to brush the hair out of my eyes. “Did you think you were going to get away?” Dexter asks before slapping my already bruised, aching face, his grip tightening on my throat.
Now, there’s no question in my mind.
I’m really going to die.
6
WILDE
“What’s up with you?” Forrest asks.
“Hmm?” I have to shake myself out of this. There’s been a hazy feeling in my head all night, or at least since before the ceremony. Like I’m here, but not. I thought once we were out of the hall and out in the open, the fresh air would bring me back to my senses. My wolf nearly choked on the scent of so many aroused, eager females.
Strangely, he didn’t respond favorably at all. It must be some sort of record, something I should write down for the sake of posterity. When surrounded by dozens of slobbering, aroused females, my wolf hardly responded.
He only wanted her. Or maybe that was me being interested in her. What’s her story? Why hasn’t she shifted? It’s clear she would’ve been exiled by this age if she wasn’t the beta’s daughter.
Forrest smirks, eyeing me up. “I asked what your problem is? All you’re doing is muttering one-word answers. I know this place isn’t interesting in, like, any way at all. Can you at least wait until we get to the house before you pass out from boredom?”
“It’s not boredom. It’s… I have a lot on my mind. We both should,” I remind him.
He growls in response. “Here I was, hoping to get my dick wet while we’re here, but no. There are parties all over the place tonight—even the elders are doing whatever old people do when they get together. But we have to go to the house and behave ourselves or else.”
“We have to make a good impression.”
“How are we supposed to do that while we’re locked up?”
“It’s almost like he knows you would immediately try to get your dick wet.”
He growls louder this time. “I’m sure he fucked his fill before meeting Mom. Who’s he kidding? Alpha-in-waiting and all that. He was probably up to his neck in pussy.”