Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 38523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 193(@200wpm)___ 154(@250wpm)___ 128(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 193(@200wpm)___ 154(@250wpm)___ 128(@300wpm)
“Bullshit, you got your ass handed to you.” A semblance of a smile barely surfaces, but the air between us feels cleaner. I smack a hand on his solid back and start walking out of the cave.
My smile slips and I glance into the woods, sniffing the air for her scent. “We need to find her and make it up to her.” She couldn’t have gotten very far, but she’s hurt. I can feel it in my bones. Darkness washes over Luke as he nods his head. My chest pains looking at him. If only I’d kept my emotions in check, she wouldn’t be hurting. This could’ve been so good. Fuck, if I hadn’t been pissed, we could both be satisfying our sweet mate right now. I shake my head and look at the ground while taking a deep breath. “We’ll make it up to her.”
“We have to.” Luke’s solemn words ring in my ears and we head into the woods.
It’s easy to catch her scent. It’s the sweetest thing in the air. It’s also mixed with my brother’s scent, and I have to restrain myself from getting pissed all over again. I forgive him, but I’m going to fucking remember this. We should’ve taken her together. Her virginity was just as much mine as it was his. A low growl rumbles in my chest as the thought registers. Luke looks my way and has the decency to at least look a little shameful.
“I want her next…alone.” Luke’s jaw clenches and he looks like he wants to fight me. My eyes widen in surprise. He’s got to be fucking kidding me! I clench my fist, hoping I don’t have to lay into him, but I’m fucking ready if he’s going to be stubborn.
“Fine.” He barely grumbles the word through clenched teeth.
“And her ass.” I add that in there more or less to let him know her ass is mine. His eyes blaze with fury.
“Fuck off.” He spits his words and starts running, shifting in the air and landing hard on the ground, before taking off toward our mate. Selfishly I correct myself, my mate.
Emma
I shiver on the ground, not wanting to move, but knowing I need to get going. My body is aching with a soreness I’ve never experienced in my life. I clench my thighs and my pussy aches. I wince and moan into the ground. It’s not a good ache. Not at all. Tears prick and they’re purely from the pain. And then I remember. I remember Luke and his authority, his desire for my body. I remember his eyes as he watched me find my release. The feeling of him inside of me.
My heart clenches in my chest with desperation and a sadness I’ve never imagined I could feel. I hear his word “leftovers.” I cry harder into the ground. I’ve never been hurt so much in my life. I’m saddened by Owen and what he really thinks of me. I don’t know how I managed to feel so much for men I don’t even know. I can’t believe I’ve given so much of myself to each of them. Physically and emotionally.
I wince and remember them fighting. Fighting over me. Over their plaything. I fist my hands and pound them into the dirt in frustration, but also the need to feel something other than this sadness. Each movement reminds me of the soreness between my thighs.
I pick my body up off the ground slowly, relishing the pain. I fucking deserve this. What did I honestly expect, coming here, hunting down wolves? What a fucking idiot I was.
I’ve sacrificed my whole life in order to research their species. I have no friends. I’ve lost all contact over the years as I’ve traveled from town to town, questioning as many people as I could about the shifters. I’ve interviewed dozens, if not more, of families of the women who were taken. None of them had ever heard from their loved ones after they’d been taken. They also never understood why they were so at peace and calm while they were being taken from their homes.
That was my first clue. Werewolves don’t possess magic. They can’t calm someone with a touch like a witch can. Yet each time, the women go easily, willingly with the wolves. The only exception was the Shadow Falls’ offering. I still don’t understand what happened, and I intend to get to the bottom of it. I watched the news clip of the women. Elizabeth and Grace. I saw how the shifters calmed the women. How they looked at them. With devotion and love. There’s no doubt in my mind that there was true love between them. I studied the historical texts over and over, searching for a hint of human and werewolf relations.
I didn’t find anything. Nothing at all. But I found old scripts about beasts and their fated mates. Tales of how the beast was only tamed by his beauty. True love. I believed in a legend. A fairytale. I was a fucking idiot. Fairytales are for children. Romantic knights in shining armor are for books; there aren’t princes waiting to come rescue damsels in distress. I look down at my battered, aching body and feel as irrational as I look.