Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
“Ramsey?” Ruby’s voice rises. “Ramsey? Are you all right? Ramsey?”
She’s even hazier now, my gaze fixated on her outline, the shape of her hips. But mostly, it’s her scent, swirling around me, a tornado.
“Go,” I croak, as my voice cracks, and my vocal cords shatter and reshape. “Go!”
I collapse against the wall, my neck jarring upward, my body convulsing.
I’m changing.
And I can’t stop.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ruby
When he shouts go the second time, his voice becomes more of a wolf’s howl. There are footsteps upstairs, on the other side of the cabin, but I’m not sure they’ll get here in time.
Ramsey stands up to his full height. He changed so fast, his bones cracking and reshaping, the hair growing. It felt like a minute, maybe less.
And he’s burning up from the inside, his eyes almost glowing red, his ears flattening as they brush along the ceiling. He’s so big he completely covers the doorway.
Go, he said, but there’s no way out.
“Ramsey?” Liam’s outside the door. “Are you in there? Ruby?”
“It’s...,” I swallow as the wolf – as Ramsey – softly lowers himself to his forepaws, walking toward me, his eyes glowing as he stalks closer. “It’s Ramsey. He’s changed.”
“Okay. Can you get out of the room?”
I don’t want to.
“He’s not going to hurt me,” I whisper as he closes the distance completely.
It’s like in the alleyway. He stares right at me, his eyes searing into me.
“Ramsey,” I whisper as tears prick my eyes.
I’m not sure where they come from. Maybe it’s just how quickly I went from body-shattering pleasure to this; to being face to face with my massive heaving beast. My wolf.
“Ramsey.”
He growls softly, tilting his head. I walk closer, brushing my hand along his silver jaw and behind his ears.
“Ruby?” Liam says from outside.
“We’re fine,” I tell him.
Ramsey grumbles and then steps back, rearing back, shaking as he stares down at me. He’s hard, just like last time, his body heaving just like it was when he was in his human form. Shreds of clothes cling to him, but most lie in tatters on the floor.
He opens his mouth and snarls; teeth bared, he snarls and then throws his head back and howls. He howls so loudly that the glass shatters in the mirror, and the walls tremble.
The whole world shakes. It feels the same way it did in the alleyway.
Except now we’re closer and I know who he is for sure.
Ramsey lowers himself again, shuddering as he moves toward me.
A note of fear touches me, and I hate myself for it. He’d never hurt me.
Would he?
He nudges me with his nose, pushing me into the corner of the room. I move along with him. He clearly wants me over here, and I’m not about to argue.
Then he turns and runs right at the window. He howls as he leaps through it. It’s too small for him, but his powerful body pulls the window straight out of the frame.
I yell and reach out as though I can stop him, but then Ramsey’s gone, a jagged hole in the wall, with bits of wood and glass everywhere.
That’s why he moved me.
He had to leave.
But he still wanted to keep me safe.
He was thinking of me, even then, even when he was clearly losing control.
Losing control for me.
Liam pushes the door open, looking at me and then the hole in the wall.
My instinct is to cover myself after what Ramsey and I just did. But he didn’t take my clothes off.
What will happen when he does?
I’ll freak, and he’ll...change, run, almost lose control.
“Where’s he going?” I whisper.
“My guess would be to run it off.” Liam wanders over to the window. “He changed quickly. That only happens when somebody is extremely well-trained or completely loses control. It can be dangerous changing that fast. Ramsey wouldn’t have done it on purpose, not without reason.”
“What can we do?” I ask, peering into the darkness.
Liam sighs. “We’ll get ready to leave. I doubt the hunters will know to check here, but he’s letting off too much scent. We can’t risk it.”
“He wasn’t going to hurt me,” I say.
Liam turns to me and sighs. “I hope you’re right. But I’ve only ever heard of this happening once.”
“What happening?”
“Has Ramsey told you?”
“He said it was my scent,” I mutter, nodding. “Is that what you mean?”
“Yeah. Scent is often part of the attraction for us, but how powerfully you’re affecting Ramsey, I only know of one case. I told Ramsey about it. It’s part of why he’s running; I’d bet. He doesn’t want the same to happen.”
“What happened?”
Liam grinds his teeth. “The wolf killed its lover. They lost control.”
I shake my head before he’s even done talking. “Do you really think Ramsey would kill me?”
“No,” Liam snaps. “I don’t. I’ve known him since we were kids. He likes to say I mentored him, but the truth is we helped each other. I was as lost as he was. We’re like brothers. Ramsey’s the best man I know, the best wolf I know. But the danger of our kind is arrogance, thinking we’re above our instincts. All wolves can reach a point where the man is lost, and there’s only the beast. It takes training to become both a man and a predator.”