Forever Bound Series 1-4(29)

A beautiful, soon-to-be dead woman.

Hell. He could feel Allison’s heart racing against him. She was afraid again. That should have been a good thing.

Why did her fear piss him off? It angered him just as much as her blind trust. The scent of her growing fear seemed to burn his nose.

“Vampires are chasing me,” she told him. He’d pushed her hands back against the wooden wall. “That guy in the alley—he’s been after me for months.”

Yeah, Cade bet he had.

“They want me dead.”

Undead.

“Elsa said you’d help me.” Her lips trembled. Wide, full lips. Flushed dark red. Plump. Those lips were so close to his.

The beast within began to snarl. “She lied.” Blunt. Brutal.

Best to go ahead and tell her. Best for her to know…

Her tongue swiped out and licked a slick trail over her bottom lip. “Wh-what?”

Take. The beast inside roared. Cade brought his mouth closer to hers. What would it hurt? Just one little taste…

Her eyes were so very blue as they stared up at his. Not cold like the witch’s had been, but filled with a tangle of emotion.

Her lashes began to lower.

His lips pressed lightly over hers. Allison didn’t fight. Didn’t try to turn her head away.

Her breath whispered out, and he pulled that soft gasp into his own lungs, taking her taste with that breath.

Sweet.

He’d take more.

He kissed her again. Harder. Deeper. Her lips parted and…and she let him in. His tongue thrust past her lips and into the warm cavern of her mouth. His body pushed against hers, so close he could feel the tight tips of her nipples and the wild beat of her heart.

Innocence and sin. One woman shouldn’t taste like both.

She did.

Allison met him, kissing him with a wild, hot need as a moan built in her throat. Kissing him…because the woman thought she was safe with him.

That he was some promised protector.

His claws began to stretch.

He let his fangs rake over her lower lip.

Allison froze in his arms.

Time for her to understand exactly what was happening. Cade lifted his head. Gazed into her eyes. “I’m not here to keep you safe.” His words were growled, the snarl of a beast.

Her gaze slid from his, searching the darkness of the cabin that waited to the left, then to the right.

“No one followed us out here.” She’d come so willingly. She could have screamed back at that bar. Asked for help. Begged for help.

Maybe Griggs would have fought for her.

Perhaps some other dumb * would have played white knight.

Slowly, he released her wrists, but he didn’t step back. “There’s no one to hear you scream out here, sweetheart.”

Allison flinched. “Wh-why would I scream?”

He brought up his hand and let his claws slide down her cheek. She needed to stop seeing him as some kind of damn hero and see him for what he really was.

“Your Elsa didn’t send you to me for protection.” He paused. Watched because he knew the horror would come. “She paid me to kill you.”

And since Allison looked so incredibly delicate, so innocent and human, he wasn’t expecting the blade of her knife to shove into his chest.

He glanced down, stunned, and realized that when they’d been in that alley, she’d stopped to retrieve her weapon. He’d been fighting the vamp, and she—

His blood dripped down his chest, and Allison shoved him back with very un-human strength. He flew back and crashed into the opposite wall. She gazed at him with desperate eyes, stunned, scared, then she rushed for the door.

The screen door slammed behind her as she fled into the night.

Taking his time, Cade rose to his feet. The knife had missed his heart by a good three inches. And it wasn’t even silver.

Amateur hour.

He yanked out the blade. Stared at the bloody metal, then broke it with his tightened fist.

She was running from him now. Running fast into that dark night. Pity. She wouldn’t realize just how much he enjoyed the hunt.

The beast always liked to chase prey.

Cade let the change sweep over him, brutal, hard, as his bones popped and broke, reshaped and elongated. Fur sprang along his skin, and when he opened his mouth to cry out to her, a howl filled the night.

Time to hunt.

***

When Allison heard the long, angry howl, she glanced back even though all her instincts screamed…Keep going. Hurry.

Her savior was her executioner. Allison stumbled away, plunging for the thick shelter of the trees. If she’d known how to hot-wire the motorcycle she would have jumped on it and fled, but, dammit, she didn’t have that skill set.

Her side heaved as she raced through the woods. Her legs burned, but she pushed herself as fast as she could go. There was no safe place for her anymore. No one to trust. Even Elsa had sold her out.

Elsa…the woman who’d come to Allison when she’d stood, crying, over her parents graves in that cold cemetery. Elsa had promised friendship.

But tried to give death.

Lying witch.

Another howl shook the night and she whipped around, following that sound.

Oh, hell. A big, black beast of a wolf charged after her. Too big, freaking huge. And he was running too swiftly.

She lurched to the right, tripped over a fallen log, and hurtled down the hill, spinning again and again and slamming into the earth with each painful turn.