Rejected (Shadow Beast Shifters, #1)(15)

“I’ve always lain low, hid from the world, and squashed my shine to not offend you all. You chose to keep me close for torture purposes. You chose to chase and follow and make me relevant. I would have loved nothing more than to forget you even existed.”

Or even better if they literally ceased to exist.

Jaxson released me, and I rubbed at my wrist, even though it wasn’t particularly hurting. He circled me, like a hunter scenting his prey, but whether it got me killed or not, I was done being the weak one.

“Why am I alive?” I asked bluntly. “You ripped out my throat.”

Of all the shifters to try to kill me, it hurt the most that it had been him.

He paused, and light washed across his features, highlighting the peculiar expression on his face.

“I would never kill you, Sunny.” He sighed, looking exhausted all of a sudden. “Lace, a shifter who was from the next town over, caught your scent when she passed through. We’d already put out a notification of you being missing, and she called us. I made sure to knock you out and make it look worse than it was so she wouldn’t question our strength. We got you back here asap to heal up.”

Lace was the female bitch who’d attacked me.

I snorted. “If you wanted me to heal, then why the fuck did I wake up tonight with Glendra in my cell, claws in my body, and murder in her eyes?”

His face morphed, darkness drawing his eyebrows closer as anger filled his eyes. “That wasn’t supposed to happen! She’s a little upset about Torin. He’s been much worse off than you and still hasn’t woken. The alpha is attempting to force the shift to help the healing process.”

My expression didn’t change. Did they expect me to feel bad about defending myself? Better not hold their breaths waiting for that to happen.

“So what now?” I said with a sigh. He was a shifter on the eve of the full moon. His strength surpassed mine at the best of times. And if hypothermia didn’t take me out soon, my injuries would.

As much as I wanted to attempt another escape, as more time went by, it was growing clear I had no shot.

Jaxson leaned in closer, and I gritted my teeth so as to not react to his scent. As much as I hated him—like a real, push him down the stairs and say, “he fell” sort of hate—he had always smelled like a sexy forest ranger. Musk and pine, with a hint of snow. A truly heady scent for a shifter. And despite the fact that I was probably the only twenty-two-year-old in the world who was a virgin, I had no disillusions about my high sex drive. There was an intense attraction I felt toward some of the men in our pack at times. But I refused to have sex with shifters I hated. Yeah, I was picky like that, but at minimum, my lover would have to not torture me. Shocking, right?

“Now,” said Jaxson, “you accompany me back to the pack house and see the fucking healer so you’ll be ready for your shift tomorrow.”

“Yeah, not happening,” I replied, tightening my arms around myself. “Glendra already made it clear that she’s going to hurt me bad and then hand me over to Victor. I think I’ll take my chances with the river again.”

Jaxson’s arm swept around me, so fast that I barely even saw him move. Now my arms were pinned to my side, and I had no strength to fight against his hold. Jaxson had always been strong, but this was a whole new level, even for him.

“The alpha wants you here for your first shift,” he rumbled. “Glendra won’t touch you again.”

I snorted. “Excuse me if I don’t believe you.” I’d been lied to many times over the years.

Especially by him.

He didn’t seem to care if I believed him or not, carrying me with ease as he walked along the edge of the bank. My wolf whined, disliking this dominance over us, and it was looking more likely that when we turned, we’d be alpha enough to go against these shifters.

My soul felt wild, and strangely enough, we hadn’t missed the pack life too much when we’d run.

Maybe I’d shift into a dragon when my time came. They seemed to be more lone wolves. Yeah, I went there. My wolf snarled, like she was also sick of my inner monologue, so I spent the next ten minutes regaling her with every stupid thought I’d had in my twenty-two years of life. For shits and giggles.

If you wanna be my roommate, you better get used to it, I warned.

No more snarls came my way, but at this point, she appeared to be ignoring me.

“Why did you run?” Jaxson asked, startling me from my mental battle with a wolf soul.

“What?” I asked, my forehead wrinkling at the pure stupidity of that question.

“Why did you run?” he repeated.

“Uh, Glendra was trying to murder me, right after you tried to murder me.”

Was this dumbass for real?

Jaxson sighed. “Not tonight. Why did you run from Torma?”

Oh.

I shook my head, my cheek brushing against his hard chest muscle that was taking up my personal space. “Didn’t you know? I’ve always wanted to hide out in a shitty old cabin in Hood River. It’s, like, the American shifter dream.”

He growled and it was much more impressive than my internal wolf’s. “For once in your fucking life, stop being a smartass. You ran one month before your shift; it doesn’t make sense. Did something happen to set you off at that particular moment?”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t owe him any explanation of my actions. The way I was treated should have been reason enough, and mostly, there had been no catalyst outside the realization I’d already wasted too many years being a victim.