This Dark Wolf (Soul Bitten Shifter #1) - Everly Frost Page 0,5
low notes. Only the most powerful alphas will be able to detect my true scent.
He told me I didn’t have to worry about that, though, because neither my half-brother, Dawson, nor our alpha, Peter Nash, are strong enough to detect my true scent.
But Cody… His reaction tells me I’m in trouble.
He presses the axe head so hard against my clavicle that I’m afraid my bones might snap.
“Tessa Dean.” His growl is rough, wild, and reckless. “I can’t decide if I want to fuck you or kill you.”
He darts forward and brushes his lips across my neck and jaw all the way to my mouth, where I gasp for breath. His chest expands as he inhales even more deeply, drawing my scent in through his lips.
His eyes meet mine and his pupils dilate so fully that his eyes appear completely black in the fading light. A shudder runs through his chest, fierce enough to make me tremble.
Rising up, he pitches the axe into the ground far from my reach.
As he moves, his weight lifts, and I see my chance to get free now that he’s abandoned the axe.
Shoving at his knee, I punch his thigh, followed by his shoulder, and aim a third rapid hit at his face, a boxing combination that I’ve practiced a thousand times—just not lying down. He jolts back and I make it halfway up before he shoves me against the ground again, putting his whole body weight behind his fists as they knock into my shoulders and his knee drops onto my chest again.
My head hits the ground, my chest squeezes, and my vision blurs as I gasp for breath.
His growl washes over me while I try to focus. “Don’t fight me now, Tessa,” he says. “Or I will hurt you.”
His claws catch my hair and rake across my left shoulder, ripping through my shirt from my collar to halfway down my sleeve.
His knee slides to the other side of me, releasing my chest. I inhale as deeply as I can. Now that he’s straddling me, I try again to fight my way free with my human strength, but a different power rises inside me.
The pain aching across the back of my head and the sharp sting of the cuts on my shoulder are like a flame to a very short fuse inside me—a fuse that leads to my wolf.
I’ve heard shifters describe their wolves as energy inside themselves—a separate being with its own needs and wants. Its own personality. A creature that obeys pack law, that can bond with a true mate, and form connections with other wolves.
My wolf has none of that.
She has no soul. Obeys no laws. Has no mind of her own. She will never bond with a true mate.
Nobody had to tell me this. I’ve known it all my life, deep in my soul, as surely as knowing that my eyes are blue and my hair is the color of blood.
My wolf is pure energy.
Before now, I’ve pushed her away when I was threatened, smothered her with all my might to make sure she stays hidden. Only my father has seen her—seen me—when I shift.
But if I don’t use her energy now, I won’t escape Cody. I’m done with hiding her. Not when she’s strong enough to kill these assholes—even Cody—before he lays another finger on me.
I scream for the first time since the men arrived. Letting out my rage, my cry shrieks around the clearing, growing more fierce as I exhale the sound. My cry tugs at the air, becoming a high-pitched howl.
My vision turns electric blue as my wolf’s energy rises to the surface inside me, giving me strength without shifting. The clearing, Cody’s silhouette above me, and the trees in the distance—everything becomes brilliant sapphire. The clearing around me is suddenly lit in my vision like it’s made of cobalt fire.
My wolf’s energy changes my view of the world into heat and power signatures. Dawson and Cameron are pale, insignificant forces compared to the powerful life flowing through the distant trees—their ancient trunks and branches surviving centuries. Cody is bright and strong in my vision. Except that his power signature is made up of confusing swirls of cobalt and crimson, forces at war with each other.
I don’t have time to consider the meaning of what I’m seeing.
I need to fight him and escape.
Both Dawson and Cameron flinch as I continue to howl. They drop to the ground, clutching their ears, but my scream only makes Cody more frenzied,