Wolf's Hunger (Mafia Monsters #5) - Atlas Rose Page 0,13
climbing to my knees. “No!”
The Wolf came silently closer, its head lowered and its dark amber eyes blinked as it released something from its mouth that hit the stone floor with a splat.
Lightning flickered once more as the beast lifted its head to watch me. Amber eyes glinted like jewels, the color so deep and pure, a memory tore free. I licked it, so it’s mine…
My heart pounded. Panic and fear were a Molotov cocktail in my blood. I drew in hard breaths and stilled. The beast…the Wolf. I knew this Wolf, knew this man, knew the depths of those eyes…knew that intensity. “Phantom?”
Thick obsidian fur shimmered in the glow of the lightning as the Alpha shook his body, casting droplets of water to fly around the room. His white fangs were stained with blood, but his shimmering black lips never curled, never gave even a hint of aggression. I looked down at the small shadow on the floor between his paws.
Speckled brown fur and unseeing dark eyes were illuminated in the fading glow of the storm, and the blood. I saw the blood, everywhere.
Crunch. Snap.
The Wolf buckled to the floor. He whimpered and twitched, his muscles rippling and his body shaking as bones snapped and morphed into something else. Something longer, something more human. Sleek midnight fur glistened and sank under pale flesh as the Alpha shifted in front of me. His chest rose, then collapsed with a savage breath, and the growl that followed stood the hairs on the back of my neck.
“Don’t…” he snarled, and jerked his head upwards. He was still animal in his eyes, more beast than anything else as desperation raged in his words. “…be scared of me.”
I shoved from the bed, tearing myself out from under the furs until my feet smacked the floor. His chest still rose and fell, his ribs expanding with each savage draw of air. “You terrified the shit out of me.”
A twitch came at the corner of his mouth as those long, bloodstained canines withdrew into his gums. Neon white light flickered again and the rain still beat down, muffling the rush of his breaths as he slowly rose from the floor and straightened.
His skin glistened. Every muscle in his body flexed and shivered. His hands were at his sides, fingers curled, the tips bloody. I licked my dry lips and forced myself to remember he’d never hurt me. Not intentionally. “You al—”
“You went there…” he started as he took a step closer, his eyes seizing mine like a rabbit in a snare. “To the dark city.”
I swallowed hard at the guttural tone. He hadn’t come to me when I’d stepped out of the Explorer, not even when the others had touched and scented me. He’d just watched me, like I was tainted.
“Shouldn’t have gone there,” he repeated as he stepped closer, his gaze sinking to the glow in my chest. Throb…throb…throb. The ache bloomed like a disease, one that was under his command with just a goddamn look. “They could’ve hurt you, could’ve used you.”
Images came to life inside my head, of all the ways the Fae used women like me. I suppressed a shudder and swallowed. “But they didn’t.”
Anger flared in his eyes, brighter than the electric sky. “This time,” he warned, those long legs slowly eating the distance between us.
I didn’t move, didn’t twitch, didn’t even breathe. Goosebumps raced along my skin.
“Are you scared of me, Carina?”
I didn’t trust myself to answer as he reached my side.
“Rethinking your choices?”
I closed my eyes, my pulse spiking as he stopped behind me and murmured against my ear. “Maybe you’re thinking about the Unseelie?”
I flinched, that heat of desire burning hot. “No.”
“Really? It is what you want, isn’t it? Power. Corruption. Don’t you want to be corrupted, Carina?”
The throbbing pain in my chest dulled with his words. He was scaring me now. Dredging something deeper from inside me. Something colder…something deeper. Something black. “By them? No. By you? I thought that’s what we were doing…”
The guttural chuckle made me tremble. “Take off your clothes.”
I stiffened at the command. That gnawing feeling smothered the ache in my chest. My breaths sped as fear swept over me. No, the word raced through my mind as I fought to push that darker feeling away.
“I’m not asking twice, Carina…and I’m in no mood to play your games. You come to me smelling of another male outside the pack, and I’m going to mark every goddamn inch of you, over…and over again.”