Beauty's Beast - By Jenna Kernan Page 0,26

way that both thrilled and terrified. Her lips were velvet and her mouth hot and wet. He thought of that sweet mouth, that strong tongue working on another part of him, and his body hardened with need. Here was a woman who wanted him and whom he wanted. And one strong enough to take all he would give her. A Skinwalker. A great grizzly bear.

He growled as his skin tingled, signaling the beginning of his change. She’d made a mistake letting him touch her, because now he was never going to let her go.

She made another sound that might have been alarm, and he feared she would draw back. No, he wouldn’t let her. But she didn’t. Instead, she delved her fingers into his hair, tucking herself beneath his arm, lifting a warm thigh to his hip and using her heel to pull herself even closer to him.

He could take her beneath this very tree. He felt his nails extend and harden into the claws that were as vicious as knife blades. His mouth widened, stretching to accommodate the teeth poised to jut from his gums.

Alon tore away.

Samantha rocked forward, catching herself on the trunk of a tree on one extended arm, her expression momentarily dazed, her sweet pink mouth parted and her cheeks flushed with desire. He’d never forget that dreamy expression. He paused to drink her in, mouth open, panting and her lips swollen from his kisses. Before she could focus her eyes upon him, he shifted, soaring upward into the trees like the exhaust from a rocket. Just one more second and she would have seen him as he was born.

He’d been right to fear his control. A single kiss and he’d nearly let her see.

Alon dived and darted through the forest, surging away from Samantha as fast as he could.

Until today he’d shifted into his fighting form only when angry. But he’d been right to fear Samantha. His excitement for her was new, strong and dangerous.

He’d almost turned into his fighting form right in front of her. His monster form, that was more accurate. The form he could not bear to look at even himself. But it was a shape that was strong and deadly and thus far unmatched.

What would Samantha have done, he wondered, had she seen the rows of teeth snarling and snapping? Run? Scream? Turn away in disgust?

A fresh wave of shame broke inside him. He was born of the dead. He knew it was true. She’d been right to call his kind Toe Taggers, for it highlighted all he was in just two little words. Was he part of this Living World as his parents insisted, or was it as he feared—that he belonged to the world of ghosts?

He rocketed forward, fleeing, flying from the pretty little temptation. If she had any sense she would run in the opposite direction.

His willingness to compromise everything in which he believed in the heat of lust only proved that he had been right. Since he was old enough to understand what he was and where he had come from, he had known that he was a threat to the Balance, to everything good and pure in this living world. He knew it, felt it in his beating heart. And he had nearly hurt the only good thing that had ever come his way. He did not belong in this living world. He belonged with the dead and the evil and the dark.

Would she forgive him?

If he had any pity, any shred of humanity, he would leave her behind and never return. As he flew from her, he pictured her in his mind, the pretty dark brown hair caught in a long ropelike braid, healthy skin the color of a walnut shell. He found her full lips enticing. Her eyes were cinnamon brown with golden flecks near the iris, and the corners of her lids sloped upward, slightly giving her a smoldering look that kicked him in the stomach whenever she stared at him. He liked that and he liked her curvy shape and full breasts. What would she look like naked?

He recalled their kiss. Why had his flesh tingled when she touched him? He had never experienced anything like that before.

Alon’s distraction prevented him from immediately perceiving several of his kind moving in the forest.

Yearlings hunting in a pack. The Deltas moving fast along the forest floor. He’d found them.

Alon stopped. Fear, cold as the blade of a knife, stabbed deep into him. How could