I shook my head, speechless. There was no way this could be real. He couldn’t be saying these things, not after what I’d felt. What we’d felt. It was impossible.
“Shame I didn’t get to finish what we started in the barn, my scared little lamb. That was the best part of this whole façade.” His eyes flared red for a moment.
A sharp pain lanced through my heart. I fell forward and let out a breathless cry. What the hell?
When I was able to look up again, I found Wolf staring at me strangely, as if trying to figure out what was wrong with me.
“No!” I shouted at him once I’d recovered. “You liar. You promised. You gave me your word!”
Tears filled my vision as I strained against my two captors. Rage quickly replaced my despair. He’d lied to me. He’d betrayed me. I wanted to kill him. I screamed louder than I’d ever screamed before, thrashing and kicking, jerking my arms against the two werewolves that held me. The fact that I was helpless made me angrier and I fought like a berserker, kicking out and twisting around. In front of me, Wolf snarled.
“You liar!” I yelled. “You liar! You bastard! I should have let them burn you! You son of a bitch! I should have let them burn you!”
I whipped my head around, bringing my teeth down on one of the werewolves’ hands and sank my teeth into his fingers. He barked in surprise and let me go. I swung my fist around and smashed it into the other’s nose. His grip loosened enough, and I pulled my arm free and charged at Wolf. I didn’t care that he had fangs and I didn’t. I didn’t care that he might kill me here and now. Whatever happened, he’d already hurt me too deeply for me to care. I wanted to hurt him as much as possible before I went down.
But I didn’t get the chance. I made it four feet before something flattened me to the ground. The werewolves. I still didn’t care. I glared up at Wolf.
“You’re no better than a human! A human!”
And then I was even too exhausted to be angry. My heart hurt, my wounds hurt, I wanted to go home, and for once in my life I wanted wolves to die. I burst into tears, a sobbing, pitiful thing on the ground before a powerful woman and the man, the wolf, I’d fallen in love with. The traitor I’d fallen in love with.
The woman laughed, ice tinkling over glass. “She insults her own kind. What a strange creature she is.”
The two werewolves picked me up. I didn’t help them. I let my feet drag on the ground.
“Take this sad little thing away,” the woman said. “I’ll deal with her later, after I lock away the girl.”
The brute at my right grunted and then gave me a sadistic wolf grin as he licked his hand where my blood had smeared his fur.
“No!” the Mistress yelled. “Don’t, you fool!”
Chapter 17
The werewolf’s eyes suddenly went wide and he gagged, clutching his throat and keeling over.
“She’s poisonous to us you imbecile!”
But it was too late for the werewolf. He choked and crawled over the ground before going still. I stared at him, momentarily jarred from my despair. After a few moments, another werewolf came up and took my arm, but kept his grip away from my wounds. The Mistress made a disgusted noise and turned her back on the dead creature.
“Someone clean that up, please.”
Two more werewolves took away the body. Even Wolf watched it with an astonished look. He’d tasted my blood before and was still alive. He’d even said it tasted sweet. Traitorous bastard. I let my head drop as the tears came again.
They removed me from of the chamber. Behind me, Wolf spoke.
“Now that I have proved my loyalty, my Mistress, would you be so kind as to remove this?”
We traveled back through the halls before they dumped me into my cell again. I crawled up to sit on the stone ledge protruding from the wall. I buried my head in my hands and tried to stop crying. I wanted to shake him, shake him until he couldn’t see straight and scream “Why?” into his face over and over until I got an answer. I peered through my tears at the cell door. It looked more like a fence, made of wood. I let my head drop. I was