Rejected (Shadow Beast Shifters #1) - Jaymin Eve Page 0,16

could barely remember what she’d said. She’d called me something… Useless…? Worthless?

“Did you just call me a cunt?” she snapped, and the pain in my side increased. At this point, I felt the nails digging into me from her half-shifted hands.

“Right,” I slurred. “I almost forgot. But yes, you’re a total cunty fuckhole, and I hope you get herpes and die of syphilis after your dick falls off.”

She roared so loud, it would have hurt my ears if I wasn’t already in so much pain that a little earache was nothing of concern. Her grip on me tightened, and another weak whimper left me.

“You’re going to wish that you died when you ran,” she murmured, sounding gleeful. “My job is to break you down until you are begging for death, and then, Victor is going to take over.”

Now I knew who this was: Glendra, the alpha’s mate. Torin’s mom, or as I liked to call her, the pack whore.

She was a nasty shifter I’d hated for years. She’d hung around my father like a bad smell way too many times for me to think she was anything other than someone who craved the attention of powerful men. She needed the gratification, and despite having a true mate, she could never seem to stop her wandering eye. And part of me still wondered if she wasn’t half the reason my father had attacked the alpha. Wouldn’t put it past a bitch like her to deliberately orchestrate drama that ended in murder.

Despite my pain and fatigue, I called on my wolf, and she rose within me like the perfect spirit goddess she was. The Shadow Beast was our god, more devil than angel, and I’d need his resilient strength to get through this.

Darkness was going to be my calling, and I allowed it to fill me so I could best this wolf.

Slamming my head forward, I cracked her in the face, knocking her scrawny ass off me. I followed this with a two-footed kick that sent her shooting away. Her screech was cut off by a heavy thud. She’d definitely hit something hard. My eyes were open enough at this point to see her sprawled back, unmoving.

And I knew exactly where we were: in the torture chambers below the main pack house. This is where my mother and I had been taken when Dad had attacked Victor. It was here we’d been subjected to “questioning” until everyone had been satisfied that we’d had no idea what my dad had been planning. Fat lot of difference that made anyway; we were still treated like fucking lepers.

But at least I knew my way around here from that time. Silver lining?

Glendra had left the door to my cell open, and I took the opportunity to get the hell out of there. Sprinting as best I could, I welcomed the surge of adrenaline, knowing it might be all that got me through. Taking the stairs as fast as possible, I fought the nausea and head spins. There was no time to succumb to my injuries; I had to get to safety first.

From below, I heard the first sound of a howl. Glendra was calling the other wolves. Hopefully, I’d be faster than them…

When I reached the first-floor landing, I took the less-traveled path toward an exit I often used to slip away. It was off to the side of the smaller kitchen, and to my knowledge, very few knew about it. The best part of this exit was its close proximity to the forest.

More howls joined Glendra’s, the sound and scent of wolves all around, but I tunneled my vision and didn’t look back. For some reason, I hadn’t died from Jaxson’s attack, and I was not wasting this second chance.

When I burst out of the unlocked back door, the last slivers of moonlight bathed across me, and my wolf howled in my chest. It was early morning on the eve of the full moon, and that was the best news I could have gotten. Not only was it energizing to my wolf, the rest of the pack would have been sleeping as they rested up for the solstice change tomorrow.

This gave me a few extra minutes, and sometimes that was all a shifter needed.

Sprinting across the icy lawn, I ignored the sharp bite of air across my bare skin. My clothes were torn and tattered, but thankfully, the same ones I’d been wearing when I’d been attacked… almost a week ago. If the moon was