Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
“I thought you said the vampires wanted to end us anyway.”
“Yes. That’s the problem,” Elena says. “They want to obliterate the pack; it is as simple as that. We are natural enemies, and we have slept on their existence. They’ll target the alpha’s mate, because they know how the bonding works. If they can interrupt our powerful lines of succession, they can essentially destroy us. All of us. They can weaken us for generations. They can destroy bloodlines that harken back to the very first shifters. This is not a fight for territory. This is a fight for us. All of us.”
She is impassioned, and that, combined with her very solid argument, settle both Viktor and Piotr.
“Where is Anya?” Elena says. “She really shouldn’t be alone.”
“She’s in bed. She’s asleep. She could already be in whelp. I don’t want her up all night worrying about this.”
CHAPTER 10
Anya
I am looking into the beautiful blood-red eyes of a creature so powerful it could crush me in a moment. He came through the window, walking on air as if it were perfectly reasonable to do so. Now he is standing at the end of the bed, his hand outstretched to me.
“Come with me,” he says.
I get up. I don’t want to, but I do. I do precisely what he says. I get out of bed and I slide my hand into his icy cold grip. He closes his fingers around my hand and lifts it toward his lips.
“Good girl,” he says. “I knew you would be good for me.”
I don’t want to be good for him. I want to scream for Alexei, but I can’t seem to make myself do it. I can’t even take my eyes off the vampire. His eyes somehow seem to expand to fill my entire vision. There’s nothing but him.
I try to fight. I try to take a single step away, but I find myself absolutely unable to move. My muscles are not following the will of my mind anymore. They’re following his will.
“Please, let me go. I don’t want this.”
“It doesn’t matter what you want,” he says. “All that matters is that you stay nicely obedient for me. Not that you have any choice, do you?”
I feel my head turn side to side, shaking no.
“That’s right. You don’t have any choice. I am inside you. A very little part of me, minuscule, really, but still present, is in you. It has buried its way deep into you, and I can use it to puppet you as I please. It’s best to just let it happen. Resisting will cause you pain.”
I try as hard as I can to walk away from him, but he is right. The second I try to force myself to walk away, the most excruciating pain shoots through me, right through my spine. I let out a cry, but even that is cut short as the vampire forces my jaw to shut.
“Shhhh,” he says, reaching out and caressing my face with his cool hands, cupping my clenched jaw as I attempt to shout for help. “I am trying to help you, little one. There is no need for you to be afraid. I am not going to hurt you. I have come for you because you are mine.”
“Not yours.”
I manage to grind those words out in spite of the pain. I fight through it in order to tell him he’s not winning. I don’t care if I can’t resist. I don’t care if I can’t get away from him. He’ll know that deep down, what’s happening here is against my will.
“Yes, little one. Mine.”
He squeezes my hand gently and leads me to the window. Outside, the night is dense and dark. The moon has gone somewhere, abandoned her children, the wolves, and left us vulnerable to our one predator.
“Hold on tight.”
He sweeps an arm around me and pulls me close to him in an embrace that holds no affection, but plenty of possession and even some protection. He holds me like something he has stolen.
He steps out into thin air, taking me with him. Gravity is suspended, and so are we in midair. I do not know how this works. His cape billows out behind us as we sweep through the skies, quite literally flying.
I cling to him, afraid of falling, knowing I have no way down if he were to let me go. This is the strangest thing that has ever happened to me, including the day I first discovered my mother was a wolf, and so was I.
Years ago…
I am seven years old and small for my age. I am trying to keep up with my mother as we walk home from the central city. The way is long and my legs are tired. I know hers are too, but her strides are more than twice the length of mine.