Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 119746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
He sees my intention, those icy eyes tracking my movement. He lunges again, this time toward Aubrey—perhaps recognizing her as the greater threat with her firearm training, or simply driven by his obsession with the McAlister blood she carries.
Aubrey fires, getting him in the eye. The impact staggers Adam, black fluid spraying from what’s left of his eyeball, but he keeps coming. She dodges at the last second, rolling across the snow with practiced precision.
I seize the opportunity, grabbing the branch and charging toward the burning cabin. If I can get it ignited, we’ll have a chance—a flaming weapon that can do permanent damage to the monster before us.
Adam recovers faster than I anticipated, whirling to intercept me before I can reach the flames. His clawed hand catches my jacket, yanking me off my feet with inhuman strength. I crash to the ground, air driven from my lungs by the impact, the branch spinning from my grasp.
“Jensen!” Aubrey shouts, already moving to help.
Adam looms over me, those unnatural blue eyes gleaming with hunger and triumph. His weight crashes down on my chest, pinning me to the snow. I struggle, fighting for leverage, for breath, for any advantage against his supernatural strength. His hands close around my throat, claws digging into my skin, drawing blood that steams in the frigid air.
The world begins to dim around the edges as oxygen deprivation sets in. Through narrowing vision, I see Aubrey charging toward us, her face a mask of desperate determination. She doesn‘t shoot—too risky with me pinned beneath Adam—but instead leaps onto his back, wrapping an arm around his throat in a practiced chokehold.
Adam roars, releasing me to deal with this new threat. He throws himself backward, attempting to crush Aubrey between his body and the ground. She anticipates the move, disengaging at the last second to roll clear, drawing her knife as she comes up in a fighting stance.
I suck in desperate breaths, scrambling to my feet as Adam turns his attention to Aubrey. She darts forward, blade flashing in the firelight, catching him across the forearm as he raises it to defend himself. The wound barely slows him, just a minor inconvenience.
“The knife,” I rasp, my voice rough from near-strangulation. “Heat it in the fire!”
Understanding dawns in her eyes. She feints toward Adam, drawing him into a lunge before pivoting away, using his momentum against him. The move carries her toward the burning cabin, close enough to thrust the blade into the flames for a critical moment.
When she pulls it back, the metal glows red-hot—a weapon that might do lasting damage to the hungry one before us. Adam recognizes the threat, hesitating for the first time, actually backing away as she advances with the heated blade.
“Not so confident now, are you?” she taunts, the glowing knife held before her like a talisman.
I circle behind him, grabbing my fallen rifle, looking for any opening. Adam’s attention is fixed on Aubrey and the burning knife. It’s quickly losing heat, but it’s the first thing that’s provoked genuine fear in him since we encountered him.
Adam snarls, rage overcoming caution. He lunges at her, a desperate, all-or-nothing attack. Aubrey sidesteps, slashing with the heated blade as he passes. The knife catches him across the face, and for the first time, his flesh doesn’t immediately begin to heal. The wound smolders, black fluid hissing where the hot metal cauterized as it cut his cheek.
A shriek of pain tears from Adam’s throat—a sound more animal than human. He stumbles, clutching at the wound that refuses to close, his features contorted with shock as much as agony.
I seize the moment to grab another branch, this one smaller but more manageable. I thrust it into the flames licking at the cabin’s collapsed walls, igniting the end into a makeshift torch. Now armed, I move to flank Adam from the other side, trapping him between us.
His head whips back and forth, assessing his options, calculating odds. For a moment, I think he might surrender to the inevitable, might accept his defeat.
Instead he charges directly at me, accepting the burning torch as the price of reaching his target. The flaming wood catches him across the chest as we collide, setting his ragged clothing alight, but his momentum carries us both to the ground.
I lose my grip on the torch as we fall, the burning branch spinning away into the snow where it hisses and dies. Adam’s weight crashes down on me for the second time, his burning clothes searing my skin even as his claws rake across my chest, tearing through jacket and shirt to the flesh beneath.
Pain explodes through me, hot and immediate. I hear Aubrey shout something, but it’s lost in the roaring of blood in my ears. Adam’s transformed face hovers inches from mine, teeth bared in a snarl of triumph, eyes gleaming with that unnatural blue.