Nineteen

I turned to run again, looking for any gap, any way past them and I suddenly found a way out.

Just when I was about to move towards Nathan who left his guard down with his hands in his pocket

Josh moved faster than I'd ever seen anyone move.

Or maybe I just didn't expect it, he seems to have predicted my move.

One second he was ten feet behind me. The next, his hand was on my wrist, wrenching it behind my back until I felt my shoulder joint scream in protest.

"Ah! Fuck, are you crazy, Let me go!" The scream tore from my throat, raw and desperate and echoing.

Pain exploded through my arm, white-hot and blinding. He shoved me forward violently, forcing me to my knees. My kneecaps hit the concrete hard enough to make me see stars.

"Josh, STOP!" Nathan's voice cut through the chaos like a whip crack.

But Josh wasn't listening anymore.

I could feel it—the shift in him. The rational part disappearing. The wolf taking over. The rage.

I still had the scalpel clutched in my free hand.

I drove it backward blindly into his leg again, harder this time.

He roared—a sound of pure animal fury that shook the walls.

Aggrh!!!! I had hoped for a chance to escape after I stabbed him but I was wrong.

I had made a mistake.

The pain I inflicted on him made him mad, that he gripped me tight and growled pulling me back to him when I tried to escape.

And then I felt it. His teeth and fangs pierced into the side of my neck and pain exploded inside my body.

“Ahhhhh” I dreamed loudly, immediately falling weak due to the terrible pain.

The bloody bastard still didn't pull his fangs out of me; he still bit deep into the side of my neck again like the animal he was.

I knew it, the rogues were uncontrollably bastard, I hated them with everything I had.

I just didn't know why I ended up in their hands.

I found myself fighting for my life, stopping them from raping me and now that same rogue was biting the hell out of me

The pain was—

I couldn't even scream anymore at this point.

It happened so fast and caught me off guard, I tried breathing well but I couldn't, I couldn't even think.

Pure agony tore through every nerve, every cell, like being burned alive from the inside out.

Then his weight disappeared.

"NO!" Nathan's voice thundered as he moved at tremendous speed and appeared in front of me.

He physically ripped Josh away from me, throwing him against the wall with enough force to crack the concrete.

I collapsed onto my hands and knees, gasping, my hand flying to my neck.

I could feel the wet, warm, sticky blood around it. There was too much blood, slick between my fingers.

Through my blurred vision, I saw Nathan stand up in rage swiftly going for Josh.

When he arrived in front of him he grabbed him by his neck from the ground and then he slammed Josh against the wall again, his hand around Josh's throat now.

"You idiot!" Nathan's voice shook with barely contained rage. "Do you have any idea what you've done?!"

“I…did..what was necessary” He struggled to speak with Nathan's hand wrapped around his neck.

I on the other end was struggling to breathe, I tried to speak. I even tried to move.

But the world was tilting sideways, and something was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

This wasn't just a bite.

The pain wasn't fading like it should. It was spreading, radiating outward from the wound.

Burning through my veins like acid. Like poison.

"Nathan..." I managed, my voice barely a whisper.

He was beside me in an instant, dropping to his knees, pressing something against my neck—his shirt, torn off and wadded up.

"Stay with me," he said, and for the first time, I heard actual fear in his voice. "April, stay with me."

"What... what did he..." I couldn't finish the sentence. The burning was getting worse.

Nathan's face was grim. Pale. "We need to move. Now."

He started to lift me, but I pulled back weakly. "What's happening to me?"

He didn't answer. Just looked at Josh—who was slumped against the wall, blood on his mouth, looking almost... scared—and then back at me.

And I knew.

Whatever Josh had done to me, it was bad.

Really bad.

"Nathan, what did he do?" My voice cracked.

Nathan's e

xpression told me everything I needed to know before he even spoke.

"We need to get you to Aiden. Now."