THE JOB II

I shuddered violently, the stench of him overwhelming me. If I’d thought the lion shifter from the casino was bad, Ernest’s smell was a thousand times worse to me, probably because I understood everything that it represented. He was the embodiment of lust and sin, the worst of everything this world had to offer. I struggled to unhinge myself from his hold, but his fingers were like wire vices, digging into the flesh of my arms.

As a Bear shifter, he was built solidly, his feline structure comparable to my lupine bones in many ways. If I’d endured the same amount of physical training that Ernest had since childhood, I might have been able to take him, but our youths had been very different.

“Why are you out of breath, little one?” he murmured, his breath hot on my face, making my skin crawl almost clean off my bones. “Are you as excited to have me as I am to have you and your saviour?”

“What? No!” I squealed, finally managing to squirm out of his hold.

I stared at him dubiously. Did he