CHAPTER 4

EDAL

The night air hit my face Branches scratched my arms. Mud sucked at my boots. My lungs burned. My legs screamed. I didn't stop. I couldn't stop. If I stopped, I'd think about him, and if I thought about him, I'd die.

I ran until my body gave out.

I collapsed in a ditch … wet and dark and full of dead leaves and old bones. The mud soaked through my clothes, cold against my skin, but I didn't move. I couldn't move. I just lay there, staring up at the sliver of moon visible through the trees, and I sobbed.

Ugly, heaving, gut-wrenching sobs that tore through my chest and left me empty. I cried for my mother, who turned into a monster before my eyes. I cried for the girl I used to be, who believed in gentle Alphas and happy endings. I cried for Rylan … the man I loved, the man I hated, the man who called me garbage.

I stayed in that ditch until the sky started to lighten.

Then I got up. Wiped my face on my sleeve. Picked up the bag And kept walking..

Suddenly I stopped to a halt hearing Wolves behind me.. I could see three of them. Human-shaped but wrong … gold eyes, too-sharp smiles, the kind of hunger that doesn't just want to kill you, but to play with you first.

“Well, well,” the biggest one said, stepping out from behind a tree.

“A lone breeder. What are the odds?”

“Alpha Rylan's pack is north of here,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt.

“I'm under his protection.”

The wolves laughed. The sound was horrible … rough and hungry,.

“Rylan's protection?” The big one stepped closer. “Didn't you hear, sweetheart? Rylan has a new Luna. A real wolf. You think he gives a shit about a leftover breeder?”

My blood ran cold. He was right. Rylan didn't care. Rylan had called me garbage. Rylan had probably already forgotten my name.

I didn't wait. I turned and ran. Branches whipped my face. Roots tried to trip me. Behind me, I heard them laughing, then shifting … the wet crack of bones breaking and reforming, the sound of men becoming monsters.

The river appeared out of nowhere. Wide. Dark. Churning.

I jumped into it The cold hit me like a punch to the chest. My lungs seized. My muscles locked. The current grabbed me and dragged me under, spinning me around, slamming me against rocks I couldn't see. I kicked. I clawed. I broke the surface just long enough to gasp for air before the river pulled me down again.

The wolves howled from the shore. They didn't follow.

I held onto a rock until my fingers went numb and my lips turned blue. Then I let the current carry me downstream, half-drowning, half-dying, but alive.

I crawled out on the opposite bank, shaking, bleeding, coughing up water. My fingers were blue. My lips were cracked. I'd lost one boot somewhere in the current.

But I was alive.

I found cabin as the moon rose Half-buried in vines and dead leaves. Windows shattered. Door hanging off its hinges. I pushed it open, collapsed inside, and lay there on the dirt floor, staring at the ceiling, waiting for my heart to stop pounding.

My body was still buzzing. From the cold. From the fear. From the memory of Rylan's grey eyes staring through me like I was nothing.

I thought about his hands on my body. His mouth on my throat. The way he said my name when he was inside me … soft, almost reverent, like I was something precious.

But I wasn't precious. I was garbage. He told me so himself.

“Fuck,” I whispered into the dark.

My hand slid down my stomach. Pushed past the waistband of my pants. Found the wet heat between my legs.

I was soaking. My body didn't care that he hated me. My body remembered.

I closed my eyes and thought about him. The weight of him on top of me. The stretch of him inside me. The way he'd grab my hips and fuck me so hard I'd see stars. The way he'd growl my name when he came, like I was the only woman in the world.

My fingers circled my clit … slow at first, then faster. I spread my legs wider, giving myself room, pushing two fingers inside while my thumb worked my clit. I was loud. I didn't care. There was no one to hear me.

I thought about his mouth on my nipples, sucking, biting. I thought about his hands around my throat, not hard enough to choke, just enough to remind me who was in charge. I thought about the way he'd look at me after, his grey eyes soft, his thumb wiping sweat from my temple.

“Rylan,” I moaned. “Fuck, Rylan.”