Lahat ng Kabanata ng BONE & BITE A Primal Shifter Romance: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 8

The rain in Eldridge Hollow didn’t wash things clean; it just made the rot slicker.I stood on the corner of Main and Ash, the water drumming a relentless, erratic rhythm against the hood of my jacket. It was a cold rain, the kind that didn’t just soak your clothes but seeped into the marrow of your bones, seeking out the heat of your life to extinguish it. The fractured moonlight struggled to pierce the heavy, bruising clouds overhead, casting the street in a palette of greys and sickly silvers. Below, the cracked pavement gleamed like a shattered mirror, turning the puddles into mosaics of shadow and neon reflection.I, Lila Voss, had come to this forgotten stain of a town on a map because I thought I could outrun a ghost. Not a literal one—though looking at the skeletal remains of the storefronts lining the street, I wouldn’t be surprised if this town had plenty of those, too. No, I was running from the ghost of who I used to be. The city had been a cage, a suffocating construct of

The taste of dirt was the first thing I learned in the pack. It was gritty, bitter, and tasted faintly of iron—likely because my lip was split again.I hit the ground hard, the impact knocking the air from my lungs in a wheezing gasp. Above me, the canopy of the forest spun in a dizzying kaleidoscope of green and gold, sunlight filtering through the leaves to mock my defeat."Dead," Elara stated, her voice devoid of sympathy.She stood over me, blotting out the sun. Her chest heaved slightly, a sheen of sweat glistening on her pale skin, but she looked like she’d barely exerted herself. I, on the other hand, felt like I’d been put through a meat grinder.I groaned, rolling onto my side and spitting a glob of bloody saliva into the moss. "I tripped.""You hesitated," Elara corrected, extending a hand. Her grip was iron-hard as she hauled me to my feet. "Thorne’s wolves won’t wait for you to find your footing. They’ll rip your throat out while you’re thinking about which foot to move."

The silence of the forest after a slaughter is heavy. It doesn't feel peaceful; it feels like the world is holding its breath, waiting for the earth to swallow the violence we fed it.I stepped out of the grotto, the water sluicing off my skin in rivets that turned cold the moment they hit the night air. The steam rising from the hot spring clung to the weeping willows like a phantom mist, a soft, ethereal curtain that separated the intimacy of the last hour from the brutality waiting for us in the ravine.My body felt strange—a patchwork of contradictions.My skin was raw, scrubbed clean of the mud and gore by Jax’s rough hands and the moss, yet beneath the surface, a deep, bone-deep ache was blooming. The adrenaline that had fueled my leap onto Thorne’s back and the subsequent, frantic coupling in the water was receding like a tide, leaving the wreckage exposed. My ribs throbbed in a jagged rhythm where Thorne’s skull had collided with my chest. My side burned where the beta’s claws

" I said, turning to face him, grabbing the lapels of his shirt, "ten more come. Then the state police. Then the helicopters. You can't fight the human world, Jax. It doesn't bleed like a wolf. It swarms."Jax stared at me, his amber eyes slit-thin. The beast in him was close to the surface, fueled by the lingering hormones of our mating. He wanted to protect his pregnant mate. He wanted to tear the throat out of anything that threatened his legacy."They are on my land," he snarled."They are looking for a missing girl," I countered, keeping my voice steady despite the trembling in my hands. "They found my backpack in the alley. The blood. They think I'm dead, or hurt. If they don't find me, they won't stop looking.""So what?" Elara stepped forward, a bone knife in her hand. "Let them look. The forest is deep.""They have dogs, Elara," I snapped. "They have drones with thermal cameras. They will find the vents. They will find the den." I looked around the circle of faces—my pack. "I