Filed to story: My Kidnapper Is the Wolf King
Slowly, he turns around.
He’s covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and a couple of dark strands of hair stick to his forehead. There are scars on his torso, too, but my gaze is held by the strange look on his face.
I step back, my hand reaching for the knife in my pocket. “Blake. . . I. . . I thought you were. . . Why aren’t you. . .? What are you doing?”
His nostrils flare.
He breathes in then sighs, his head tilting back. The tension in his muscles dissipates. “Fuck it.”
When he meets my gaze again, the wolf is in his eyes.
A cold smile spreads across his face.
“Run,” he says.
Chapter Thirty
Run.
Although my heartbeat skitters in my chest, I turn to stone. My feet grow roots and I cannot move. I can only stare in horror, unblinking, at Blake.
The ghostly glow from the full moon reflects off his damp skin. He stalks toward me.
“Run.” His voice is different-low, and raspy.
The air is charged. It feels like lightning is about to strike.
And then he changes.
It only takes a few seconds, but every bone in his body breaks and shifts.
And what is left in his place. . .
Time stops.
He is as large as a wild bear. His fur is black, making him at one with the shadows. His eyes, amber, glow in the darkness. He bares his teeth and growls. Adrenaline surges through my body, cracking the stone and uprooting my feet.
Run,
my brain screams.
Just as the beast leaps, I turn.
I bolt out of the room.
I knock my shoulder against the door frame as I escape, veering into the opposite stone wall, then stumbling into the center of the corridor.
There’s a crash behind me. A gnashing of teeth.
My feet pound against the stone floor, propelling me forward. I do not know where I’m going. The night is dark. The corridors and stairways unfamiliar. Again, I am alone in a labyrinth of stone and shadow, and the beast is getting closer.
One word repeats in my mind, over and over again, as the sound of my heartbeat rages in my ears.
Run. Run. Run.
His claws scrape and clack against the flagstones. There’s a smash as he barges into a wall, knocking an unlit sconce from its holder. His growl vibrates through my chest.
Faster. Faster. Faster.
I reach a stairway.
The wolf crashes in front of me, skidding over the stone. I change course, and he blocks me again with his teeth bared. His heat swamps me as I veer in the opposite direction.
He is leading me further into the maze, herding me like the dogs on the farms do with the sheep before they are slaughtered.
Goddess, help me.
The walls close in as I sprint past them. My hair sticks to my face, and my body is drenched in sweat. My cloak constricts me. The air is hot. Claustrophobic.
I need to get out of here. I need to feel the wind, and taste the mountains. I need the freshness of the rain to touch my face, and I need to see the infinite sky-even if it is not my goddess that lights it tonight.
I don’t want to be herded into my own tomb.
I will not die tonight.
Something inside me screams.
Fight. Fight. Fight.
I hurl the silver letter opener over my shoulder. I don’t wait to see if I hit my target, though he is so big, surely I cannot miss. A crash, then an aggressive growl, fills my ears. I don’t pause. I wrench a large oil painting off the wall as I pass, partially blocking the path.
Ahead, there is the stairway that Callum carried me up when I arrived at the castle.
I almost fall in my haste to get down it, regaining my balance only when I reach the bottom. Then I’m in the entrance hall, and the wolf is behind me-but the doors are open and the night is ahead.
The wind rattles the walls, and it speaks to me.
Come. Come. Come.
My muscles screaming, I hurtle out into the deserted courtyard, then beyond the castle walls into the open wilderness.
The air has never tasted so fresh, and yet I am not safe. Not yet.
Heavy paws stir the wet earth behind me, and a growl is carried on the wind.
On one side of me is the loch, silver in the light of the moon. On the other, there is nothing but open space and the steep incline of the hill that Callum and I rode down when we arrived here.
I run in the other direction, past the castle and toward the thousands of evergreen trees whispering to me.
Hide. Hide. Hide.
The wind blows my hair from my face.
The air shifts as I enter the forest. It gets damper and darker. The smell of bark and heather floods my senses. Pine needles and twigs crunch beneath my boots.
A crash resounds behind me as the wolf-as
Blake-
leaps into one of the trees, using it to propel him into my path.
I change course, weaving through the tall trunks, barely feeling the branches that scratch my face.
And I’m aware he is herding me again. He keeps jumping in front of me, teeth gnashing, as he dismembers trees and scatters the undergrowth. I keep having to change course, desperate to escape his fierce jaws.
He knows this forest. He knows something I do not.