Page 6 of Fated to Him

How can that be possible?

You’re seeing things, Delilah. It’s all in your head.

The wolf rises on its hind legs and keeps rising, its fur melting away as tanned, muscled skin takes its place.

And then suddenly, Malakhi is standing naked in front of me.

Am I suffering from blood loss? Is this real?

I realize I should have started screaming at least a minute ago. When I open my mouth, the only sound to emerge is a gasp of pain. My hands are so slick with blood that I couldn’t pull the dagger from my belly even if I wanted to. That doesn’t stop me from trying as the sound of my heartbeat fills my head.

Thump-thump-thump.

Thump…thump…thump.

My hands slip off the knife and flop to the blood-soaked ground.

Thump.

Malakhi’s jaw hardens as he trains his gray-green eyes on my belly.

I blink, and he’s reaching for me as the shadows I tried so hard to blink away suck me under.

“Delilah?”

The male voice comes from beside me. Deep and authoritative. Familiar.

Close.

Far closer than I’d ever let a man get to me.

I wrench myself upward, my eyes flying open. I take a second to absorb the dark wood cabin with sunlight streaming through one window, the sage green sheets covering my lap, and the man sitting beside me.

Malakhi Gabriel is dressed in a navy t-shirt and black sweatpants as he perches on the edge of a wooden dining chair with a deeply furrowed brow. Almost as if he were worried.

About me.

That can’t be right.

I’m in a bed I don’t recognize, and he’s on a wooden chair that doesn’t look strong enough to support his bulky size.

It all comes back. The knife. Jerry. The pain.

The wolf.

He uncrosses his powerful arms from his chest and stretches his large, tanned hand toward me. “How are?—”

I throw myself away from him.

My legs don’t want to work.

Or maybe it’s less about my legs not wanting to work and more about the fact I get them tangled in the sheets.

I smack to the ground, my palms slapping against the hardwood floor, but I don’t let that stop me. I’ll crawl out of here to escape what I think I saw in the alley. Wolves don’t turn into men. Werewolves don’t exist.

I don’t come close to making it to the closed dark wood door.

Insanely powerful hands grip me by my right arm, turn me, and nudge my back to the wall beside the bed.

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