Page 4 of Predator

I could deal with being trapped in a secluded small town with no television, no phones, and no internet.

Witches are real? Cool.

Witches are murderous? Not cool.

Beasts want to either eat me—or fuck me? Yeah, that was really not cool… until I realized that the feral beast in the woods was really the glowering, dark-haired huntsman who saved my ass in the first place. Then, yup, I did fuck him.

And now I’m… what?

I don’t know, but whatever happened after I bonded myself to Lucas in the woods, it finally broke me.

The pack knows it, too. They must because my cage… I know this place. I know this room. I didn’t recognize it at first. No one warns you that, going feral, isn’t just turning into the beast like Lucas did. I never twisted into some half-form creature with a mouthful of fangs and patchy fur. Nope. I’ve been a wolf for days upon days now, but it wasn’t my body that broke.

It was my brain.

Something is different about today. Instead of alternating between dreams where I was sitting at a keyboard, mindlessly clicking away at the keys, or talking on the phone with Lorelei Lipton and wearing a peach chiffon dress, no shoes, sliding in the rain before the wolf attacked… instead of going back and forth between wondering if I really am Fallon or simply Jolie reborn, I fluttered my eyes open with the certainty that my name is Fallon Witt, I’m in a cage, and though I try to make him understand how sorry I am, Lucas won’t let me out.

He’s here. He’s always been here. From the moment I first discovered I was a caged wolf, Lucas has prowled the room, talking to me when the quiet got too much though I couldn’t understand him.

I know him, though. In his two-legged form, wearing a black shirt, black jeans, and an uncharacteristic black scarf wrapped around his thick throat, today I don’t see him and think of him as a threat I need to bite.

I’ve had moments of clarity before. Moments of lucidity when I remember exactly who I am and what I’ve done. I even can understand it when he calls me by one name, then another, hoping for any kind of reaction. Then, when he gets them, he pleads with me, only to look sad when I lost my grip on my sanity and growl at him some more.

But today. Today he is my mate, and I wait for him to approach the cage as he’s insistently done every time he notices I wake up from another nightmare.

Crouching low, he puts his fingers through the holes in the cage, offering them to me.

A rush of shame runs through me. I have a memory of my jaws snapping, trying to bite them off because he got too close. And though I’m sure I must’ve done that once—if not plenty of times—since he’s brought me here with him, there’s no fear or trepidation in his scent as he gives me his fingers again.

I have no desire to bite him. Instead, I let out a whine in the back of my throat as I tiptoe toward his outstretched fingers.

I prod them with my snout, taking in Lucas’s scent as my wet nose bumps against his warm fingertips. The first time he touched my fur, I growled at him. The second, I drew blood. Somewhere around the fifth time is when I snapped… but now? I preen as Lucas rubs my muzzle before dipping beneath my chin, giving it a comforting scratch.

I want to touch him. I want to hold him. He’s my mate—no matter who I am, I know that Lucas Guidry is mine—and I want to launch myself at this male, wrap my human arms around him, and never let him go.

But I can’t. I’m a wolf, and no matter how he cajoles, begs, and even uses his alpha nature against me, I haven’t figured out how to go back to being a human woman again.

Is it a mental block? It has to be. How the hell can I go back to being twenty-five-year-old human Fallon when every time I look down, I see golden paws and remember that I’m not?

He takes heart in the fact that I’m nuzzling his palm. But when he tries again to explain how exactly I’m supposed to switch shapes once more and I all I can do is whimper softly, he takes a deep breath.

His features sharpen as his cheeks hollow. Frustration roils off of him, but he pulls it back easily.

The Alpha is in full control, and I swivel my head, showing my throat, submitting to him.

Lucas blows a rush of air through his nose. “Fallon?”

My ears twitch in response. I’m Fallon, but I’m broken, and all I need right now is him.

I don’t know how he can tell that it’s me again. That I yearn for my mate, no matter what shape I’m in, and that I’d do anything for him—if I could.

He nods. “Very well. If you can’t change back for me, then I’ll shift for you.”

I scrabble against the floor of my cage, watching him closely as he rises to his feet.

My mate strips off his shirt, careful to leave the black scarf tied around his thick throat. He doesn’t have any shoes on since we’re at the pack house, the two of us together in the fancy piano room that means so much to us both. He makes quick work of his jeans, though, the material landing with a thump on the floor beside his shirt.

The moment he’s naked, he bows his back, bracing his hands in front of him as he drops to the floor. The shift takes over mid-fall, the scarf he wore when he was still human fluttering beneath his oversized paw as the massive black wolf hits the ground.

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