Page 44 of Heartless

I looked down at my poor, curling toes. “What is it?”

“You’re finally here, in our territory.”

What the hell did that mean? I tried to keep my hair from whipping me in the face. “Sorry,” I said through clenched teeth, “but it wasn’t worth the wait.”

He grunted, looking out at the frozen landscape. “This field, come June, is full of yellow flowers. You know what they’re called?” I shivered, too freaked out to do anything but shake my head. “Heart-shaped Leopardbane. Any time you see clumps of them, you know our kind are close by.”

“Okay, so let’s come back and check it out in the summer.”

Instead of releasing me, he turned me around by the shoulders. “We both know anything could happen by then.” That black sheen was creeping across his eyes, bleeding into the amber, and everything in me wanted to throw myself off that hill. Except for the cat under my skin. I sensed hostility as she stared back at Trey, but also interest. With her pushing up through my skin, my vision narrowed, like I was looking at him through the scope of a rifle. “Your wolf is weak, V. It’s never gonna be enough for the Clan. But your panther is a goddess on these lands. She deserves a say in what happens. You gotta give her a chance to find her place among her own kind.”

“You mean with you,” I blurted out, unable to hide my panic. Because it wasn’t just his intensity that was freaking me out. It was also the way my cat was preening at every goddamn terrifying word. “Don’t pretend like it’s my choice. You picked her, so she now has to pick you back, right?”

“That’s not how it has to be…”

“Explain something to me, Trey. If she wants this so much, why does she only appear when you force her out?” He didn’t answer, and I pressed harder. “That was you on the Frost Moon, right? I was up a tree, hiding from the Denners, but you looked right at me. I didn’t know panther shifters existed, so I thought I was changing into a wolf. But I wasn’t. The cat in me was coming out, because you forced her out.” My heart gave a sick thud as I realized what that meant. “You were the one who exposed me to Callum! You might have got those Denners off my back, but you gave him the ammunition to blackmail me into this.”

I thrust my wrist at him, the mating scar stark in the moonlight, and he grabbed my arm so tight, I felt the bones grind together. “He took what wasn’t his. You’re mine, Vail. And as soon as I replace his mark, he’s dead.”

My throbbing face said a dead Callum didn’t sound so bad, but not at the expense of another unwanted mate. Besides, if I got to him first, I had a much bigger score to settle with that lying asshole. “You already bit me, Trey. Why isn’t that enough?”

“Yeah, I bit you.” He scraped his fingers through his wild hair, grabbing a handful like he wanted to rip it out. “But that’s not enough. The bond isn’t complete until you bite me back.”

I stared at him in horror. “I won’t ever do that, Trey. I can’t.”

“You don’t know that. You gotta let your panther decide.” He stepped back and began stripping out of his clothes. I tried to turn away, but his words froze me on the spot. “Just let her out, macska. Do it, or I’ll make you.”

I tried to run. I hoped that counted for something, even though I knew it was pointless. He’d been hunting me a long time, just waiting for this chance. And if there was one thing Trey Barakat had taught me, it was that you couldn’t escape a predator who’d already tasted your blood.

Chapter Twenty-Three – Vail

The shift was a gasping, heart-thumping blur. I couldn’t tell what part was me fighting it, and what part was the wind. But it was over in an agonizing moment, and then I was heavier, stronger, and angry as hell.

I leaped at Trey.

He hadn’t changed. Something I only noticed as I barreled into him, my heavy front paws striking his chest.

Thud!

It felt good watching him go down, feeling the flinch of his muscles and the roll of the body. Had I been waiting a long time for this, too? To put the Devil of the Horn on his back?

As he grunted, digging his elbows into the icy ground, I pressed down harder, holding him still. Yes, this is what I wanted. To stand over him for a change. To be the one looking down with all the power and menace.

“What do you want, macska?” He asked, pushing back just enough to make me growl. “Show me what you want, and you can have it.”

Images flashed through my mind, igniting my cat’s senses. Running across the snow, hunger hot in my belly as I chased down a whitetail deer. Lounging on a tree branch, feeling fat and full and sleepy. Curled in a crevice, the heat of the midday sun baking into my bones. But mostly there was the heavy weight of Trey under me, solid and alive and waiting. I didn’t let her linger on that too long, forcing my face up into the path of the wind. I needed to clear my head, to remember who I was and where I needed to be…

But as I drew back, Trey shimmied under me, grabbing the end of my tail and giving it a pull.

My jaws snapped in his face, my claws flexing until there were bloody divots on his shoulders.

Trey hissed, but there was a look of such fierce satisfaction on his face, it made me hesitate. My cat chuffed, uncertain, and for my human side, the sight of those red spots on his old shirt was like a slap in the face. Too much like the claw marks on Jasper’s chest, they instantly threw up a barrier, separating me from my cat’s bloodlust.

I didn’t want this. I didn’t want him.

But before I could leap away, Trey grabbed me around the neck and held tight. He pressed his head hard against the sloping dome of my skull, his eyes a wild amber. “Stay with me, macska. Stay with me…” I squirmed, I thrashed, but Trey must have pulled a half-shift because I felt his own claws in the back of my neck. “This is your place, macska! Feel it! Know it! There is where you belong!”

I knew biting him was wrong. But I could smash him in the face with the heavy bones of my skull, and I did that with relish, chuffing as his nose burst, coating us in blood. His hands slid free, and I bounded away, but he swiped my tail again, pulling so tight I howled.

---