Page 5 of Short, Lethal & Claimed

“They’ll find you,” the demon explained while they dragged her into the tunnel as she struggled to break free.

“Who? I don’t understand why you’re doing this! I didn’t do anything wrong!” Jill snapped as she tried to pull free only to have them tighten their hold on her.

“It doesn’t matter,” the shifter said as they rounded the corner and she forgot how to breathe when she spotted the steel door at the end of the tunnel.

“It’s for your own good,” the demon said, repeating the words that had sealed her fate.

She opened her mouth to beg them to call her father, but…

He’d turned his back on her.

That was fine because she didn’t need anyone. More importantly, she didn’t want to need anyone. She was sick and tired of everyone that she cared about treating her like she was a second thought and she knew that a big part of that was because she was human. She didn’t belong in this world and that was more than fine with her because she didn’t want to belong.

She didn’t want to live forever with all those things that she wanted to forget haunting her every waking moment and tormenting her every time she closed her eyes. She didn’t want to remember all those times that Candy broke her heart when she was little, the things that Candy let happen to her, made her do, or the things that she’d forced herself to do to keep her little brother safe.

She just wanted to forget that Jill Williams ever existed.

She wanted a new life where she wasn’t constantly reminded of her mistakes, where she wasn’t in the way or treated like she was just one more responsibility. She wanted to go somewhere where no one knew who she was. She wanted to live a normal, boring life in a boring town and marry a good man, have children, grow old, and pass away in her sleep, but that was never going to happen if she let them put her on that plane.

As soon as they opened that door, she was going to make a run for it. She was going to do whatever it took to get away from them and then she was going to run, and she was never looking back. She was going to get the hell out of here, away from this compound and everything in this world and she was going to do whatever it took to get that perfectly average life that she’d always dreamed of, Jill promised herself as the door was shoved open.

In seconds, Jill found herself outside with the sun beating down on her and the sounds of the city surrounding her. Slowly exhaling, she raised her foot, moving to take out the shifter’s instep like her brother showed her only to stumble when her legs suddenly gave out. Trying to make sense of what was happening, Jill watched the man that she’d never seen before glare at her through cold grey eyes as her knees hit the unforgiving pavement and her mind registered the sound of a gunshot.

Numbly, Jill looked down, barely aware of the demon and shifter cursing as they reached for her. A weak groan left her as they pulled her back to her feet. Her head dropped forward as she watched in fascinated horror as a red stain appeared on her shirt seconds before it spread across her stomach and-

“Oh, god,” Jill mumbled weakly as everything went black.

A slight jostle had her struggling to open her eyes as she felt herself being pulled into a pair of strong arms as the scent of something burning teased her nose and found herself looking into a pair of silver eyes, blistered skin marring an incredibly handsome face covered in cuts and bruises as smoke rose off his skin and-

“We’re not done yet, Angel,” came the softly spoken words as she felt Logan press his wrist against her lips seconds before warm liquid streamed down her chin. She opened her mouth to scream only to have Logan take advantage and press his wrist tightly against her mouth, ensuring that she didn’t miss a single drop as everything around her slowly faded away.

CHAPTER 2

Williams Mansion

Upstate New York

“Your father’s going to kill me,” Madison said, unable to help but wince as she looked from the phone in her hand to the heavy boxes that took up the back of her SUV before she released a heartfelt sigh, knowing that it just couldn’t be helped.

“Then again…” Madison said as she glanced back at her phone. “He’s probably going to kill me when he finds out that there’s been a change of plans,” she said as she glanced from the video that she was making for Jill to the large mansion where her husband was currently packing for the trip that she was planning on taking over.

She was done waiting for everyone to figure out how to save Jill.

She wanted to see Jill and pull her into her arms and tell her how sorry she was. She just…

She just wanted her little girl back.

Which meant that she was going to have to figure out how she was going to convince her extremely overprotective mate to let her go instead. He probably wasn’t going to go for this plan, which meant…

“I’m going to have to hobble him,” Madison said in a conspiratorial whisper with a teasing smile for her phone as she tried to mentally prepare herself for the battle ahead. “Hopefully, I’ll see you soon, but if I can’t convince your father to let me go instead, just know that I miss you, Jill. I love you so much and I can’t wait to see you,” she said with a warm smile that started to slip at the end as she forced herself to say goodbye before she reluctantly hit stop.

“Please let this work,” Madison said, slowly exhaling as she sent the video to the Sentinel phone that they’d set up so that they could fill it with texts, voicemails, emails, and videos for Jill whenever they missed her, which was every single minute of the day.

Jill was going to have thousands of text messages and videos to go through, Madison thought, knowing that it would never make up for everything. They just wanted to keep Jill safe and she-

Kept screwing this up.

Then again, that was nothing new, Madison thought with a sad smile as she grabbed the box of baked goods that Grandma spent the last two days making for Jill. She never should have lost it like that, but when she saw that mark on Jill’s neck…

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