Page 45 of Isabel and the Werewolf Beast

Which meant Asher wouldn’t be able to join me on the hunt. If he was still around that was.

“Hurry then.”

“Wait,” I said. “Silas’s trail starts here at the edge of the forest.”

“You were serious about his scent?”

“Deadly.”

“Fine. Sit. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes with your dinner.”

“I’m not a dog,” I called after him, but he’d dashed into the forest so fast, his form disappeared between the trees.

Damn Maximus as I sat on the ground only because my legs were weak from lack of food and sitting in the cavern for so many days, not because he’d told me to. It was more than that though. My heart ached in a way I’d never experienced before knowing Isabel.

Maximus returned and dropped a dead rat in my lap.

I growled.

He laughed and dropped a large hare from his other hand. I flung the rat into the undergrowth. As hungry as I was, I wouldn’t lower myself to eating vermin, especiallywith this arrogant vampire watching me. I stretched around me and stacked sticks in a pile.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m making a fire to cook the rabbit.”

“You’re not eating it raw?”

“No.” I sneered. “Stop treating me like a dog.”

Maximus lounged against a tree and watched me with a new fascination. I didn’t like his intense gaze, but I set to work skinning the hare and lighting the fire.

“We’d save more time if you ate it raw.”

“I’m not an animal.”

No matter how many times I’d thought that myself since becoming a werewolf.

“So, you plan to eat its guts and all since you haven’t gutted it?”

I held my hand up. “I don’t have a knife, do you?”

“Why wouldn’t you use your claws?”

“I can’t shift unless it’s under a full moon.”

“You’re joking?” He shook his too-handsome head. “You’re not though, are you? Your pack didn’t teach you?”

“I don’t have a pack. Only a brother.”

“You’re a curious werewolf.” Maximus stepped closer and picked up the rabbit. He slid a knife from under the sleeve of his shirt and with one quick slice, he gutted the rabbit, grasped inside and yanked the innards free, and threw them into the forest to rot with the dead rat.

“That’s what Isabel said.”

Maximus placed the hare over the fire and spun the stick. He stared at the spinning carcass for a long time not saying a word. The scent of cooking meat filled the air and made my stomach twist in pain. My mouth watered. I longed to lunge across the short distance and devour the entire hare in one bite.

“Here.” Maximus held the hare out to me.

I took his offering and ripped a leg from the hare. The meat broke away with ease. I placed it to my mouth and let out a groan of approval. Before I knew it, I’d devoured the hare until there were only bones left.

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