Page 88 of Bitten

Chapter Eleven

Where all hell breaks loose…

Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub…

Kane’s eyes popped open. The need to feed screamed within. The bloodlust hit him. Hard. Reaching for his neck, he didn’t feel the amulet. A bit of chain lay against his chest. Lifting it, he saw it was broken, the amulet gone.

He jumped from the bed, throwing the pillows and sheets about. He woke Caelian.

Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub…

The sound of the man’s beating heart nearly made him drag Caelian closer and indulge the desire. “Where is it?” he screamed.

Caelian slowly woke up, rubbing his eyes. “What?”

“Where is it?” he screamed again, dragging the elf from the spot he slept. “Did you take it from me?”

Caelian’s eyes went wide. “Kane… let me explain…”

Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub…

Kane didn’t give him another second.

He sank his teeth into Caelian’s neck and drank.

And drank.

He slid down to the bed, suckling the precious blood. And the memories. Cannon. Cannon had his amulet.

Kane leapt from the bed without sealing Caelian’s wound and ripped the door off its hinges. With one swift jump, he had Cannon by the throat and up against the wall, crushing the drywall behind him.

“You have what is mine!” he said through clenched teeth

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Cannon screamed, clawing at Kane’s hands.

Kane squeezed Cannon’s throat with both hands, watching as the shifter’s face turned blood red. But Cannon’s shift began to take over, twisting his body into that of a big cat. Kane let his fangs and claws descend and sank his fingers deeper into the cat’s neck.

One furred paw came out to swipe him with enough force to separate their hold, but he was up and back on the shifter in no time. His time with the King’s Guard had taught him a thing or two. Where the weak spots were. Reaching between the points where there was no armor, he attacked before ripping some of the armor off.

And once unprotected, Kane attacked.

He beat Cannon senseless, punch after punch. He could feel the bones breaking. Once Cannon was so hurt that he shifted back into human form involuntarily, Kane continued, unable to stop the violence in his veins.

“Kane!” Caelian screamed behind him.

Kane’s head spun—and for a fraction of a second, he felt something—but the emotion drained from him. Hissing at Caelian, he then turned back and saw Cannon as a heap at his feet. Blood was everywhere, the scent of it making him hornier than he could ever recall.

The thought of taking Caelian right there in the hallway in the pool of Cannon’s blood got him hard as stone. But then he saw the heads staring out of the other rooms in the hotel. Watching him, fear in their eyes.

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.

He pulled the silver stake from his back pocket before kneeling to lift Cannon. With one swing of the wrist, he staked the guard’s shoulder to the wall. A roar came from Cannon’s lips before his head fell forward, his whole body going limp.

Kane searched Cannon’s pockets until he found what was stolen from him.

As he held it up to look, he felt the weakness come over him.

The weakness of the Halfling he’d been. It drew the bloodlust from him, keeping him in that limbo he’d been stuck within.

---