Page 108 of When Death Whispers

The only one standing here, covered in blood and shadows and guilt.

The dispatcher’s voice sharpens. “Sir, are you safe? Can you tell me where you are?”

I try to think. I try to breathe. But all I can do is hear Parker’s voice in my head—calling my name, gasping, reaching?—

And me? Too fucking slow.

My fingers dig into the counter, white-knuckled. “It’s the—” Shit. “The bakery. Donovan’s bakery. Two—two people are?—”

Dead.

I can’t say it.

I can’t fucking say it.

The dispatcher’s voice tightens. “Officers are on their way. Can you tell me what happened?”

“I—I don’t know,” I grit out, my whole fucking body vibrating, my vision blurring. “I don’t know, I?—”

A shift.

A ripple of wrongness slams through the room. The air grows thick, suffocating, laced with smoke and static. Fuck. Not now. Not?—

“You lost her.”

A voice. Low. Controlled.

But the rage behind it?

Lethal.

I whip around just as a figure steps out of the shadows, the dim light catching on his ink-black horns, his gaze burning a hole right through me.

Parker’s demon-beast.

His eyes rake over the scene—over the blood, the bodies, the disaster—and then back to me. And I know that look. It’s the same one I saw right before he sank his teeth into my throat.

It’s the look of a predator.

My pulse pounds, my fists clench, my skin prickling with heat. I don’t think. I just swing. But before my fist can even connect, his hand snaps up, catching it mid-air like it’s nothing.

His grip? Unbreakable.

I snarl, jerking back, but he doesn’t let go. Instead, he tilts his head, studying me like I’m a bug pinned beneath his claws.

The demon-wolf stills at the sound of the dispatcher’s voice. “Sir, who is there with you? Are you alright?”

“You think,” he murmurs, his voice almost amused, “that the human authorities can help?”

Before I can react, before I can even process, he crushes my phone in his hand.

Crack.

The screen shatters, glass raining to the floor in jagged pieces. And then he releases me, shoving me back like I’m nothing. I stumble, my breath heaving, rage coiling tight in my chest.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I snap, shoving him back, my palm slamming into his chest. It’s like hitting a fucking wall. The wolf doesn’t budge. He doesn’t blink. He simply stares at me, eyes flickering, heat rolling off of him in waves.

And then, quietly, dangerously?—

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