Page 44 of Bred Mate
“Getting in and out of here alive is going to be the hardest thing,” Gray says, as I wade straight into the waters. “Careful! An alligator can take down a wolf.”
“That’s what the gun is for,” I remind him.
“We don’t want to have to shoot.”
We don’t have to shoot. The wildlife leaves us alone, and as it turns out there’s no need to be concerned about making toomuch noise. Though she could probably hear an irregular ripple of the river if she was concentrating on it. Ellie isn’t paying attention to what is going on outside the cabin. She is entirely focused on her captive.
“Sorry, Patrick,” she’s saying. “You’re the one who thought he could hit me in the face multiple times. You’re the one who thought he had the right to take me like I was some kind of living doll, just an inanimate thing that happened to have lungs. This is what happens to horrible men who treat women badly. They die in the swamp, Patrick. They die in the fucking swamp.”
“Jesus,” Gray breathes.
I grin. Never been so proud of her.
“Are we rescuing her? Or saving him?” Gray mutters.
“He’s not being saved,” I tell him. “He’s not leaving this place alive.”
“It’s going to be straight up murder if he dies,” Gray says. “He’s pathetic.”
“Oh, no. Murder. Anyway…” I reply.
Inside the cabin, the argument continues.
“Please let me go. I’ll get my father to give you what you want. I’ll get him to give you a whole fucking state!”
“See, I don’t think he will. I think if he was going to give into my demands, I’d already have it. I think your daddy has abandoned you. I think you’re going to die here.”
“Then why don’t you just kill me?”
“Because I don’t feel like it right now. You don’t get to decide when you die, just like I wasn’t going to get a choice in when I got married.”
She’s making his life miserable, and I can’t blame her for it.
“Please. I wasn’t going to hurt you… ow!”
I hear him grunt. She just hit him pretty damn hard.
“You almost knocked me out,” she says. “You forgot that?”
I’ve heard enough.
I come through the window in a shower of glass, grab Rainer’s son’s skull, and snap his useless fucking neck. The sound of his spine giving way is muted, just like the rest of him. He dies like the pointless creature he always was. Gray was wrong. Killing Patrick didn’t feel like murder. It felt like taking out the trash.
“I wasn’t done playing with him!” Ellie complains, her tone whiny.
She’s not exactly a damsel in distress, and hardly grateful for being saved.
I turn toward her, trying to keep my tempter in check. I had started to think I wasn’t going to get to see my mate ever again. I thought I might have lost my chance to have her in this lifetime. The sheer relief I feel is eclipsed by the anger running through me. She was here, amusing herself. She wasn’t thinking about me at all. She didn’t seem to notice I would even have feelings about her disappearance. Like the little predator she is, all she cared about was her prey.
Ellie
He looks mad.
Why does he look mad?
“Do you know how worried I’ve been about you?” He snarls the words. Out of anybody else’s mouth they might sound sort of whiny and maybe needy. Out of his, they sound like a condemnation that makes all the skin on the back of my neck prickle and my body flush with heat and guilt.
“You shouldn’t have worried. There was no need. I’m fine.”
