Page 78 of Cursed to Be Mine
Clenching my fists, I force my feet to stop. Maisn’tgoing to keep ruining my life from beyond the grave. Ineedto know what Derek knows. Train how he does. I won’t survive otherwise, and to hell if I’m going to end up like her in any way.
Preparing myself for him wanting to teach me how to control drones for an airstrike or something of that severe magnitude, I blink in confusion when he stands with a mere stack of notebooks in his hands.
“Read these,” he says, shoving the pile into my arms.
I look down at the one on top.Werewolvesis scrawled across its cover. I flip it open and am met with an image of a wolf halfway through its transformation, its face twisted in pain as it rips human flesh off a chest of fur.
Best time to strike – a shift is painful, and their new senses overwhelm them for the first few minutes. They are stronger than humans in their human form, and once they change, you are dead. Kill now when they are unable to defend themselves.Granted, you are unlikely to ever witness a change.
I look up. “How long have you known about all this?”
There are over a dozen notebooks in my arms.
He doesn’t answer my question as he turns for the hall. “If you think of anything to add to them after what you saw last night, tell me.”
He waits at the door, clearly expecting me to vacate the room, and I hurry out. I breathe better in the hall. He shuts and locks the door.
“There’s a partly filled notebook at the bottom of the stack. Rip out a piece of paper and write down a list to discuss with me in the morning. We’re up at six.”
Walking off, he disappears through another door and shuts it firmly behind him.
Clearly, he’s not the talking type.
Despite it being barely past lunch time, I head towards the spare bedroom he showed me upon arrival. I was not comfortable with sitting in the living room in Ma’s house when she was home; in Derek’s, the thought of doing so makes me nauseous. I pass Daniel’s room to get to mine, and my eyes linger on the closed door with a mixture of anger and guilt for hating him in his own father’s home.
Tearing my eyes away, I enter my new room, kick the door shut, and put the books down on the bedside table. Rearranging the pillows, I lean against the headboard and go through the stack, picking out the ones about wolves, as well as the half-filled one to make my notes. Flipping to a blank page, I realize I don’t have anything to write with. I pull open the drawer in the table. No pen.
My eyes go to the closed door.
I chew my lip.
Ma is dead, but years of hiding keeps me contained where I am.
I’ll just remember all my questions and the things I need to tell him.
Removing the blank page from my lap, I pick up the notebook I opened earlier.
My brain floods with the sight of the man on thehood of Henry’s van.“Let’s have a little fun, shall we?”
My fingers tighten on the notebook. I raise a hand to the wound he gave me. The smell of rancid breath mixed with the copper tang of blood makes me shiver. I can feel his breath across my face, the damp wetness and flecks of red spray.
My pulse screams inside my ears.
And then there’s a sudden calm pushing through me.
It’s almost as if Khalid is here with me, helping me breathe, helping me weather the storm of my trauma. I can feel his hands on me, closing over my fists.
“You’ll never be alone,kira. I’m here.”
I hold on to the image of him, of the promise in his eyes, letting him wash away the fear of the wolf.
When my breathing settles, I close my eyes briefly, then force my hands to open the book. The picture of the wolf tearing off his skin mocks me for my cowardice. My hands shake, but the fear stays containable, and I flip the page.
A werewolf is fucking fast. Don’t bother outrunning. Stand and shoot. Aim for head and chest. Will bleed out like a human or any other animal. Has innate healing, and can regrow limbs, but it takes time. Shoot it enough times, and it will die.
As the passage goes into more specifics about the time it takes for them to heal from various types of wounds, a horrible knot twists my stomach. My blood drains from my face with every new word, and I know they have captured and tested.Dissected or vivisected?
The question makes me shudder, and I flip to a new section.
