“I know.” He tossed her an evil smile. “That’s why I like doing it so much. Any other female in my pack would revel in the attention, but not you. When I fuck you, you’ll make it a challenge for me. You’ll scream. You’ll get me off because you’ll fight it. I’m going to take you out so we can say the courting is done. Buy you a fucking hamburger or something, get through technicalities, and then I will call a Pack meeting tomorrow. I will announce my choice in alpha female. You don’t belong to Roman, or to anyone else, Mila.” He flashed her a fiery glance. “I own you. You’re my bitch, you understand?”
“I don’t want to be alpha female,” she forced past her tightening vocal chords. “You don’t own—”
“Bullshit, I don’t!” he yelled, slamming his fist against the steering wheel. He was driving too fast, scaring her even more. “Since the day you pledged to me, I knew I would have you.”
“But you sleep with Amanda and Ashley.”
“And I’ll continue sleeping with them. It’s in my nature. But if you so much as glance at Roman Striker ever again, I’ll kill you both, and I’ll be brutal about it. I don’t share well.”
“No.”
Rhett slammed on the brakes and skidded his truck sideways, right on the edge of town. “What did you just say?”
Mila pressed her body against the door and wished she could move enough to roll down the window, just to give herself some relief from his anger and his dominance. Just so she could breath and clear her head enough to be strong. “I said no,” she whispered. “I don’t want you. I don’t want alpha female.”
Rhett blasted a furious laugh. “Mila, your first mistake is in thinking I give a shit what you want. Your wants don’t count, Chicken.”
She shook her head hard, pissed he was using Roman’s nickname to hurt her. She hated Rhett. Always had, always would.
“You’ll sit on the throne I give you, and you’ll spread your legs when I demand it, give me the pups I want, and you’ll be at my back as I bring this town around to our ways.” He stomped his boot on the floorboard hard and yelled, “Am I fucking clear, Mila?”
A honk sounded. Someone in a black Mazda was trying to get Rhett’s attention from his side of the truck. He sighed a snarl and then plastered on a smile before rolling down the window.
This was her chance. Mila shoved open the door. Rhett’s hand went immediately to her sleeve, but she wrenched her arm away from him. Riiiip. He was left with shredded fabric and her jacket and purse as Mila bolted from his truck.
“Mila!” he yelled.
She plugged her ears, hoping to hell that would help as she bolted for the snowy tree line. Please don’t give a command to go back to him! If he did, her wolf would betray her. She always did.
Mila sprinted into the trees, her boots crunching in the ankle-deep snow, her breath heaving in her chest, the frozen fog blurring her vision. Limbs whipped at her face and arms as she ran. Inside of her, the wolf writhed and scratched to escape her skin. Mila couldn’t allow it. She would go back to him. She would go back to the pack. She would go back thinking she was safe with their alpha, but her wolf had never understood safety.
Subservience had cast a fog over her instincts, and now she walked a fine line between life and death.
Her tears were cold on her cheeks. Through the woods, movement flashed. Gray fur. God, Rhett was hunting her. A sob wrenched from her as she pushed her legs harder. Don’t Change. Not even if he howls. Not even if he calls you.
The inky tendrils of black magic wafted over her skin in the same second all the whispering started. No, no, no. Something bad must’ve happened in these woods, but Mila couldn’t stop running or Rhett would catch her. Catch her like a bunny. Like prey. She didn’t want to be prey anymore.
Movement flashed on her other side. It was a charcoal gray wolf, one of the biggest she’d ever seen. Gentry. In front of her, a monster pitch-black wolf bolted through the trees. Pumping her legs, she checked her right side again, but the gray fur didn’t belong to Rhett. It was Roman’s wolf. Gray and brown with lighter points. Massive. Monster. Gold eyes, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking straight ahead. Not hunting her. Running with her.
Wait…she’d done this before.
Mila skidded to a stop in the snow. Her hands flickered to mottled gray wolf paws, then back and forth again. Chugging breath, she looked up at the circling Striker brothers. Friends. But Asher started melting away, not disappearing, but his skin liquefied and slid onto the snow in strips. He looked like a zombie wolf for a moment before he fell into a pile of bones. Gentry did the same. “No!” she screamed as Roman sat in the snow right next to her. He trapped her in his gaze before his skin, too, began to melt away. Mila fell to her knees as he turned into a pile of nothing. Behind him, the same color as Roman’s bones, the White Wolf of Winter’s Edge stood, staring at Mila with glowing green eyes.
You still have me. Still have me. Me. You have me. The words tumbled over and over in Mila’s head. She grabbed her hair and shook herself hard. This wasn’t real. Wake up!
The stink of black magic made her retch in the snow, but when she looked up again, the white wolf was gone, and Blaire sat there on her knees instead.
“Mila?” she asked, wiping her bloody nose.
“What’s happening?”
Blaire shook her head and let off a frightened sound in her throat. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know how I got here. My wolf won’t come out. Mila, I’m scared.”