The Hunted (64 page)

His arms and legs began to grow, the bones shifting within them to allow for the transformation. His fingers and toes pushed through the end of his sneakers, disintegrated them with long black claws. The T-shirt he was wearing began to rip away from his body as he grew larger, the confines of the cotton no longer able to contain his growing form. I could hear and see the bones of his rib cage snapping and contorting painfully in his chest as the beast within released itself from the last of the flesh containing him.

Run, Elena!

This time I listened to the voice. I was not certain it wasn’t mine, but I followed the advice anyway. I swallowed hard and ran as fast as I could, ducking my way around him while his head was being warped by the beast inside of him. I had never seen anything like it, but I had no time to stop and observe. I needed to get out of there as fast as I could.

I ran through into the living room and past the bureau, backtracking momentarily to grab the car keys. The sound of ripping flesh and grunting was still coming from the kitchen. I shot through the front door in an instant, the darkness outside enveloping me completely.

Why hadn’t the sensor light come on?

I got my answer right away when my sneakers crushed the remainder of the light bulb. I didn’t have time to deliberate.

I ran for the Forester and fumbled around with the car keys until I found the right one, and shakily tried to push it into the lock. The darkness around me made it extremely difficult to see what I was doing, but on the second attempt I managed to get it in the keyhole. I quickly opened the door and got in. I was still inserting the keys into the ignition when the giant wolf appeared at the front door.

Shit!

He howled loudly before running full pelt at the car, slamming its body into my door, denting it heavily and pushing it into the cabin, the window fracturing and shattering into my lap.

I twisted the keys in the ignition, praying for the car to start as the beast rammed itself against the car for the second time. The sheer force of the impact lifted the entire driver’s side of the vehicle off the ground, only to crash heavily back onto the concrete driveway again, the rest of the windows shattering with the impact.

Where are all the neighbours? Usually Bob would have ducked his head over the fence by now. Can’t anybody hear this?

His howling pierced the night sky. I clasped my hands over my ears and tried to protect my face as the wolf sliced its talons through the car door, ripping it right off the hinges. He threw it high into the sky and it landed with a heavy crash on the timber fence, the posts splintering and tumbling to the ground like toothpicks.

I scrambled as quickly as I could over to the passenger seat, but the Vânâtor had taken hold of my ankle, his sharp claws pulling me roughly back the way I had come. My hands dragged through the shattered glass on the seat, spilling my blood all over the upholstery, as I looked for something to hold onto.

My bloodied fingers gripped onto the edge of what was left of the car door and hung on as long as I could. The wolf dislocated my shoulder as he pulled me out from inside of the cabin with enough force to fracture. I yelled out in pain and swore, letting go and grabbing at my injured shoulder. My body crashed heavily against the concrete driveway, the stone scraping the front of my knees as he continued to haul me as far away from the car as possible.

The wolf seized the opportunity to grab at me again, clawing at the skin of my lower legs, tearing away at my flesh. It bloody hurt, but I felt my body courageously trying to fix itself. My shoulder was already popping back into place and the skin of my legs was healing over again.

He grabbed at my legs again before I had a chance, digging his claws into the flesh below my knees and dragging me underneath him. I would have given anything to have my knife on me right now. His snout was matted with blood and sitting at a relatively odd angle thanks to me breaking his nose while in human form, and there were definitely some teeth missing—it didn’t appear to be slowing him down.

I began punching and kicking again, using any part of my body to land blows to the softer skin of his abdomen, stomach, and even his face and neck. He had figured me out by now. He knew that I could heal myself, he knew that my blood contained traces of both races, and knew what drinking it would do to me.

He sunk his sharp teeth into the flesh of my neck and began to drink the vital liquid that spilt forth from my now open veins.

I writhed underneath him, gripping at his snout and trying to wretch it open again, but with every mouthful of blood that he took, my strength waned. I could feel my grip on him slipping, my legs suddenly feeling very heavy as I struggled.

Where are you, Lucas? Are you okay? Did he get to you first? Please, let him be okay.

I slapped at his snout, effectively with the strength of a guinea pig, and made one last attempt to roll away. I failed. The Vânâtor was draining me of every last ounce of strength that I could muster, and even breathing felt difficult. My head clouded over, the blood loss too much for my system, and this time I didn’t have the same tasty offering in return. I was alone and lost in the dark and there was no one here to help me, not even myself.

My hands fell back down to my sides and my head lolled to the side. I wanted to fight, I wanted to kill, but I couldn’t.

Darkness folded me in its grasp, my eyes closing under the weight of my weariness. I felt light as a feather, weightless. There was wind here too in the afterlife, plenty of it. It rushed past my body, blowing backwards, a strange sensation in hindsight as my face was the last extremity to feel it. Maybe I really was dead this time?

I kept my eyes squeezed shut and let the darkness swamp me completely, blotting out the feel of the wind, the coldness of my skin, the weariness of my muscles and my thoughts. It was peaceful here, and I surrendered to it, letting go of trepidation and allowing the unknown to encompass my being.

I simply let go.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:

HOSTAGE

I
cracked open one eye and then the other, seeing nothing but a blurry set of feet racing across the ground with such speed that everything beneath me was merely a smudge of colour and poorly detailed elements. My hands were also waving around above my head like I was preparing for a Mexican wave. Was I upside down? How had
that
happened? The most surprising and clearly devastating part of my awakening was that there was also a lily white backside bouncing around in front of my face.

I tilted my head so that I could look up behind me and confirm my suspicions. It was the Vânâtor back in his human form again, naked, and covered in blood—my blood, probably.

I shuddered. That meant that my face had been bouncing around against his naked rear end the entire time.

How delightful, a face full of ass.

I reached up and touched my neck. It was smooth and bite free. I couldn’t say the same for my T-shirt. It was covered in holes, as well as a generous dousing of my blood. How long had I been knocked out for? Minutes? Seconds? Hours?

I ran through a couple of options in my head. I knew that it would be impossible to outrun this creature, so somehow breaking free and trying to make a run for it probably wasn’t going to be an option. I was going to have to kill it and then make a run for it.

Or would it be better to see where it was that he was taking me. If William was tracking him he might be able to pick up a scent trail from my house to the werewolf’s lair. No, I couldn’t rely on that. What if the Vânâtor had jumped while I was passed out? If there was no trail left to follow I was stuck. My best chance of survival at this stage was to give as good as I could take and that was going to start right now.

I closed my eyes and tried not to cringe at what I was about to do. I grabbed white butt cheek between my hands, feeling it tense slightly as he persisted on running. I opened my mouth wide and then clammed down hard upon his flesh.

He screamed into the wind behind me, the howl ringing in my ears as warm, sweet blood poured into my mouth like liquid chocolate. I didn’t get much of a chance to revel in the taste of his blood before he flung me from his shoulder and sent me sailing through the air. The world streaked past in a blur of darkness. We had already been moving so fast on foot that I shuddered to think just how hard and how fast he had thrown me.

I caught a glimpse of passing trees. The world was apparently starting to slow down now, my body decreasing in speed and—

Uuuhh.

Pain exploded all through me, like nothing I had ever felt before. Stars danced in front of my eyes and I bit my tongue in a sheer agony that tortured my entire being. My head lolled forward, my hands reaching up shakily to grip at the tree trunk that was protruding from the centre of my abdomen. The slick wetness of my blood dripped from the gaping wound in my chest and spilled down my pants and onto the ground below in a small, ever-expanding puddle.

My legs dangled freely in the air. There was no sense of leverage. All that was behind me and in front of me to grab onto was tree trunk and every single movement in any one direction was agonising.

I wanted to die. God, there couldn’t be a pain any worse than this.

How the hell am I supposed to get out of this?

I groaned in pain again, wishing that my body wasn’t fighting so hard to try and heal me. It was almost as painful as the trauma itself. My skin kept trying to grow along the branch in front of me, searching out the other points of contact in order to seal the wound. But it could not do its job while the foreign object was still embedded in my system. My own body was squeezing down on that tree branch to try and connect the pieces back together again, and in the meantime, I suffered.

Blood was smeared from the very tip of the branch all the way down to where my body hung from the tree limb. It wouldn’t be long now until he found me again. The smell was incredible. William had been right, there was definitely something different about my blood. I’d never noticed it before. It was good, better than any blood that I had ever smelt yet.

Curiosity and just a touch of hunger had me bringing my blood-stained fingers up to my mouth just to see if my blood tasted as good as it smelt. Closing my eyes again so I could block out the image of what I was doing, I surrendered a bloodslicked finger to the inner sanctum of my mouth and sucked it clean. Flavour beyond my wildest expectations danced along my lips and sang songs of pleasure and sweet succulence across the surface of my tongue. All of the pain that I had been feeling only moments ago seemed to vanish into thin air as my mind surrounded itself with bursts of fevered energy. The taste surged throughout my system, begging me for more sweetness.

This is what William had been afraid of. Taking my blood and not being able to ever stop. I definitely could appreciate the fear of wanting something so badly that it was all your mind could concentrate on. Even I wanted to have some more, and it was
my blood
.

The rustling in the trees ahead made me snap back to reality—I was still in a whole world of hurt and the Vânâtor had found me.

His pale body stepped out from behind one of the trees. I looked away. The small amount of common courtesy I had learned over the years was telling me it was rude and inappropriate to stare at his groin. Obviously a wolf’s shift didn’t come with a fresh set of clothes.