Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
“Ramsey,” I whisper, stroking his shifting jaw; his shape changing beneath my hand. “Please.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Ramsey
I’m the wolf, and I’m walking, and she’s before me.
This wolf is younger, with deep brown hair, smelling like Ruby. Then I get closer, and my heart shivers strangely.
She is Ruby. Her scent washes around me, but it makes no sense.
“How are you a wolf?” I nuzzle her, shocked at the sound of my voice, shivering in the air. My human voice. In the wolf form, which is impossible but also feels normal somehow. “Ruby? I didn’t change you, did I?”
“You didn’t change me but made me a wolf.”
“I don’t understand.”
“A wolf overcomes the fear and pain. They master their demons. You helped me master mine. Without you, without that heat….”
I growl softly. The moon is far too big, seeming close enough to scent, looming over an ocean the color of iron. It swirls beneath us, clashing on the rocks.
“It was all you,” I say.
“No,” she moans softly. “If anything, it was us. We’re something special when we’re together. We fix each other, Ramsey.”
“I agree,” I roar. “I know it’s true.”
“You have to wake up.”
“What?”
“Please. They’re in here now. I don’t know what to do. Ramsey. Please. They’re going to hurt us. Kill us. Please.”
My bones stiffen, and I throw my head up, howling at the impossibly big moon, letting my wolf’s warning carry so that it must skim across the ocean and touch the edge of the world.
I’m letting everybody know that nobody ever gets to hurt my woman.
The wolf won’t allow it. My teeth, my strong bones, and the savage boiling blood pumping in my inhuman veins will not allow it.
“No, please, no!” Ruby’s screaming, her voice flooded with fear, her scent sparking. “Let go of me! Let go!”
Two wolves are fighting.
I start awake, blinking my eyes open, feeling my solid bones and the thickness of my muscles. It must’ve been the change joy again, the slow change because I feel the same sharpness.
Liam’s fighting a wolf I’ve never met. They’re outside the barn, rolling around in the grass. Liam’s struggling, his scent shivering in the air, the other wolf cloaked in the intent to kill.
He doesn’t want to talk. He wants to kill my friend.
And there are humans, close by.
My Ruby.
Three humans in combat gear wrestle her away.
I snarl and rise to all fours, opening my mouth and letting out an ear-piercing howl. It’s so loud everybody instinctively lifts their hands to cover their ears.
I move fast, driven by the knowledge I have to keep my woman safe.
These men reek of death. They’ve killed before.
And they call us savages.
Leaping forward, I lash with my claws out. My accuracy and my speed shock even me. With three well-placed strikes, I mangle the gun hands of the men. Blood blooms and laces the air.
The humans scream, all of them staring at me, scrambling, with Ruby standing in the middle. I lurch forward, grab one by the shoulder, clamp my teeth down, so I feel his bone crack, and then toss him through the wall. The barn smashes, and he rolls over, yelling, hurt but alive.
Ruby rushes forward, grabbing a pistol and raising it at the men with her shaking hands.
“D-don’t move!” she yells.
My heart soars at her bravery, even more so because I can feel her fear trying to wrestle her down. Instead, she points the gun at the two men, crowding them to the edge of the room.
“Ramsey, you have to get Mom.”
I snarl and grunt.
I can’t leave you.
She looks at me over her shoulder, causing my gaze to snap to the men in case they try anything. Outside, Liam’s barking, and the other wolf whines. I think Liam’s just wounded him, but there’s too much blood in the air, the human hands lying mangled on the ground.
Their scent told you what they would’ve done to Ruby and your children’s future mother.
They deserve worse.
“Please,” she says.
I nudge forward and snarl at the men, bare my teeth until they get the message, and back away to the hole in the barn. Again, I leap at them, snarling even louder.
One of them pisses himself as he spins and runs away.
The other two follow, clasping their wounds and screaming at each other.
Turning to Ruby, I snarl softly.
“I’ll be careful.”
She holds the gun, her hands shaking.
“We have to save Mom.”
I run out into the main section of the barn. Three men crowd around Ilsa. They’re trying to drag her away, one of them aiming his rifle behind them.
Blink.
Time flashes.
It’s instinct, all instinct.
It’s the change-joy power thrumming through my veins.
It’s the knowledge that I’m the wolf, the teeth in the dark, and I can do it. I will do it. Always. Keep my woman safe.
Men are screaming. Humans.
I’m standing over the three men.
Two of them are missing chunks from their shoulders.