The door slammed.
One heartbeat.
I counted its rhythm; I told my heart to match it.
And the strangest thing happened.
It did.
SERENITY
My neck burned.
Blood caked my fingertips.
I wasn’t healing as fast as I normally did, and that thought alone shot every last nerve I had.
I could feel his teeth.
He hadn’t even numbed me.
Just tore right in like a complete animal.
It was the most terrified I’d ever been in my entire life.
And then.
Pleasure.
So much pleasure.
His. I felt his arousal through the blood; I felt the rightness of what he was doing even though he was doing it wrong. He was a messy savage with no restraint.
And I loved it more than I should.
My heart had soared for his, even as he’d drained my body.
My only thought had been, “Take your fill.”
Even if it meant my death.
I’d been so disgusted with myself I could barely look at him before Timber took me from the room.
The fact that he’d been able to even send me away after tasting for the first time, after experiencing the link between our minds, the crashing rightness I felt between our souls…
Was a terrifying thought.
If he pushed me away, if he left me, my future, that psychotic wolf with bad manners and chef-like tendencies, I wasn’t sure my heart would survive.
It was already too fragile from my parents.
I heard his heart speed up — mine matched it — and then his scent was everywhere, different from before, sweeter, as if he’d just rolled around in honey and forgotten to shower. Then the spice was back filling the air with more flavor as I tried to calm my breathing.
The door opened.
He’d changed into new clothes and wiped most of the blood from his body.
His eyes were crystal blue.