Page 53 of Return to the Pack

I swear that fucker grins at me, but another low snarl leaves his throat.

You… Taste so good. I haven’t tasted your bloodline for almost twenty years. But a wolf never forgets his first taste of human flesh. I’ve had your blood before. It’s like nectar-infused water.

How is it I can hear you? I demand of the giant, trying to stall him. I’m afraid to call for the others now, since he’ll hear it and surely kill me if I do.

I used to be in the Jacksonville pack. They found out I killed one of ours and ate him to hide the evidence. They knew I’d grow stronger, that I could challenge the Alpha with my new strength and take over. They banished me on the spot, but I ran before they could dissolve the bond.

His word hit me like bullets. Axel said the maneaters had killed my father, that the pack had trouble with them years ago. He didn’t say they were from our pack!

When I was banished, I was alone. At first, I didn’t know I’d grow stronger. They don’t want you to know, so they don’t tell you that. But I grew bigger and more powerful, and I figured out why. So, I consumed even more humans, and look at me now! I found others like me, outcasts and lone wolves, and I showed them how to be stronger than they could be even with a pack. The pack lies to you, little she-wolf. You don’t need them to be strong. You only need the diet they forbid. If they allowed it, you’d be strong like me.

He stops the telepathy and slowly licks my blood, shuddering as he does so.

Suddenly, I’m consumed with rage. Rage that my father’s dead because of maneaters, that my mother’s stories about trusting the pack weren’t all lies—my father was killed by the pack, just like she said. And most of all, I’m furious at Axel for lying to me. I feel utterly betrayed.

Awareness dawns on me, and every hair on my body stiffens. This exact wolf said he’d tasted my bloodline, that he’d never forgotten the taste since his first kill. The motherfucker standing before me is the same wolf who killed my father, effectively destroying my mother’s and my lives. Fury burns through me like a hurricane of fire.

Without thinking, I launch into an attack, going for his neck, his face, whatever I can get my teeth on.

He meets my attack, and we roll over and over, all fang and fury until I’m laying in a heap in the sand, breathing hard, barely able to catch my breath. I’m no match for an overgrown freak who grew giant from eating his own kind.

He places a paw the size of one of a dinner plate on my ribcage and growls. You can’t win, sweetheart.

I’m not your sweetheart!

I wriggle and writhe beneath his paw to no avail. It’s like an anvil on my chest.

You soon will be…I’m going to eat your flesh and then feast on your bones. You’ll make one hell of a tasty meal, and I’ll be that much stronger. And I’ll enjoy every delicious bite. Your bloodline tastes like honey. He makes a rumbling sound in his throat like a wolf-chuckle.

Still keeping me pinned to the ground, he lowers his head and licks the sanguine liquid flowing from my neck. I kick and flail until he places his other paw on my belly. He’s so heavy and so strong I can barely breathe from the weight of him.

I want to cry, I want to howl, I want to kill him. I was married to four of our packs’ greatest warriors today, but it feels like a dream. I didn’t even have one day to be their wife, and now I’m going to die, leaving them without a mate.

The maneater laps my blood, growling with pleasure. I’m helpless to stop him. Soon, this asshole will tear me apart limb from limb, growing even stronger. Maybe he will challenge Axel now. Maybe he’ll win, and the pack will belong to a savage cannibal. And Axel will be dead.

So it doesn’t matter if the giant kills me. It’s better for him to kill me than to kill my mate and eat the pack’s weakest members one by one until only mutant wolves remain. So I close my eyes and summon all the strength I possess, and I unleash it.

Axel! I scream in my mind. Help me!

Chapter Twenty-One

Axel

All around us lies the evidence of war, in the form of dead pack members and vamps, dying wolves and giant maneaters desperately trying to kill us all. The vampires fight wickedly, trying to protect their own. My pack fights like the warriors they are—relentlessly, without mercy, using cunning and strategy as their weapons.

The land is drenched in blood.

Warrick, Callan, Ethan, and I have just vanquished another one of these giants jobs when a scream ricochets through my mind.

Help me!

The cry lances my heart like a sword, and I scan my surroundings wildly. Luna’s gone. How could this have happened? She was just here, fighting side by side with us.

I sprint toward the call without another thought in my mind. Luna, my Luna, the heartbeat to my existence, is in danger. If I don’t get to her in time…

I rocket away from the fight in the direction of her silent pleas. As my legs carry me, my head whips from side to side, searching for her scent.

When I find her, she’s deep in the underbrush, and the largest maneater I’ve ever seen is tearing at her neck.