After several minutes of running through the woods, her pink fuzzy socks practically caked in dirt, Kenzie slowed to a stop, trying desperately to catch her breath.
Weekly runs with her family helped keep her in shape, but she couldn’t run forever.
Unlike wolves, who were gifted with supernatural strength and endurance, Kenzie’s constitution was that of a human.
A human who enjoyed snacks and considered a tough workout reading a heavy, hardback book for hours.
Her physique wasn’t her only human trait.
Wolves could potentially live forever, but Kenzie was destined for a much shorter lifespan unless she found her fated mate…and that mate just happened to be an immortal.
If not, then she was as vulnerable as an actual human.
Doomed to die this very night, as luck would have it.
If the Mad Alpha was as prejudiced against witches as everybody said, how did she reasonably think she could convince him to let her live?
Why had this seemed like a good plan at any point in time?
Kenzie wanted to wield a blast of magic so powerful it would knock any alpha on his ass if she felt threatened, but that would never happen. She needed to stop wishing for impossible things.
She wasn’t going to get anywhere if she couldn’t even focus on her next step.
Speaking of… She took a look around, a small sound of frustration squeaking past her lips.
She was pretty sure she was lost.
Running in the opposite direction from Sam had seemed like a smart idea. It had made sense to run toward the danger, but there were no wolves around her, no howls closing in on her.
She kept going left, the thickness of the trees reminding her of her premonition, but she saw nothing.
A trickle of fear worked its way up her spine.
She was about to give up and move in the opposite direction when she noticed a distinct shift in the air.
The crickets went quiet, and the forest itself seemed to hold its breath, alerting her to trouble. Oh, shit. What if Beonca found her before the Mad Alpha did?
She slowly turned to face what lurked behind her.
A few feet away stood a stocky man, not much taller than Kenzie herself, but built like he could lift a school bus without any trouble.
He might have been handsome except for the look in his eyes.
The man stared at her like she was an insect under a microscope, one he wanted to dissect.
Definitely a wolf, and a predatory one.
He was wearing gray sweats, clearly no underwear, based on the growing bulge in his pants.
A nervous flush rose in her cheeks. Kenzie looked past his bare chest to his face. She registered the cruel smirk and balding head—and real fear set in.
His aura was dark black mixed with gray, smudged against the outline of his body, and she took an involuntary step back.
She focused on his receding hairline, hoping that would make her less nervous, and somehow it did.
Even wolves were subject to genetics.
Baldy didn’t move for a few heartbeats. Then he slowly stalked toward her.
Reacting like prey would be stupid, but she couldn’t help but back away, desperate to create distance between them. Suddenly, her spine pressed into a tree.
She clung to it like a lifeline, hoping her minor connection with nature would aid her, though she knew that was wishful thinking.
“Are you Kieran?” she asked quietly. She already knew the answer. This man was nothing like her dream wolf.
Then and there, Kenzie resolved to dunk her head in a bucket of ice water if she made it through the night. Hopefully, the shock of the cold would clear out the weird-ass thoughts bombarding her.
Baldy paused, smirking at her in a way that made her tremble. Her fingers bit into the bark as she backed around the side of the tree.
Her stiff muscles relaxed, her harsh breaths evening out. Her terror abated, and a strange calmness washed over her.
The wolfman crept closer, his ear twitching when he picked up the now steady beat of her heart. Hells, he could probably smell her emotions, all things considered.
Kenzie fought the ridiculous urge to lift her arm and sniff for offensive odors.
“You’re going to wish I was him before I’m done with you.”
Her eyes snapped back to Baldy, her body tensing at his cruel tone.
In an instant, he moved, leaping through the air, his fingers shifting into claws and swiping at her.
Kenzie jerked away from the tree, her muscles feeling invigorated as she took off.
She didn’t know how the hell she’d gained strength from nature just then, but she sent a silent prayer of thanks out into the universe.
A curse exploded into the wind behind her. She was outrunning him! But a second later, his thick body slammed into her hip.
His claws sliced her sweater, and she screamed as he flung her down.
Kenzie fell with an oof, her ribs aching as his bigger frame dropped over her, pinning her to the hard earth.
His claws dug into her waist, and he flipped her onto her back. She cried out, her terror roaring back to life.
Baldy settled himself more firmly over her until she could scarcely breathe. Her dream wolf had straddled her in almost the same way, but his grip had felt like an embrace.
This felt like a violation.
Baldy rocked his hips along her pelvis, making it clear he intended to rut her before she died.
She would not let that happen.
He would have to kill her first.
Shrieking, Kenzie thrashed wildly beneath him until her knee connected with his crotch. Hard. He fell over, nearly crushing her, before she wiggled away.
She willed herself to run, to escape, but she was frozen with fright, watching him writhe on the ground.
Her hands fisted into the grass of the forest floor, and she felt that peculiar sensation of calmness seeping back into her body.
It wasn’t enough to wash away her fear this time, but it was just enough that her limbs thawed.
Kenzie pushed off the ground, using her fear to propel her up and away from the threat whimpering behind her like a little bitch.
Her socks caught on a root, and she ripped them off quickly, her movements clumsy. The soles of her feet tore open as she ran, but she kept going, refusing to look back.
Her instincts and her premonition were telling her something her brain didn’t want to understand.
Kieran was the danger.
And yet here she was, running around frantically in the hopes he would find her and protect her from the other wolf hunting her down. And from the witch, who was no doubt circling in the shadows.
What the hell was she thinking? It didn’t make sense—but somehow, she trusted her intuition. She had to—it was all she had left.
Kenzie only made it a few more feet before she was roughly grabbed from behind and thrown face down into the dirt.
Her head hit the ground with a hard smack. Her arms were grabbed and trapped behind her.
“Let go of me!”
She struggled with all of her might, which wasn’t worth a damn against a shifter, especially a wolf.
She heard a loud pop as he yanked her hand back. A sharp pain exploded in her left shoulder.
“Aaah!” she wailed.
The fucker had dislocated her shoulder!
Baldy’s dark laugh carried into the trees.
The insects had long gone quiet, making the night even eerier than before.
He laughed again as she cried angrily into the earth at his cruelty. What sick fuck enjoyed harming someone, especially like this?
Baldy kept pulling her arms, uncaring of the pain he was causing as she moaned low in her throat. He ground his pelvis into her ass, and Kenzie’s hips dug into the dirt.
She nearly retched from the pain searing her body. A cold realization came over her: she might not make it out of this.
“You’ll be screaming for me soon, witch, and for an entirely different reason.” He released her left arm, the limb hanging uselessly at her side.
“Stop!”
She silently begged for a higher power, for someone, to help her break free, but nothing happened. Her magic was useless against the actual enemy.
“I’ll make you like everything I’m going to do to you.” His knees squeezed either side of her hips, and she could hear him grab at the fabric of his sweats, touching himself through the material.
“But even if you don’t,” he groaned, “just know I’m going to relish every single cry from those pretty lips of yours.”
Kenzie felt another flash of fear, sweat forming on her brow. She whimpered helplessly, and he chuckled.
“Enjoying it already? We’ve barely even started.”
His fingers pinched harshly into the denim covering her ass, no doubt leaving a bruise.
The pain was sharp enough, paired with the now dull throbbing of her shoulder, that Kenzie’s fear finally took a backseat to a much more tumultuous emotion.
Rage.
Her head ached, her shoulder was fucking throbbing, and Baldy was trying to rape her.
Was she really going to let herself be violated by this pathetic excuse of a male?
No, she definitely was not.
If she was going to die tonight, it wouldn’t be like this.
One thing she knew for sure: Kieran Gallagher would be pissed the hell off if one of his wolves took the kill from him. And Kenzie had no doubt Baldy would end her life after he raped her.
“You have any words for me, pretty girl?” he hissed, his hot, fetid breath causing a tremor to run through her. Kenzie gagged, earning a cuffing to the side of the head.
She gritted her teeth, her skull pounding.
Did she have any words? Yeah, actually, she did.
Opening her mouth, Kenzie let out a piercing scream before shouting, “KIERAN!”
Baldy cursed and pinned her down harder.
Kenzie screamed for Kieran again, her throat cracking with the force of her cry.
Her voice echoed far into the night, as if the wind itself carried her plea.
