Chapter Four
BELLAMY ROSE
“He’s coming for you. Run, silly shifter, or he’s going to get you.” That damn voice had been talking louder and louder since I walked into town, and it was annoying the hell out of me.
All I wanted to do was sell my clothes, grab some supplies to last me until next month, then go home.
I didn’t want to be bothered with anything or anyone outside of that.
Then the fact that this dumb-ass voice kept calling me a fucking shifter was pissing me off.
I wasn’t a damn shifter, and I would have rather jumped from the tallest mountain in Hollow Valley before I ever became a shifter.
On top of that, I was feeling like someone was following me in the woods, and all of it had me on edge too.
Oddly enough, I kept smelling the toasted vanilla scent that usually was only around my cabin, but unlike when I was at my cabin, the scent wasn’t calming me down.
If anything, it was making me anxious. I tried to focus on setting up my small tent where I sold my clothes, but I was far too distracted by my emotions to do anything.
“Don’t speak to him. He’s a distraction. Send him on his way,” a calm voice said from my left. Snapping my head in the direction of the voice, I came face to face with a child-sized female. I could tell she was fully grown, but her height was that of a kid.
“Teeny?” I squinted my eyes at the familiar face that was in my dreams every night.
A wide smile graced her beautiful face. She looked young, but I could tell she was far older than I was.
“Nope. That is my sister. I’m Minnie, but we can deal with all the formalities later.
That man is a snake. Don’t fall for his charm.
Your mate doesn’t deal well with seeing you with other male shifters.
A part of you hurt him before. He has to learn to trust you again. ”
“What are you talking about?” My attitude was loud because this woman had to be out of her damn mind, talking about me having a mate. I had a fiancé, and now that he was dead, I would never love another. When I was met with silence, I turned to look at the lady, but she was gone.
Yeah, I had to be losing my mind. Now I was talking to imaginary grown kids. I really needed to get out more.
“You are breathtakingly beautiful,” a strong masculine voice said.
Initially, I didn’t feel anything when he spoke to me, but when I looked into his eyes, it was like I was hypnotized.
His voice was singing to my soul as he smiled at me with a vindictive yet alluring smile.
His eyes flashed colors of all shades, and I found myself battling to find the words I wanted to say.
“Thank you,” I bashfully replied. At the same time, I was looking at myself, confused because that wasn’t how I wanted to respond. I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience while watching myself gush over this fair-skinned man.
“I want you to come home with me ssso I can make you feel asss good asss you look.” He hissed when he pronounced his s’s. His hand ran down my cheek. Watching his tongue flip rapidly, my eyes grew wide as I realized he was a shifter.
Everything in me wanted to spit in his face.
He was one of the worst kinds of shifters.
A snake shifter. I may not have known as much about shifters as others, but I knew a snake shifter was there the night Alonzo was killed.
The rage I felt threatened to break free from where I had been keeping it bottled up, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t respond the way I wanted to this disgusting snake shifter.
“Mmm…” I moaned, not because I wanted to go anywhere with this bastard, but because I had no control over what I was saying.
“Yesss. That’sss a good girl,” he hissed, blowing his hot breath in my face with his lips inches from mine. I wanted to snatch my head away from him so bad, but I was stuck. It felt like I was trapped in quicksand while slowly staring at my doom.
A loud growl made my heart drop to my stomach as I watched a beautiful brown-skinned man storm in our direction.
What should have been at least twenty steps were two for him because his legs were so long.
His towering frame made everyone here look like midgets.
The trance I was trapped in moments ago was broken, and I was able to move back from the snake shifter who had held me captive.
“I thought you changed. I thought my mate had somehow shed her whorish ways, but you are the same Bellum I’ve always known,” the tall man said to me with his handsome face frowned up, and as crazy as it sounded, I wanted to fix whatever was wrong with him.
I didn’t like seeing him upset. It hurt me to know that something was bothering him.
“But unlike before, Bellum, I’m not giving you any passes.
You don’t have a choice but to change your fucking ways,” he continued to bark, and I found myself looking around for this Bellum person he was speaking of.
I wondered if it was the short woman from before who had him so angry. I would kick her ass if she’d done something to this fine-ass man. I didn’t care how crazy I sounded either. I meant every word I said.
“Ssshe’sss mine,” the snake shifter hissed while looking at the tall man with fire in his eyes. I wanted to rip that snake shifter’s tongue out for saying that bullshit. I wasn’t anything to him. I belonged to the tall man—I didn’t mean that.
“Bitch, who the fuck are you talking to?” The tall man moved with surprising speed as he snatched the snake shifter up by the collar of his shirt. “Say that shit again. I dare you. I’ll rip your fucking head off,” the tall man said in a deep grunt that sent chills up through my pussy.
This isn’t the time for that. But I couldn’t stop myself from becoming horny from seeing my mate defending me the way he was.
Hell no! I don’t have a mate, I told myself, and I was officially going mad.
I needed to get the hell away from all these shifters.
They were making me lose the last bit of sanity I had left.
The tall man let the snake shifter fall to the ground with a loud thud.
He turned to me with his eyes the color of an orange flame flickering with warning.
“Don’t,” he said, scaring me, but at the same time, exciting me.
My pussy thumped as rapidly as my heart beat.
I imagined his tall, muscular frame would intimidate the most masculine male, shifters or humans alike.
His full, thick beard and connected goatee framed his ample lips and his round but square jaw.
He had chinky eyes that looked like a blazing fire.
His shoulder-length locs were only on the top of his head, while the rest of his head was faded to perfection.
Wrapped in a deep milk chocolate skin with various tattoos all over his body, this shifter was every woman’s wet dream.
Oddly enough, he carried the toasted vanilla scent I had grown to love.
I had to be imagining things because I’d never smelt a human or shifter with a scent.
It had to be the shifter causing these delusions.
He was the kind of fine that could make me go against everything I knew.
The way the black sweats loosely hung from his frame gave me enough room to see his third leg swinging with every step he took.
I shivered while trying to picture how big and beautiful his dick probably was.
My pussy twitched with anticipation of feeling him digging in my walls.
No, Bellamy Rose, you are not fantasizing about fucking a shifter.
I had to get away from this shifter. He was making me think things that weren’t true.
I never had any desire for shifters besides me wanting them dead.
There was no way this shifter was making me forget everything I had stood for this last year.
I had to get away from him before whatever effect he was having on me made me do something I would regret.
I wanted to stay, but the fear in me was telling me to run.
The tall man was scaring me, not because I thought he was going to hurt me, but because I knew if I gave into him, something more would come, something I wasn’t ready to deal with.
I was supposed to hate shifters. They had taken everything I loved from me.
But this shifter in front of me had me feeling things I had never felt, not even for Alonzo.
He had me feeling like I’d found everything I’d been searching for in a mate.
I mean partner. I didn’t even know his name, but he spoke to my soul.
He was my better half, and I needed him.
That was what scared me. Love wasn’t supposed to be this intense.
It didn’t happen like this in real life.
This couldn’t be real, and if it was, I didn’t want it.
I didn’t want to love a shifter. I’d be damned.
I would’ve rather died old and alone before I gave myself over to one of them freely.
I shook my head frantically, trying to break the eye contact he held me in. “No,” I defiantly said while backing up from him.
Amusement ran across his face as he ran his tongue across his cheek. “Don’t test me, Bellum,” he growled at me.
Hearing him call me another bitch’s name pissed me off like no other, lighting a fire under my ass. “Fuck you. I’m not Bellum.”
“You’re mine.” Hearing him declare I was his sent shockwaves through my pussy and had me ready to cum and give into his every desire, but something in me gave me the strength I needed to rebel against him.
“Come here now!” he demanded as I stepped back while he stepped forward. “Don’t fucking run from me.”
“Run!” The sinister voice yelled in my head at the same time.
“I don’t have to listen to you,” I gritted out through clenched teeth.