Chapter 39 #2
This wasn’t just vengeance. This was necessary. Her tongue pressed against the points of her fangs, anticipating the copper tang that would soon flood her mouth. No quick death for him. She would make him understand fear first. Like a true predator, she wanted to play with her prey.
Her muscles coiled tight as she leaned against the wall to show off her injured leg but still held her claws in a defensive stance while her mind calculated every possible angle of attack.
“You think those talons can stop me?” Gerard asked, his gaze finally lifting back to her face with something almost like consideration. “They might have once, but I’m ready for your little tricks this time.”
She said nothing. She let him talk. He liked to talk—she remembered that. He liked the sound of his own authority filling a room, liked watching people absorb the weight of their own helplessness.
He crossed to Symond without hurry, dragging the whip behind him so its tip traced a thin line through the blood on the floor.
When he reached Symond, his fingers moved through the matted curls with a gentleness that made Elora’s skin crawl.
His hand slid lower, thumb tracing the shell of Symond’s ear before dipping to the hollow of his throat.
“We’ll be going home soon, pet,” he murmured, leaning down until his lips nearly brushed Symond’s ear. “Just as soon as I finish with her.”
Symond made no sound. His hollow eyes tracked nothing.
The intimacy of it turned Elora’s stomach in a way the blood hadn’t. She understood the violence. But this—this was the same possessive hunger she’d felt when he’d cornered her in the woods. The beast inside her clawed against her ribs, remembering the weight of hands that took what wasn’t offered.
“The only way you’re bringing me to Thorn is in pieces.” Elora limped away from the wall.
Gerard’s fingers froze mid-stroke among Symond’s tangled curls. He cocked his head, his lone eye reflecting the window’s signal light—first one crimson flash, then another. The corner of his mouth curled upward, a predator’s grin spreading across his face as he savored some anticipated victory.
The leather sang through the air.
She lunged sideways, letting her non-injured leg drag a half-second behind the rest of her body.
The leather coil wrapped around her ankle with a sound like a branch snapping.
White-hot agony shot from heel to hip. Her throat tore open, producing a sound she didn’t recognize as her own, primal and raw, echoing off the stone walls.
Her stomach hit the floor hard, the impact driving the air from her lungs in a single violent expulsion.
The impact with the floor rattled her teeth and split her chin, but even as pain radiated through her jaw, she knew the position was perfect for what came next. She pretended to try to get up, but remained dazed, her hand reaching for her injured leg.
She let him laugh.
She heard his boots. One step. Two. The slow, unhurried approach of someone who believed the hard part was already finished.
She felt the pause as he stood over her, that suspended moment where he was deciding his plan utterly unrelated to Thorn’s orders.
Where she stopped being a target and became something else in his mind. Something he could take his time with.
She kept her breathing ragged, her body slack. Easy. Defeated.
Then his boot pressed down between her shoulder blades. Not hard. Just enough to feel like ownership.
“Going somewhere quiet in your head again?” he said softly, and the warmth in his voice was the worst thing she’d heard all night.
His boot receded as he crouched, his warm breath touching her. One hand slid beneath her body, fingers splaying possessively across her stomach. “I’d prefer you stay present,” he whispered, teeth grazing her earlobe. “Makes things more fun when you feel everything I’m going to do to you.”
For one terrifying moment, she forgot her plan, felt only his weight and breath. Then the beast inside her stirred—its growl vibrating through her chest like distant thunder, reminding her. This was her trap, not his. She was the one in control here.
The heaviness of Gerard’s body settled across her lower back as he straddled her prone form. Elora heard the whip coil drop and the soft rustle of fabric. He mistook her stillness for surrender, her silence for defeat. Like all predators who had never been prey.
Her skin split along invisible seams. Vertebrae cracked and elongated with wet pops that echoed in the small room. Gerard’s weight suddenly meant nothing as her body tripled in mass beneath him, shadow-dark fur erupting through her pores like thousands of needles pushing outward at once.
His thighs pressed into her widening torso, as his feet left the ground.
“What the f—” The curse died as her newly formed claws scraped against the floor, leaving five white gouges.
He grabbed for her, fingers sinking into dense fur, finding no purchase.
She twisted—a movement that began in her haunches and rippled forward—launching him across the room.
His body collided with the humming equipment.
Glass shattered. Brass pipes bent and tore free.
A broken valve hissed, releasing steam in angry bursts.
Then silence fell, broken only by the musical tinkling of settling debris and the wet, sucking sound of Gerard trying to draw breath through a punctured lung.
A wheeze escaped his lips as his torso inched upward, halting with a crack that sent a visible shudder through his frame. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth, trickling down his chin as his head lifted.
His remaining eye found her transformed silhouette.