Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
Damn, that is one hot monster.
It was a strange thought. I admit it. Definitely not the kind of thing that should be going through a person’s head when they’re afraid it’s about to be snapped clean off their neck.
But I couldn’t help it.
Because it was the truth. The monster was fucking hot.
Not handsome…and definitely not pretty.
His features were far too rugged for words like that. Every line and groove on his face was brutally masculine. Every element was hard and taut, from his high cheekbones to his strong brows. His beard was full and jet-black—the same color as the wavy hair that hung down to his shoulders.
And his eyes…
They were darker than the night itself. So deep and magnetic that I couldn’t seem to pull my gaze away.
Not even when I realized that I was staring slack-jawed at the creature…and he was staring right back at me.
“You woke up,” he said.
I nodded, too dumbfounded by a mixture of shock, fear, and pure animal attraction (what the hell was that about?) to answer with words.
For a moment, he didn’t move. He just held me in his arms, as if carrying the weight of a fully grown woman didn’t bother him in the least.
And with arms that felt like iron and a body like solid granite, it probably didn’t.
I pulled my terrified gaze off of him just long enough to peek out the open door, hoping to see a road or a Jeep or any other sign of civilization, but instead, all I saw was a sea of trees.
Far more of them than I had ever seen growing together in one place before. A thousand different shades of greens and browns tangling together. Sky-scraping redwoods and wide-leaved maples. Primitive ferns and thorny blackberry bushes.
There was only one place where the forest grew that thick and untamed—The Wilds.
Oh God.
My heart sank. I wasn’t on my side of the Wall.
I was on the ferus side.
The setting of my nightmares.
“You’re not strong enough to be out of bed yet,” the alpha said before carrying me around the side of the bed.
Honestly, I half-expected him to toss me back on the mattress. Maybe tie my arms and legs to the bedposts for good measure…just to make sure I didn’t try to escape again, of course.
But instead, he bent over, laying me down in the center of the bed with far more care than I thought a ferus capable of. This was the same bloodthirsty killer that had literally ripped Franklin to shreds last night, after all. Why was he now treating me with gentleness?
It didn’t make sense.
Where were his claws? The ones I’d seen last night reaching out toward me? The ones that had been dripping with gore?
They were gone now. And in their place were plain, ordinary looking hands. Massive, and rough, and strong, sure—but otherwise normal human hands.
Glancing up at his mouth, I didn’t see any fangs poking out either.
Once I was settled, he rose back up to his full height and crossed his arms in front of his massive chest. And…nothing.
He just stood there, looking down at me, occasionally rocking back on his heels. If I didn’t know any better, I might have guessed he was as uncomfortable with my presence in his home as I was.
But again—that didn’t make any sense.
This was a feral beast. Seven feet of pure muscle and primal rage. The creature that was destined to rip out my throat and bathe in my blood. Why on earth would he feel awkward around me?
After a solid minute of unbearable silence, he finally opened his mouth again.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. “Are you comfortable?”
Wait…what? Never in a thousand years would I have guessed that would be something my killer would ask me.
Cautiously, I nodded.
“How about hungry?” he asked. “Do you want something to eat?”
I shook my head. I was far too terrified to think about food. With the way my insides were twisting, anything I ate would only come right back up a few minutes later.
“Thirsty?”
I was about to shake my head again, ready to refuse anything the creature offered, but this time my body wouldn’t let me. I hadn’t had a sip of anything since those three beers at Deke’s last night, and my throat was beyond dry.
I nodded.
“A healer left some kind of tea for you,” he said.
“Boneset.” My voice came out thin and scratchy.
The ferus’ dark eyes narrowed. “You were awake during our conversation?”
“Barely,” I whispered. “And not for long.”
He nodded as if he believed me. “She should be here soon to check on you, in case you have questions for her.”
At this point, I had nothing but questions. And not just for the doctor.
“What happened to your claws?”
The beast glanced down at his hands. “My claws?”
“I saw them last night when you…” I closed my eyes for a second, unable to bring myself to say the words.
“Oh.” The alpha lifted his dark gaze back up to mine. “Our feral nature only shows when it’s needed. Usually during moments of intense danger or anger. Otherwise, it stays dormant.”
Well, that was almost reassuring. Almost.
“I’ll get you that tea,” he said, turning toward the door.
But I had one more question—the kind that couldn’t wait.
“Why am I still alive?”
The alpha froze, his broad back to me. Even though a long coat of thick leather and fur covered his body, I could still clearly make out the rise and fall of his breath underneath.
“What do you mean?”
A shiver of nerves ran through me. The creature was huge, his shoulders nearly filling the breadth of the doorframe, the crown of his head almost grazing the arch. I’d already experienced the strength in those arms. Maybe I was better off not knowing what he had planned for me.
But no.
I’d come all this way and endured all this hell just for answers. I couldn’t chicken out now. I had to understand—even if it was the last thing I ever did.
“How do you know my name? And why did you bring me here? Why bother letting a healer fix me when you’re just going to kill me in a couple of days anyway?”
A long, tense silence descended. It stretched on and on. So long that I wondered if I should spend what little energy I had asking the healer instead. But just when I was about to tell him to forget it, the ferus finally spoke.
But he didn’t give me any answers. All he did was toss his own questions right back at me.
“Kill you?” He sounded confused...and insulted. Mostly insulted. “You think I’m going to kill you?”
A wiser, more practical woman would have realized this was the time to back down. She would’ve cut her losses and saved this argument for when she was healed. When she had more strength or energy...or a snowball’s chance in hell of winning.
But I wasn’t that woman.
“I don’t think it,” I told him. “I know it. I’ve seen it happen every night for the last seven years.”
His shoulders straightened, and I sensed a strange kind of energy shift inside him.
“In dreams,” he said.
A statement—not a question. He wasn’t asking for clarification. And he sure as hell didn’t seem surprised by my response.
“How did you know?” I asked.
Another torturous pause.
I had to bite my lower lip to keep myself from begging for his answer. But the man was clearly an unmovable mountain—both physically and mentally. I could feel it in the powerful energy radiating off of him.
This wasn’t just some feral creature standing with his back to me; he was himself a force of nature. A dark, destructive thunderstorm gathering before my eyes.
“I dream about you, too,” he finally said.
My fear turned cold and clammy. “You dream about killing me?”
The alpha shook his head, and when he stopped, a sliver of his face was visible over his left shoulder. Just enough for me to see the tension creasing his brow and tightening his lips. The muscles twitching along his jawline. The tight contours of his cheekbones growing even more taut.
It was the face of a man who was barely controlling the roil of emotions inside him. His hands had balled into white-knuckled fists at his side.
“No,” he growled—a sound that was low enough to shake the wooden bed frame beneath me. “In my dreams, I do something very, very different to you.”
My lips parted as my jaw fell open. Surely, he didn’t mean…
Did he?
“Any other questions for me?” he asked.
Suddenly, I felt particularly tiny perched on top of the creature’s enormous mattress. My mouth had gone dry again, and all I could do was stare at the alpha’s back as one silent second ticked into another.
And when all that came out from between my lips was a long, shaky breath, the alpha pushed open his door and left me alone in the most unsettling silence I’d ever known.
I heard the healer’s approach before I saw her. Not her footsteps—just her voice, calling out a greeting to her fellow ferus. It drifted through the cracks in the doorframe, startling me out of a dozing sleep I hadn’t realized I’d fallen into.
God, I must be in bad shape.
I couldn’t think of any other reason that my body would have allowed me to drift off in such a dangerous situation.
Being knocked out was one thing, but deliberately falling asleep while in enemy territory was downright irresponsible. While I was unconscious, there’d been nothing stopping the ferus from coming back into the room and squeezing the life out of me.
Not that I would have been able to stop him even if I were awake. But at least I could have put up a fight, and there was some kind of dignity in a death like that.
But the creature said he didn’t want me dead, I reminded myself.
Actually…no.
In my dreams, I do something very, very different to you.
Those had been his exact words. They’d been burned into my head. The way he’d said them—so low, so rumbly. A powerful intensity had rattled through each syllable.
Yeah, those words were going to stay with me until the day that I died.
Which still might be sooner rather than later.
Because, as passionate as the alpha had sounded, he never actually gave an explicit promise not to put me in the ground.
He could have been talking about what he wanted to do first.