The other shifter tried to run.
There was no place to run.
Brandt tackled him. Let his claws rip into the shifter’s flesh. Severed his spine.
And more blood flowed. The beast always wanted more.
“I didn’t even realize what he was, not at first.”
She was coming too close to him. Az wanted to back away, but needed to be near her. Needed it more than humans needed their breath.
“Guess I couldn’t see the monster hiding right there behind the man’s smile. I didn’t see it until it was too late.”
Everyone had a monster inside. Other. Humans. A dark side that some fought. Some embraced.
Some kept imprisoned.
“It had been a month since I ran away with him. Love . . . it seems like the only thing that matters when you’re seventeen.” She blinked quickly, and he wondered if she realized he could see the tears on her lashes. “But I missed my mom. My dad. I missed them, and no matter how many times I called, I couldn’t ever get them to answer the phone.”
Az waited. He wanted to hold her, but he was afraid to touch her.
“So I slipped away one night. I stole a motorcycle—Brandt had been the one to teach me to hot-wire them—and I went back home.” Now a teardrop slipped down her cheek. “They were dead. They’d been dead since the night I left. The-the neighbors told me it was some kind of wild animal attack. My parents had been killed, buried, and I didn’t even know.”
“An . . . animal attack?” His own words sounded like the rough growl of a beast.
Her eyes closed. “Even then, I still didn’t realize the truth. Brandt found me. He comforted me at their graves. Told me that he’d make everything better for me. That our life together was just beginning.”
A life bathed in blood.
“Then one night,” she licked her lips, “this guy at a bar started flirting with me. Brandt got into a fight with him. I saw . . . his claws came out. He sliced the man, cut his chest right open. I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t.”
A human would be no match for a shifter.
“I ran from him. But Brandt found me, and he told me that I’d never get away. He said we were meant to be together, forever. That nothing or no one would ever come between us.” She swiped away the tears on her cheeks. “And he told me . . . he admitted to killing my parents. He said they would have gotten in our way eventually, so he helped me, and he got rid of them.”
Her voice had grown ragged with pain. “I didn’t want them gone. I loved them. But they were dead, and I was left with a man who could turn into a monster.” Jade’s laughter was broken. “He thought I should appreciate what he’d done. I kept wondering when he’d kill me, and he kept saying how he’d proven his love for me.”
Az couldn’t stay away from her. The darkness was still there, pressing on him, but . . .
But she needed him. Az reached for Jade. He wrapped his arms around her even as she continued her tale. “He took me to the pack. We’d been staying on our own, in cheap hotels and cabins, but Brandt said that since I knew the truth, it was time to take me home.”
Home to hell.
“There wasn’t a chance to get away from him. He was always watching me.”
Guarding her.
“Brandt—he had scars all over his body. Scars that I realized—too late—came from claw marks. He got them when he was a kid, long before he ever shifted for the first time.”
She pulled back from him and stared up into his eyes. “His father is the one who marked him. He got off on hurting Brandt. On hurting anyone that he could. When Brandt went out on a hunt, he left me with that bastard. That night . . . they both made a serious mistake.”
I killed Brandt’s father. He searched her gaze. “How did you do it?” A human against an alpha panther?
“A silver knife to the heart. I’d been hiding the knife for days. Waiting for the right moment. I-I thought I’d use it on Brandt . . . but his father came at me. Hitting. Clawing . . .”
There was more. He could see it in her eyes. “Jade?”
She blinked and seemed to push back the past. “While he was trying to rape me, I shoved that knife into his heart. I twisted it, and I made sure he died.”
The darkness swelled even higher within him as the rage burned. “Good.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. You’d better be burning, bastard.
“And then I left. I ran as fast and as far as I could. I never wanted to see Brandt or any of those other shifters again.”
“But he kept hunting you.”
Her smile was sad. “That’s what he’s good at . . .”
Brandt followed Jade’s scent into the witch’s room. He padded inside and sniffed the body. Heather had finally found her hell. She’d never understood . . . he’d only needed her power, not her.
Only one woman had ever been strong enough for him. Only one had ever battled for him.
Jade.
She’d fought the one thing he feared in this world. She’d given him freedom. Life.
All by dealing out a little death.
The panther inhaled the scents around him. His body tensed. Azrael. And . . . another.
He rushed outside. His pack—some still in the form of panthers, some standing back as men—tensed.
The beast swept past them. He ran. Ran, following the trail Jade had taken.
Then he stopped.
Because the trail had vanished. The panther tossed back his head and roared.
“I thought I’d be able to get away from him at first.”
Lightning flashed outside, sweeping in with the growing darkness. A storm was coming in with night.
“I thought I could find a safe place to hide from him. That I could just start a new life, and he’d forget me.” Her smile faded. “I’d have nightmares about him, but I would get my life back.”
Az waited, his body tense.
“Months passed. Eventually, I stopped waking up, screaming. I got a job as a waitress at a diner in Arkansas. I even . . . I even met a man who didn’t scare me.”
She’d backed away, just a step, as if she sensed the dark energy that had come to surround him. But Az was fighting that darkness—fighting it, even as he drew the energy from the magic that stained the land like blood. When she’d backed away, his hands had fisted so he wouldn’t touch her again.
The darkness had already touched her enough.
“Brandt killed Paul in front of me. Told me that I couldn’t be with another. That I was his, forever.”