Chapter 11

ELEVEN

RUTH

M y brain reached for a logical explanation for all this. It drew a blank.

I'd murdered this son of a bitch. I'd watched the life drain from his eyes. I'd been there with his mate as she wailed his name and sobbed into the severed head clutched to his chest. Casey.

His name was Casey.

My heart squeezed, and there was a low flutter in my stomach. I stuffed the edge of his shirt between my legs to soak up the arousal dripping from my center. It didn't seem to matter that I'd just orgasmed. My body wanted more.

A perfectly built male wrapped in lean muscle and tattoos loomed over me with so much hate in his glare. Parts of him didn't seem to get the memo that I was the enemy. His cock was rock hard.

Carrots on a cracker. This bitch was huge.

If this was his smaller size—his poor mate. Sex with this guy couldn't be comfortable in either form.

The fact that he already had a mate and a dick big enough to take out a few of my vital organs should have been enough to douse my lust.

Not to mention the fact that I killed him.

My uterus didn't seem to give two fucks. I was wetter than ever just at the sight of him.

I swallowed loudly and stuffed more of the shirt between my legs in an attempt to soak up my arousal that wouldn't stop dripping. "You're supposed to be dead."

Murderous red shadows roiled behind his eyes. "That's funny. So are you."

Outrage burned through me. "I never asked to be sacrificed."

"I didn't make the rules, Ruthless. Regardless, you broke them. Now it's time to pay."

My nerves launched into hyperdrive as I sat there, waiting for him to move. He didn't. Instead, he stood there, his eyes traveling down the length of my body.

His cock twitched in his pants, making my center thrum.

"What? Are you going to kill me?"

The wicked smile curving his lips was his only answer.

My heart hammered in my throat. "How are you going to do it?"

I was stalling. Trying to work out a plan. My attention flicked to the ax on the dresser.

He didn't seem to notice. He appeared to be too busy taking in the way my body looked in his shirt. "I haven't decided yet."

"Are you going to…?" Dread worked through my body, making every muscle in my body tight. "Rape me?"

His smile crumbled. "I'm no rapist."

"But you want me," I rasped. "In the woods, your wolf told you to mate me, didn't it?"

"My wolf wants you," he corrected me with a snarl. "Too bad for you that the part that wants you dead is in control right now."

He surged forward, and my survival instincts took over. I shot up from the bed and launched myself at the dresser, reaching for the ax.

My fingertips grazed the wooden handle before a large hand seized the back of my neck and threw me onto the bed.

The male was on top of me before I could scramble away. He shoved me down, my back flush with the mattress, and gripped my throat with both hands. Hunched over me, the moonlight from the window bathed his features in silver, lighting up his facial tattoos and the thick veins in his neck, swollen with tension.

He straddled me, his cock thickening against my belly as I struggled. "You look so beautiful with my hands around your pretty little throat."

"S–s–sick fuck," I wheezed against his death hold.

His breath came out in aggressive pants, his great chest heaving as his fingers tightened around my neck.

He was strangling me, and the more I fought him, the more he squeezed.

"Look at me, Little Bunny."

Gods. His voice was as deep as hell, full of malice and something else I didn't dare try to parse.

"Look at me! I want my brother's face to be the last thing you see before you take your last breath."

Of course. I felt so stupid. This wolf wasn't back from the dead. "Pro— Protecting my— Myself" was about all I could wheeze in explanation.

"You savaged him! You executed him in front of his pregnant mate. He was going to be a father."

I tried to scream, but I couldn't get a sound out past his vice-like fingers. Stars dotted my vision.

I kicked to no avail and clawed at the male's hands.

He bore down on top of me, his knees pinning my legs to keep them still.A complicated mix of lust and violence carved his expression into something truly savage. I knew his wolf was whispering to him, telling him to claim me just as it had in the woods.

We were born enemies, and yet the universe was playing some kind of sick joke on us.

It was said that when a shifter's deepest instincts choose a mate for life, there was nothing stronger than that bond.

But bunnies and wolves didn't belong together. We were doomed from the start.

"You want to know what my beast keeps whispering in my ear, over and over?"

It was like he could see my train of thought on my face.

"It's telling me to make you mine," he went on. "The fucker's been quiet all my damn life, but tonight he won't shut the fuck up. Maybe I should listen to him."

My eyes widened, and he laughed. "Maybe I should keep you forever by mounting you on my walls with the rest of my hunting trophies."

And it was with that diabolic line that the universe decided to deliver the punchline to the sick joke it was playing on us.

Because at that moment, I went into heat.