Chapter 3

THREE

RUTH

T he back road running through the woods was nothing but dirt, making for a bumpy ride that did nothing to ease the budding dread in my gut.

I'd never been this nervous in my life. It wasn't every day someone was casually driven to their own brutal blood sacrifice.

To make matters worse, Doug was responsible for delivering the sacrifices this year.

Doug was the High Elder's oldest son, and he was a fucking tool.

There was no convincing him to turn back and let us go. I would swear he got enjoyment out of sending young rabbit shifters to their deaths.

All my hatred for Doug found a new target when we pulled off on the side of the road behind a beat-up truck that looked older than me, and a man approached.

The headlights from our car lit him up like a spotlight. He had a gun —a hunting rifle.

His eyes glinted in the light like some monster in the night. He wore a worn black shirt with a faded logo I couldn't make out and dark denim jeans that hugged his brawny frame, touting the power packed in his lean muscle.

You were supposed to be able to tell the color of their wolf's fur by the color of their human hair. This man's hair was silver. His pale hair was a shock against the dark swath of tattoos covering his body—his forearms, his throat. A barbed wire design even stretched from the edge of his sharp jaw and followed the perimeter of his hairline.

This guy's whole vibe was backwoods cutthroat. He had no right to be so damn attractive.For all I knew, this was one of the wolves who'd eaten my sister.

He prowled toward my window, peering into the back seat.

Some of Hope's excitement seemed to thin as she took in the approaching werewolf. "Is that one of the wolves? Why does he have a gun? Doesn't he know we're the sacred sacrifices?"

I turned on her, blinking. "What were you expecting? A red carpet? Wake the hell up, Hope. We're about to be hunted down and eaten by wolves."

Her lower lip trembled, and her sky-blue eyes filled with tears. "Don't you think I know that? But we're doing our duty to keep our burrow safe. Our sacrifice is going to save lives. I'm proud of that. I just thought…"

"That they'd be more appreciative of what we're doing for them," Sawyer muttered.

The tightness in my chest made each breath I took short and shallow as I watched the man approach the driver's side window.

"Predators don't respect their food," I murmured.

The werewolf kept his gaze on me the entire time he spoke with Doug. Even as he pointed to Hope. "You first."

My cousin glanced at me, and the look in her eyes drove a knife into my heart.

I'd always thought my cousin to be kind of an idiot who just did what she was told. But in these last moments I knew I had with her, I saw her in a different light. She was just making the best out of a situation she had no control over. She'd been told by our Elders and her own parents that this was her duty to the colony.

So, Hope, being the good girl that she was, was going to do this with a smile on her face.

Even if she was screaming on the inside.

Me? I had no intention of being so compliant.

Hope moved to get out of the car, but I reached across Sawyer and snatched her wrist, preventing her from leaving. "Let's go together."

The male's jaw flexed, and something almost akin to amusement flickered over his inked face. "Yeah, see, that's not how this works, Little Bunny. Say your goodbyes now."

"It's okay…" At Hope's brave smile, an uncomfortable pang burrowed into my gut. Nothing about this situation was anything close to okay.

I wanted to comfort her, to tell her to run as hard as she could. But there was no time. She pulled her wrist from my grip, opened her door and disappeared into the woods with the gunman.

Sawyer stared into the darkness that enveloped Hope. Without turning to face me, his hand crept over to mine and gripped it tightly. I resisted the urge to shake him off. At that moment, we needed each other.

Doug flipped on the radio and leaned back in his chair, humming along to John Denver's "Country Roads."

My mind grappled with what to do. My list of options was slim. We weren't given any time to prepare, but one of my brothers had managed to press a small pocket knife into my hands while hasty goodbyes were given.

Doug wasn't armed. He had no reason to be. Every Sacrifice was so thoroughly brainwashed that every bunny before me happily flocked to their slaughter.

Except me.

I'd just started to imagine sinking the blade into the back of his fat neck when the silver-haired male reappeared. Doug started to get out, but the werewolf was already at the door, ripping it open.

He gestured for Sawyer to get out of the car. "You next."

The man's eyes flicked to my hand clasped in Sawyer's. Something almost akin to pity flickered behind his eyes, but it was gone in a blink.

"Kiss your mate goodbye." A chill skipped up my spin at the werewolf's expression. "If you're quick, I'll even let you have one last rut."

Before I could inform the man that we weren't mates, Sawyer was on top of me.

Panic clawed its way up my throat as a horrible sense of déjà vu set in. Sawyer pushed me onto my back and crammed his tongue into my mouth. His hand greedily palmed my breast, giving it a rough squeeze that had me gasping in pain and shock.

In my periphery, Doug twisted around in his seat to get a good look at us. He knew Sawyer and I weren't mates, but the creep was more than happy to watch the assault.

I resisted the urge to bury my knife in his fucking eye socket—not wanting to reveal I was armed—and instead settled for a punch to Sawyer's nose. There was a sickening crunch followed by a spray of blood. It peppered my face, leaving the taste of his tongue in my mouth and his scent in my nose.

My stomach heaved.

"Crazy bitch!" Sawyer shrieked, reeling back to nurse his nose with both hands. "You're really gonna turn down an opportunity to live for a few minutes longer?"

I glared up at Sawyer. "I'd rather be torn apart by wolves than mate with you."

Sawyer raised his fist, ready to hit me back, but he froze with a look of terror in his eyes.

The gunman had the barrel of his hunting rifle pressed against the back of the rabbit shifter's skull. "You heard her."

Sawyer's breath came out in a rattle. He slowly climbed out of the car, and I watched as the wolf took Sawyer off into the darkness to disappear from my life forever.

I wiped the blood from my face with an angry swipe of my hand, watching it smear in the rear-view mirror as I glared at our driver's reflection. "You piece of steaming shit. You were just gonna sit there and let him do whatever he wanted, weren't you?"

Doug licked his lips as he eyed me in the rearview mirror. "Too prude to do what bunnies do best, huh? Can't spread your legs even if it means living longer."

My fingers tightened around the knife in my pocket as I fantasized gutting him, taking his keys and shoving his body into the road. Maybe running him over before driving as far as the tank of gas would get me.

Movement outside the window drew my attention from Doug for a beat, long enough to see the silver-haired male had returned from the woods. Alone. Whatever he'd done with Hope and Sawyer, there was no sign of them now.

Still unwilling to reveal my knife, I released the handle and lunged for Doug's seat. Taking the seatbelt, I wrapped it around his throat and brought my body weight down to the floor behind him. He coughed and sputtered, desperately pulling at the strap before realizing there wasn't any hope of overpowering me. He fumbled with the door handle, shifted into a sable rabbit and bolted out the open door.

On my next breath, my door wrenched open, and I was pulled out of the station wagon.

"Oh, we have a feisty one on our hands this year. You're going to be the reason Watership Farms gets prison-grade security vans."

I glared up at the silver-haired male while trying to wrench my arm from his hold. It was useless. Even in his human form, he towered over me. He had to be freaking gigantic in his true shape. And he was hot , literally and figuratively. His body heat bled into my clothes, filling me with fire.

My eyes dragged over his broad chest, up his tatted throat, to meet his eyes. They were gray, like angry storm clouds.

I'd spotted some of the wolf shifters on my rare trips to the nearby town to buy supplies the burrow couldn't produce. It had always been at a distance. Up close, I could sense the beast hiding beneath his skin.

He was as gorgeous as he was terrifying. And now Doug was gone—or hiding, the coward—leaving me alone with the silver-haired monster.