How could he have been so blind? So willfully ignorant?
He glared down at his cock as if the damn thing might have a ready explanation, but that only served to deepen his depression.
Last night, that cock had been buried between her thighs, in her hands, in her soft, wet mouth. And for those brief moments, when all else faded away and there was only Dorian and the passionate, beautiful, insatiable woman in his bed, he’d almost felt…
Bloody hell.
He squeezed his eyes shut as the searing pain scored his chest anew. It didn’t matter what he’d felt. Didn’t matter that he’d wanted to die when Duchanes put his filthy hands upon her. Didn’t matter that she’d saved his life, risking her own by offering the vein. Didn’t matter that the taste of her blood had left him drunk and euphoric, the memory stirring his cock to life again even now.
Dizzy with rage and ruin, hands trembling with the sudden itch to rend some poor living creature in two, Dorian fell to the ground like a beast. Frantically, he tore at the earth, fingers plowing through the mud and the stone and the brittle bones of the dead, as if he could somehow dig his own grave and bury his miserable heart.
He dug until he hit water, until his back ached, until his fingers bled.
Still, the pain did not abate.
A scream of fury boiled up inside him, but when he opened his mouth to curse her very name, he couldn’t bring himself to say the words.
Charlotte D’Amico…
The taste of it so close to his lips brought her beautiful face to his mind, and deep in the dark cavern of his soul, the devil rattled his chains.
It wanted out.
It wanted to destroy.
It wanted to consume.
And for the first time in forty-nine years, one month, and twenty-four days, Dorian was ready to set that monster free.
He rose to his feet, blood dripping from his hands, panting like a ghoul as he scented the air for prey.
Fuck. Kill. Feed.
The mantra hammered through his skull in time with his heartbeat.
Fuck. Kill. Feed.
Some dim, faraway part of him knew it was wrong, knew he had to fight it, knew he couldn’t lose control.
Fuck. Kill. Feed.
But that part of him—the human part—cowered in the shadows as the devil gathered strength.
Fuck. Kill. Feed. Fuck kill feed fuck kill feed fuck kill fe—
The snap of a twig, the whisper of the night breeze through the pines, and a new scent reached his awareness, wild and musky. Dorian spun on his heel, hackles raised.
Wolves.
The shadows came alive with them—nearly a dozen. They surrounded him, growling and snapping, closing ranks until they’d penned him in completely.
He tried to blur out, but his movements were slow and uncoordinated, the long-distance travel and emotional turmoil finally catching up with him. He stumbled and swayed, and the wolves descended, knocking him on his back.
Dorian got in a good kick to a soft snout, but the favor was returned with a sharp bite around his ankle, another piercing his shoulder. Pain sizzled through his skin, burning up his leg and down his arm, finally unleashing the desperate howl he’d been holding back all night.
Dorian tried to kick again, but he had nothing left. No fight. No wits. Just a shell with a blackened heart, his final words a hoarse scream.
The wolves clamped down harder, sending twin bursts of agony through his limbs.
