The air rushed out of her. Her entire body froze. She knew she needed to run on some primal level, but her mind had gone blank, her limbs refusing to move as she stared at the man she had thought she would never see again.
Lucas took advantage of her temporary paralysis. With a snarl, his hand lashed out and grabbed her wrist tighter than he had before. He jerked her toward him, holding her arm above her. She tried desperately to wrench her arm away, but she couldn’t break his grip.
Her other hand lashed out to claw his face, but he caught it as well. He laughed as she tried to pull herself away from him. All he did was pull her closer. One large hand held her wrists high in the air. The other went proprietarily to her waist, nails digging into her side.
“Miss me, Nikki?” he asked, looking her up and down. He gave a lecherous grin, squeezing tight. “You look good.”
Her eyes narrowed, and her knee drove straight into his stomach. Lucas’s eyes widened. He grunted, loosening his grip. He snarled, then tightened his grip once more, holding her in place.
She screamed. Once again, his hand clamped over her mouth, finger gripping her jaw. The anger simmering in his gaze turned to amusement.
“Did you actually think you could get away?” he asked. He barked out a laugh. “That’s adorable.”
This time, her knee rammed into his crotch. His grip loosened again, this time enough for her to wrench her wrists out of his hold. She turned to flee.
A sharp pain bloomed across her side. Staggering back, she gasped, hand flying to her stomach. She could feelsomething damp and warm spread across her palm. The fight was temporarily forgotten. She stared down, stunned. It wasn’t until she craned her neck back up to see Lucas reaching for her that she realized the pain had distracted her from running.
She tried to turn to flee, but it was too late. He shoved her, and she fell. Her head banged against the ground, feeling like someone had taken a sledgehammer to her skull. Groaning, she started to get up, but only managed to prop herself on one arm before Lucas was on top of her. He spun her over until she was on her stomach. He grabbed her hands and forced them behind her back. The next thing she felt was something rough wrapping around her wrists, binding them together.
“Stop struggling,” he hissed when she started writing and trying to break free. One knee pressed between her shoulder blades, shoving her back down. “It’s not going to do any good. Might as well accept it.”
The last of the fight died out of her as the rope cinched tight. This was it, then. She had a brief taste of freedom, and that was all she would ever get. She should have known it was too good to last. And Lucas was right; she was weak, and there was nothing she could do to stop him. She had tried, and it hadn’t been good enough. Odds were, it never would have been.
Her struggles dissipated until they stopped altogether. All she could do was let him finish tying her up and take her away.
“That’s right,” Lucas said when the fight ceased. “Good girl. Now just—”
A snarl sounded through the air, and a moment later, the weight on her back vanished. The ropes, not fully tied, loosened. She shimmied out of them, barely daring to trust the belief flickering through her. After a moment of bewilderment, she straightened, looking around to see what had happened.
Someone had knocked Lucas off the side and was now wrestling with him. She gaped, watching. Whoever it was, they were tearing into Lucas in a frenzy with unrestrained fury. Her heart thundered, and she swallowed, trying to get a good look at her savior.
The moonlight spilled across the fight, and she gasped. She recognized that sandy hair, that strong jaw, and high cheekbones. She recognized the way he fought, the techniques, and the way his body moved, graceful and deadly at the same time. Of course, she recognized him; she had watched him, had learned from him every week for the past several months.
Jasper, the man who had been training her and the rest of the girls, was on top of Lucas, glowering down at him, his lips curled into a snarl.
She knew she needed to run while she had the chance, but the injury to her side made it painful to move, and her head was spinning, so she stayed where she was, unable to tear her eyes away from the sight before her. Even if she could run, she didn’t know if she could. Jasper had saved her. She didn’t want to repay that by abandoning him while he fought for her.
The panic and surprise on Lucas’s face dissipated, replaced by a contemptuous sneer. Then, Lucas was gone, and Jasper was thrown back as the man beneath him changed into a large black wolf. It snarled, snapping at Jasper, who jumped backward to avoid the snapping maw.
One moment, Jasper was a muscular human with sharp features and shaggy hair. The next, the man was gone, replaced by a massive gray wolf.
He sprang toward Lucas, and the fight truly began.
Chapter 3 - Jasper
As a rule, Jasper didn’t enjoy fighting. He saw it as part of the job, a duty that he was good at, but one he didn’t necessarily take joy in. He saw it as integral, a necessity, but not something to savor.
This time, however, Jasper enjoyed every single second.
He lunged forward, grabbing Lucas by the neck. He bit down, drawing blood. Lucas let out a yelp of pain, squirming. Good. Jasper wanted him to feel pain. He deserved it after what he had done. Rage surged through him like a forest fire in a drought. With every single attack, he thought about Nikki—how frightened she had been, how she had nearly been taken. He was going to return that to Lucas tenfold and relish every moment.
Lucas wormed his way out of his hold and scrambled away. He lunged toward Jasper, planning on leaping onto his back. Jasper dodged nimbly, his own claws outstretched to slice across the bridge of the other wolf’s snout. Lucas howled and staggered back.
Another swipe of the claws, and they dug into Lucas’s flank. The other wolf yelped, then whimpered. He was panting heavily, and the injury seemed to have done more of a number on him than either of them would have expected. Jasper could see in the other wolf’s eyes that Lucas knew he’d been beaten. He knew there was no getting out of this.
Lucas glanced behind him, searching for his way out. He glanced once more at the bristling Jasper, then sprinted toward the woods. Growling, Jasper lunged after him. He wasn’t about to let this asshole get away, not after what he had done. He’d chase him through the woods all night if he had to.
A gasp of pain echoed behind him. He turned and saw with equal parts horror and rage that Nikki was bleeding from a gash on her head, and she had scratches all over her arms. Her shirt was ripped to show more cuts, though from here, he couldn’t tell how deep or shallow they were.
