Page 44 of Sweet Torment

“I said stay the fuck back!”

“Just ask nicely,” he croons, still approaching. “Say ‘please, Carter, I need your knot,’ and I’ll make all that pain go away. I’ll fuck you so good you’ll forget you have a mate.”

Mate.

My back hits a tree. I’m trapped.

“Never.”

“Never?” He’s so close I can feel his body heat. “Your body says otherwise. I can smell how badly you need it. You must feel so empty. Is it hurting?”

He’s not wrong. It hurts so fucking bad. Like my insides are twisting, cramping, begging for something to fill the aching void.

“That’s just my body,” I gasp. “I don’t fucking want you. Don’t touch me.”

“Well, how about this… I’ll make your body feel all better,” he says. “And you can just lay there and pretend it’s not happening.” He snaps his fingers. “Everybody wins.”

A drone whirs in and stops to hover above us. A single red light glows, aimed right at me.

When Carter proceeds closer, a sound like an alarm goes off.

The alarm gets louder. Before I understand what’s happening, Carter throws a rock at it, knocking it out of the air, and then he stomps on it.

He reaches for me and I slash with the knife, catching his arm. Blood wells up and his eyes go dark. “You little bitch.”

Grabbing my wrist, he slams it against the tree until I drop the knife. His other hand wraps around my throat, not squeezing yet.

“I was going to be gentle,” he says, pressing his body against mine. I can feel his erection through his pants. “But now? Now I’m going to make you scream.”

“Go to hell.”

His hand slides down from my throat, over my chest, and my body arches into it against my will. “Your body knows what it needs,” he murmurs, fingers finding my hard nipple through the torn fabric. “Even if your mind is fighting it.”

I whimper from disgust, from need, from rage. Take your pick.

His hand tightens on my throat again. “Beg me to fuck you, or I’ll choke you out and do it anyway. At least if you’re conscious, you can enjoy it.”

I bring my knee up hard, aiming between his legs. He twists at the last second, but I still catch him in the upper thigh. As he doubles over, I grab the dropped knife and slam it toward his groin. The blade sinks in, deep into the meat of his inner thigh.

His scream is inhuman. “You fucking cunt! You tried to cut my cock off!”

He backhands me so hard my vision whites out for a second, then slams me against the tree again. Blood is spreading fast across his pants. His eyes are going black, the pupils dilating until they swallow the color.

Rut. The chaos has triggered his rut.

A gunshot echoes through the forest. Distant but clear.

For a second, I hear a voice that sounds like Freddie shouting. But that’s impossible. My mind is playing tricks.

The packs had knives and bows only, right?

Who the fuck has a gun?

Pop.

Was that another one?

Carter doesn’t flinch at the sound. He’s gone. His hands tear at my pants, ripping them down along with my underwear in one violent motion. The cool air hits my exposed skin and I thrash harder, clawing at his face.