Page 114 of Big Bad Wolf

“Ruby, look at me.” Her gaze snapped to his. “They’re gone. All of them. They can’t hurt you anymore.”

She swallowed hard. “But you⁠—”

“I won’t hurt you anymore either.” He was backing away. Leaving.

Wait. Why the hell was he leaving?

“Rafe, stop.”

He raised his hands, his fingers caked in dried blood. He looked bigger than usual, his teeth and fingernails longer, like he hadn’t fully shifted back to his human form. Like he tried but couldn’t find it. She was losing him.

“You’re safe now.”

“Rafe, please.” She reached out toward him, and he backed away, shaking his head.

“That’s it, Ruby. It’s over. We have to be over.”

Ruby’s throat closed up, squeezed by her overwhelming panic at the thought of Rafe leaving. Hot tears streamed down her face. She looked up at Rafe’s tortured expression.

“You’re scaring me,” she whispered.

He flinched, and she immediately knew it was the wrong thing to say. She needed to explain. She needed to tell him that wasn’t how she meant it. She reached for him again, but he stayed out of her grasp. His gaze skittered from her face to her injured shoulder, fear and pain flashing in his silver eyes.

“It’s better this way.” He spit out the words like they were poison. They were poison. How could he say anything so absurd? How could he believe it?

“Nothing is better this way.” Her words came out strangled and garbled with tears and panic.

But it was too late. He wasn’t listening anymore, his eyes scanning the yard one more time for danger before he turned and ran. Before she could say anything else, Rafe was gone.

Horror. Pure horror. It was etched on Ruby’s face. Like she’d never seen something quite so disturbing. He’d seen the look before. He knew what it meant to have someone look at you like you were a monster. But he’d been foolish enough to hope he’d never see that look on Ruby’s face.

He stumbled back through the trees, trapped somewhere between human and wolf. He didn’t have the strength to shift completely. He’d killed all three of the wolves that had attacked Ruby, but they’d put up a good fight. He was exhausted and injured. And his heart literally ached.

Ruby’s pale face and wide eyes flashed in his mind. The way her chest rose and fell in rapid, terrified breaths. The way he must have looked to her. How did he ever think he deserved to have her? How had he fallen into this same trap again?

He shook his head, causing a sharp pain to shoot up his neck. He’d been pinned at one point before he managed to flip the other wolf. His muscles ached from the effort. He’d let himself go soft. Maybe his father was right. Maybe for a moment he’d forgotten who he truly was. What he was built for. But once he was back in the fight, his body remembered what to do.

He could still taste Wyatt’s blood, acrid on his tongue. He needed to get home and wash it away with a drink, or five. He needed to forget the last month of his life. Erase it. Erase her.

Ruby was safe. Lena had had visions of wolves and blood, and he’d taken care of it. Maybe he was wrong about the whole Mate thing. Maybe this was all he was meant to do for her.

His body rebelled at the thought, his muscles tensing as though they would run him back to Ruby against his will. But he couldn’t go back. She’d never be safe around him. The last year of his life had been a lie. He was still the beast his father raised. He had had no trouble ripping those wolves apart. All his old instincts had come roaring back, and it didn’t matter how much time he spent working with his hands and sitting at the pub with the locals, pretending to be human. It didn’t matter how hard he wanted to believe he could be what Ruby needed. In the end, he was still a killer.

All this time he’d been trying to convince her that he was scary and he’d finally done it. Now she’d seen it with her own eyes, how much of a monster he really was. He was a goddamn mess. No wonder she looked at him like he was a nightmare come to life.

She was better off without him.

The thought rioted against his ribs, his heart rampaging against it, fighting to the end to keep her.

Apparently, fate did make mistakes.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Ruby gave Rafe a few hours head start before she went after him.

She grabbed her aunt’s old red cloak, that still hung by the back door, to protect her from the wind and impending rain, and headed out into the woods.

She didn’t know where he lived but it didn’t seem to matter. Her feet carried her down the overgrown path through the trees, never hesitating. It was late, dark except for the moon. It lit the path in front of her, guiding her way. The dark silhouettes of the trees reached up toward the sky.