Page 51 of Declan

“No. Not never mind. You started this argument, now you’re following it through.”

What the hell was I saying?

I’d wanted him to leave. I didn’t want to talk—about anything. But that damn hurt on his face was like a fist squeezing my heart.

“You want me to leave, Autumn, I’m gone. I don’t need this shit.”

“And what shit is that? The big heaping pile you shoveled at me demanding I take a stupid pain pill, or you pushing until I finally get pissed enough to admit why I don’t like taking them. And in doing that, forcing me to tell you how weak I am and can’t control the bad shit that happened to me and I still let it affect my life.”

Now I was panting. I felt my chest heaving and that pissed me off, too. Why did I let him get to me? Why the hell did I care what was in his eyes?

It was not my business.

“No, baby, the shit I don’t need is you fucking with my life.”

What the hell?

“And how am I fucking with your life?”

Declan transformed—right before my very eyes, he changed. Gone was the man—rough, strong, rugged. And in his place was a beast.

A big, beautiful, beast.

And he was unleashed.

His hands tore through his hair, his eyes wild but in a new way—a scary way. His large frame strung taut, visibly quaking.

Oh, fuck.

“I can’t do this,” he snarled. “I can’t feel this. I can’t want this.”

His gaze held me hostage. I knew I should look away. I knew it and I didn’t and what came next ripped my soul from my body. It tore the muscle. It broke bones.

“You’re not her,” he roared.

My blood froze.

Anguish slithered up my spine, pierced my flesh, and infused my entire being with a toxin so potent I stumbled back.

“You have no right to make me feel what you do. No fucking right to make me want you. No motherfucking right…” His words trailed off but his sounds didn’t. His feral growl filled the room and I wisely ran from the beast he’d become.

Though I couldn’t go far. The house wasn’t big enough to escape the sound, I could still hear him in my room. But even if I couldn’t, I’d never forget. The torment, the suffering, the affliction were burned into my brain.

You’re not her.

No, I wasn’t her.

I’d never be the beauty that was his wife.

I’d never carry his child.

I’d never be any of those things to anyone.

I was an infection. Something that needed to be cast out.

Chapter 18

What the fuck was wrong with me?