Page 75
Ren
* * *
I strode out onto the street and watched Jasmine run like hell away from me. She’d tried to backtrack, to pretend she didn’t care, that she’d only come for some fun, but she was lying.
My heart was pounding like it was trying to liberate itself from my chest.
Fuck, when I answered the door—the look on her face, the hope, the excitement. Everything she felt for me had been right there, open and real and so fucking raw.
And I’d smothered it, killed it.
I’d hurt her.
Oh fuck.
I bent at the waist, gripping my thighs, and dry heaved. Everything inside me was rebelling against what I’d just done. My fox was losing his shit, shredding the ground beneath his paws, howling in pain.
She was ours, our mate, and I’d rejected her. I pushed her away.
A weak, tainted piece of shit like you has no right touching a female like that. Edward’s voice echoed through my mind. My broken mind bringing him back as if he’d never left.
Images of the newspaper article I’d seen this morning, crumpled up and tossed on the floor of my father’s office, flashed through my mind. A piece written about the families of the victims, my victims, three years later. Their faces…how they felt about their loved one’s killer still on the loose…
My skin crawled.
Letting her go was the right thing to do.
I had to move. I couldn’t stand here, and I couldn’t go back into my place. Not when all I could see now was Jasmine standing there, so beautiful, eyes filled with pain, not when her scent had filled every inch like she’d always been there. I strode down the street and through the field, then into the forest. I didn’t dare shift, not right then, not when we both wanted to go after Jasmine so badly. If I let animal instincts take over, my fox would take us straight to her.
Christ, the pain in her eyes was all I could see. I could feel it. Her pain had felt like a kick to the backs of the knees. It’d taken everything in me to stand fucking upright in the face of all that pain. I should never have kissed her, touched her. I should have fucking resisted. I could tell myself that, but it’d been impossible. I’d been drawn to her so completely that resisting wasn’t an option, and now I’d made everything so much worse.
A demon snarled up ahead, and I pulled the knife from my boot and kept running. It stepped out in front of me, and I attacked, taking out all the pent-up agony and rage I was feeling. I sliced and sliced, a sound coming from me that could only be described as a disturbed wail before I finally removed his head. After that I heard no more demons as I ran toward my cliff.
The demons in these forests knew me well. I’d lived alongside them for long enough. They knew what I could do, and they’d learned to stay the fuck away from me. The sound of rushing water echoed ahead, and I pumped my arms harder, sprinting faster. It’d be better for Jasmine, for everyone if I was gone. If I dove off the edge of that cliff. I gasped for breath, struggling to process what just happened back in my kitchen, what I’d just done.
Oh fuck.
What had I done?
What I had to. I was stained with blood. A monster.
A monster who was still torturing the innocent people he’d killed, their souls unable to rest because of me, because of how fucked in the head I was. A monster who hurt everyone around him.
You’re a weak, pathetic coward, Edward’s voice snarled. I punched the side of my head and roared. “Shut up!”
He wasn’t there. He was gone. That was my own voice.
And it was right.
I ran and ran until sweat poured off me, until the cliff finally came into view. I dug my heels in deeper, my breath puffing in and out faster. I looked straight ahead, focusing on the night sky, and raced for the edge.
Almost there. It was almost over—
A heavy weight slammed into my side, knocking me back several yards from the edge. I spun with a snarl, and came face to face with a giant hellhound. Warrick.
No one was stopping me. I jumped back up and sprinted toward my goal a second time, but he moved quickly, tossing me away from the edge again.
I stood, panting hard. “Get the fuck out of my way!” I roared.
