AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Elizabeth charged forward and Nadia said softly, “Stop,” in a voice that froze Elizabeth in her tracks.
“I’ll go with you,” Elizabeth pleaded. “I want to go with you!”
“Stop lying! You broke it, and there’s no going back.”
“Nadia, please. Give me a chance to prove my love. What do you want me to do? Just tell me.”
She cocked her head to one side. “You want to prove your love? Come on this side of the fence with me.”
“I will . . . but I can’t until you let Chloe go.”
Nadia gave a short laugh. “All I have to do is squeeze this trigger.” Her blue eyes danced dangerously. “Very little pressure.”
“No . . . no . . . I’ll do anything you want. God, please. Anything.”
“Then step over the fence.” She waited.
The sound of the ocean seemed to fill Elizabeth’s ears. She’d stalled as long as she could. She understood that Nadia intended to kill Chloe no matter what she said or did. Chloe was in the way . . . the true object of Elizabeth’s love . . .
She moved forward and eased a foot over the rail.
Behind Nadia and Chloe sounded a backdrop of thrumming waves and the occasional loud phumf of raging water hitting the rocks below before shooting upward. And from the other direction the sudden squeal of tires.
Nadia cocked an ear and so did Elizabeth who was halfway over the rail.
In that moment, Chloe bit down for all she was worth into Nadia’s gun hand, her jaws clamping hard into soft flesh.
The scream that hit Ravinia’s ears chilled her blood. She was out of the car and running toward the back of the house, but she couldn’t catch up to Rex who’d powered past her toward the women and girl on the other side of the fence. The other side of the fence!
“No!” Elizabeth shrieked as Nadia’s scream died and she suddenly grabbed Chloe around her throat. Elizabeth leaped forward as Chloe became a whirling dervish, kicking and biting and struggling against her captor, all at the cliff’s edge.
Ravinia was yelling, too, screaming anything and everything, as Rex vaulted the fence.
In slow motion, she saw Chloe break free just as Elizabeth slammed her body into Nadia’s. Rex grabbed at them as the two women fell to the ground and rolled as one toward the brink. “Elizabeth!” he roared.
Nadia held onto Elizabeth with a vise grip. “We’ll be together always!” she cried, jerking her body to the cliff’s edge, dragging Elizabeth with her.
Rex lunged for a leg, nearly connected, but missed as the women’s bodies were twisting and hurling left and right. Ravinia leaped the fence and grabbed Chloe, stumbling a little, getting an eyeful of churning white waves down, down, down below before pulling back.
Nadia’s free hand scrabbled for the gun she’d dropped when Chloe bit her. She slammed it against the side of Elizabeth’s head, but she couldn’t get any power behind it. Elizabeth was fighting like a wildcat, scratching at the woman’s face,
screaming and kicking. But they were moving inexorably toward the rim.
“Elizabeth!” Rex shouted, grabbing her leg.
Nadia bared her teeth and sought to aim for him, but Elizabeth was too strong, smacking her hand against the ground, loosening her grip on the gun. Enraged, Nadia clamped herself around Elizabeth and rolled her free of Rex’s grip.
And then they started to fall, Nadia’s leg and arm over the edge, the momentum carrying them. Chloe screamed in Ravinia’s arms and Ravinia was screaming, too.
The wolf came from nowhere. A silver shadow leaping the small fence with ease and launching at Nadia.
Ravinia shrieked, “No!!!” as Nadia and Elizabeth’s locked bodies twisted in midair. But it was an illusion.
It was the wolf in the air with Nadia. Rex yanked hard on Elizabeth’s leg and pulled her back to safety.
In another slow motion twirl, Nadia and the wolf went over the cliff, end over end, silver fur and blond hair, wildly flinging arms and sinewy, furred legs, a mouth open in a silent scream and sharp incisors sinking into human flesh.
Moments later, a small thunk echoed upward, faint amid the loud and restless waves.
