AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Until now.
Her vision went red.Insanity, Loren thought. She had just gone insane.
Lost her damn mind.
She once read in a book that one of the signs of schizophrenia was alternate perceptions of reality. You saw things that weren’t there. Heard things…
But Loren doubted that description included launching yourself at your enemy with your hands drawn like claws.
And,she was pretty confident that when most people succumbed to schizophrenia, they didn’t growl. They didn’t bare their teeth like fangs and…snarl.
At least, for the first time in her life, as she raked her nails along the perfect skin of Naomi Tanner’s face, the blood on her fingers wasn’t her own.
2
Loren!
Loren Connors!
Someone was calling her name—though the ringing in her ears could be another symptom of insanity.She’d already hit the trifecta of potential red flags. Hearing voices. Losing control of her limbs. Feeling so much rage, she couldexplode.
For the first time in her life, Loren Connors didn’t want to hide. She wanted to…
Kill. The impulse wasn’t coherent—more like a writhing mass of urges, she felt all at once. A need to draw blood, attack…bite? Experimentally, she snapped at the air. Oh hell, yeah, she wanted to bite, but something firmer. Her teeth ached with a sudden need that had her glancing down, through a haze of red.
She wanted flesh…
“LOREN CONNORS!” The bellowed shout resonated like a gut punch.
As her vision cleared, several realizations confronted her at once. The foremost being that she was straddling Naomi Tanner. Not only that, but…
God, she had both hands around the girl’s slender throat—so tightly Naomi’s green eyes bulged from their sockets.
And blood splattered her chin. In tiny rivulets, it stemmed from three violet marks streaked across the side of Naomi’s fashionably tanned cheek.
Oh no,Loren thought, horrified.Did I do that?
“Get the fuck off me!” Naomi lashed out. With the strength that came from years of training as the head cheerleader, the blond easily shoved her off. Not before giving her a kick to the stomach as a parting gift.
But,Loren was forced to realize thatshe—a girl with barely enough muscle on her wiry frame to fill a teaspoon—had knocked Naomi down in the first place.
And choked her.
Wide-eyed, Loren gaped at her own hands. They couldn’t belong to her, not mousy Loren Connors. Someone else.Somethingelse.
“Oh, I am so pressing charges, you stupid bitch!”
“That’s enough, Ms. Tanner.” The voice was too deep to belong to one of the minions. Or a woman. It was masculine, richer than any baritone she’d ever heard.
“Did you see what she fucking did? Well, aren’t you going todosomething?”
It was only then that Loren noticed the man nearby, standing behind the open door of a police squad car. He was tall, imposingly so, with stern features and piercing gray eyes. Eyes that bore into hers as he spoke a command solely directed her way.
“Get back.” To her ears, it sounded like a stern suggestion, but inside her head…
It was an order.
Heart pounding, Loren scrambled backward until she sat fully in the mud, a good five feet from Naomi.
