AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Why couldn’t she fucking talk?
Tears streamed down her face, her frustration insurmountable.
“I need a medic!” Casper called out, his voice rattling her brain.Too loud,she thought, unable to let him know. “You’re going to be fine. Everything will be fine. Elaron has some of thebest medics in the unnatural world.” She could hear the fear coursing through him plain as day. It was a fear that matched her own.
Only, her fear would remain her own. Unable to talk, unable to move, she was a prisoner in her own body, screaming for help to a world that couldn’t hear her.
She was trapped in her own body in a land far from home. A home she feared she would never return to. Somehow, she knew that by the time she healed, Trim and everyone she knew would be nothing more than a distant memory to the world.
In a cage of despair, a single thought kept her breathing -find my parents.
As the darkness weighed her down, threatening to drown her, she reached up to the small glimmer of light that told her to live. Because her parents were going to need help. And who would help them if not her?
No one.
So, she fought.
Chapter Two
Antonio Payne
Present Day
Alone in his room, lit only by the fire that emanated from his hearth, Antonio Payne sunk deeper into his chair. The continuous sounds of laughter from below bounced off the walls of his empty room, a haunting reminder of how miserable he was.
He often debated joining the other members of the Payne Clan for their dinner parties. Though more often than not, the decision to stay here, within his private quarters, won. Sometimes, talking with others was entirely too much work.
It was better for everyone if he stayed to himself, anyway. He risked the lives of everyone around him whenever he interacted with others, his beast more likely to rise when he was out in the world. And his beast was far from the friendly companions inside other werewolves.
No, the beast inside him was a killer and had been for nearly two hundred years.
I’m the killer.
He shook his head, conjuring up memories of his mate to help him forget about his curse, but even memories of her saddened him.
Two hundred years ago he lost his mate, Giselle. The memory of that day a constant reminder of what he truly was and everything he lost because of it.
Giselle, the woman his werewolf instinct chose and the woman he was fated to live his life with, died trying to escape him. How many times did he ruminate over that night and the days leading up to it, wishing he could have done something,anything,different?
She justhadto be fey - a species notorious for their asinine fear of nearly all other unnatural beings. They were especially terrified of werewolves. He would know. The immortal world was probably better off now that the fey were extinct.
But the fey species had been alive and well when he scented his mate, finding Giselle. She was terrified of him from the moment she laid eyes on him. He knew it, and he couldn’t blame her for it.
At least, shetriedto overcome her fear. She tried for him, even if only briefly.
Then she died.
And what he did after he learned the news of her death… he cringed to think of his actions that night and the years that followed.
I will never control the beast inside me, Antonio thought, memories of the times he lost himself to his beast resurfacing. Images of hundreds of desperate, pleading eyes flashing across his mind.
Those eyes haunted his every dream.
How could he forget the horrified looks in those damn eyes? They all pleaded him not to, but he always did, taking the life from those eyes every damn time.
Hell. His life was hell.
Antonio shook his head, trying to rid himself of the memories plaguing his thoughts. He reached for the glass of whiskeybeside him and took a hefty swig. All the whiskey in the world couldn’t take his pain away. But knowing that didn’t stop him from trying.
