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Maybe something made Rylan suspicious after all, or maybe he was toying with me all along, just letting me think I had a chance to get away.
But with Nathan here, Rylan’s hunter and the best nose in the pack, my life is over. Even if it was another shifter, it would still be over.
You’re mine, Saige, and every shifter in this city knows it. They answer to me. Try to escape again, and whoever finds you will hold you until I come and get you. And if you’re unlucky, they’ll have the sort of fun that will make you beg to come back.
Rylan’s whisper before he handcuffed me to his wall for ‘safe-keeping’ still lingers in my head. If I live to be a hundred years old, I’ll never forget it.
I didn’t believe him at first. But then I remembered the way people treated him like he was God’s gift. It was always the best for Rylan. The answer to whatever he wanted was never no, but when do you need it? Yes, of course, then it will be there. Yes. Yes. Yes.
I work to steady my rapid breaths as my eyes never leave the attractive dark-haired man with a piercing blue stare. When his nostrils flare, I throw myself back into my room a second before his gaze swings my way.
Panic eats away at my ability to control my breaths. They pant out of me. Ragged and overly loud.
I can’t breathe. Why can’t I breathe?
Sweat breaks out on my forehead as I strain to hear over the thunderous pounding of my heart in my head.
“I’m looking for my girlfriend, Saige Leo. They said downstairs that…” I stop listening because now I know what’s happening. This isn’t luck or accident. Rylan knows I’m alive. He knows I’m here.
It’s over. I never had a chance at all.
A flash of white and I jerk my head to the left. My gaze locks on Dr. Trevor, who must have been with another patient in a room opposite and three doors down. His eyes are on me and from his furrowed brow, he must have been watching me all this time.
He saw my reaction to Nathan. There’s no way he couldn’t have. Our stare extends.
Now what?
As if he heard me, he blinks. His frown melts away as if it never was, and a cool but distant doctor mask slips into place. He doesn’t look at me as he steps into the hallway, gives no sign at all that he knows I’m there. Just strides past my room and toward the nurses’ station.
I turn to the window. If Nathan is here, it means there must be others. It means escape is impossible. If I’d just run from Rylan, maybe things would go back to the way they were. Rylan would chain me beside his bed and every day, another piece of me would die until there was nothing left but an empty shell.
If I lived another month, I’d be surprised.
But I ran, and I caused a car crash that killed Felix. There’s no way Rylan will let that slide, not without serious punishment. His wolf won’t let him kill me, and he won’t let someone else do it, either.
I don’t have a choice.
I never have.
If the floor before was cold, I don’t feel it beneath my bare feet as I cross over to the window and the view of tall buildings in the darkening distance. I can’t see the ground from this angle, but it wouldn’t matter if I could. It wouldn’t be enough to stop me. A bark of laughter makes me jerk my head back to the doorway, my heart in my throat. Empty.But it won’t stay that way for long.
I grab the window latch and yank it, trying to force it open, but it won’t budge.Shit. Why won’t you open?Soon the nurse will tell Nathan I’m here, or he’ll pick up my scent beneath all these hospital scents and then he’ll take me back.
Felix is dead now, but the others are still alive. A flash of memory hits. The pack is chasing me through the forest, their pursuit silent, but I know they’re there. They might be in their wolf shape, but I can feel their excitement at this game of prey with a girl so terrified she makes their hunts more interesting than chasing after a deer or a rabbit.
A rabbit’s heart will sometimes give out because it’s so terrified, Nathan would murmur while he stroked my bare back on the nights that sex made him more talkative than usual. I’d lie on my front, staring at the wall as I tried not to listen.
A deer, he would continue, can be a little more exciting, if they’re smart. Not all are. But a human… I’d swallow my shudder as he pressed a kiss against my shoulder. Hunting a human with their self-survival instincts kicking in to surprise you… I’d feel his excitement grow, and when he’d slide into me again, I’d almost be relieved because it would mean he’d stop talking.
I can’t let that happen. Not again. Noteveragain.
The wood doesn’t budge, and that’s when it hits me that maybe it won’t. Maybe it has a safety lock and I can’t—
A hand grips my shoulder, hauling me back against a lean male chest. A scream pours up my throat, but Nathan doesn’t let it escape. His other hand claps hard over my mouth, trapping the sound.
6
SAIGE
