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“So, you’re the one everyone is getting all worked up about, huh?”
“Don’t you knock?” I asked.
Cal raised his eyebrows. “You’ve got quite an attitude for someone who’s a prisoner.”
“I’m not a prisoner.”
“You’re not free,” Cal said and smirked.
He moved away from the wall and came toward the bed. His body language was casual, relaxed, but his light eyes were sharp, trained on me all the time, and I had a feeling that I was being stalked. Cal was a predator, and I was very aware that I was his prey.
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” I said. My voice was strained, magic already trembled under my skin. My rabbit was ready to run—when it came to fight-or-flight mode, I usually chose flight. It was in my genes. I was a rabbit, and rabbits could run.
Cal sat down on the mattress. I moved away from him and got off the bed, standing with my back to the closet.
“Don’t be so scared, little rabbit,” Cal said. He got up and walked around to me.
I wanted to climb over the bed and get away from him, but he moved quickly, suddenly on top of me, and I stepped back so that my back was against the wall. My breath came in jagged gasps, shallow and terrified.
I was frozen, and I could taste my heart in my throat.
Cal lifted his hand and dragged a finger down my cheek. He looked at me with hunger in his eyes, and I knew what he wanted from me.
It was what the panthers had wanted, too.
It was what theyallseemed to want from me.
I was ready to shift, but Cal grabbed my wrist and slammed it against the wall, his body so close to mine, his breath on my face. He smelled of stale alcohol, and it made me gag.
“Don’t even think about shifting. I’m bigger than you and stronger than you. If you shift, I’ll kill you. You just play along, and no one needs to get hurt.”
“I’m not yours to control,” I said. My voice was small.
“No, you’re not. You belong to Braxton. He thinks he can do whatever he wants, but I’ll show him. He doesn’t get to be a dick and not feel the consequences.”
Cal tried to kiss me, his disgusting face right up against mine, and I twisted my face to try to get away from him. When I tried to scream, he clamped his hand over my mouth.
“Fine, if you want to do this the hard way, we can—”
Before he could finish his sentence, something yanked his large body away from me, and Braxton stood in the room, naked and covered in blood on his mouth, chest, and his hands.
Magic rolled off him something fierce, and his eyes were the color of his lion—golden, his pupils black little pinpricks. The anger in the room burned hot on my skin, but it was all directed at Cal.
Cal scrambled backward, and where he’d been menacing before, he was shitting himself now. I hadn’t seen someone that scared in a long time.
“If you so much as look at her again, I’ll kill you,” Braxton said calmly. It wasn’t a threat, it was a promise. “Get the fuck out of my house.”
“This isn’t your—”
“If you set foot in this house again, you’re done.”
Cal opened his mouth to argue, but he didn’t go that far. The magic in the room and Braxton’s calm, quiet rage was enough to tell Cal that it was time to do what was asked of him rather than to argue.
Cal got up. He balled his fists as if he was going to fight, but his eyes said something else. He was scared.
“You’ll be sorry,” he said. “You think you can fuck with me, but you have no idea who I am.”
“I know exactly who you are, and you’re dead to me,” Braxton said.
