His smile made her sick to her stomach. His assurance that she was beaten served to piss her off. Just the typical a-hole who knew he got everything for nothing. Zelina, shaking in her stilettos, wasn’t going down that easy. Thinking quickly, she reached for the dampness she’d felt under her butt and splashed as much as she could at his approaching body. A lucky shot caught him across the eyes and face, dragging him to his knees. Amid the smoke and putrid smell of burning flesh, Z made a dash for the exit.
His fingers reached for her, nails slicing gashes into her thigh, but she slid past him. She ignored the burning as much as she could, sprinting through frozen, silent bodies to reach the door. He had been right. No one was coming, and no one had even heard her scream. They all stood like left-alone marionette dolls in the restaurant, still in midstride, mouths agape on silent laughs, and even poised on the brink of a kiss. None of them could help her. She was a space in time they wouldn’t even remember.
Chapter Three
As the events washed over her, the same fear, helplessness, and her fight-or-flight swam around her, but Zelina pushed through it. She didn’t know how long she’d been running, but something in her told her she was running out of time, that any second she would—
“Got you,” Brian growled in her ear, slamming her to the ground, the breath whooshing out of her lungs. She felt dazed. He flipped her over in his arms, spittle dripping from his mouth. Pockmarks marred his once-handsome face.
The sight of him sent air careening back into her lungs, and she struggled against him, clawing at him with her nails and trying to buck him off of her. It was like a rose petal trying to force steel out of the way. He never moved, never gave.
“Ah, ah, ah, don’t hurt my feelings like that. I just gave you the best date of your life.” He chuckled, his rancid tongue gliding over her collarbone and neck. She felt her pulse throb even more.
“It didn’t end well. Let’s try it again. This time I’ll have a big pitcher of water for you.” Z sneered back.
The slap happened so fast she didn’t even see him move. Fire raced along her cheek and eye socket. Her eye felt as if it was going to explode. He pulled her head roughly to one side by her hair, sniffing at her neck and nuzzling. Did they train all men how to hit? Incapacitate, maim, kill . . . no, that was the military. She was losing her mind.
“Your skin is like chocolate. I loved watching your pulse under your skin as you ate. As you watched me and got turned on. As your body told me it wanted me.” He scraped his teeth against her jugular, the sting biting at her. A small whimper escaped before she could stop it. He chuckled against her throat, nuzzling the skin as if he was rewarding her for the sound before his teeth scraped again, deeper.
“Can you hear me knocking?” He mocked her before his teeth sank in. Pain exploded through her system. It was like twin knives puncturing her skin, and on each suck, they sliced through more.
She screamed. It was all she could do, flailing against his body like a butterfly held under the paw of a lion. She knew it was futile, but she still fought. She couldn’t die knowing she hadn’t tried everything she could to survive. The edges of her vision started to darken, her arms feeling as though they were moving through quicksand. She could feel her soul slipping away. In every sawing of his fangs, she felt more of herself disappear. Tears gathered in her eyes. She was too weak to stop the overflow, and she didn’t much care. In this moment, with her life fading to the concrete, she missed Jezzie, her only family left.
She wanted her crazy friend to pull her into her arms as she always did when times got rough. She didn’t want to know that Jezzie would be dealing with death all over again. She’d thought they both left that behind after the orphanage. Her gaze roamed until it found “their” star, Jezlina. They’d named it so long ago. Friends and sisters for life. Water thicker than any blood for them. I love you, girl, she whispered to the star in her mind, her mouth not wanting to cooperate. She prayed with all her heart it reached Jezzie as the darkness crept in.
A flash of blue eyes, so deep they rivaled the blues of the oceans in outer space, in the face of the biggest wolf she’d ever seen in her life, streaked over her. Brian’s weight was lifted, his teeth ripping from her neck as she watched him struggle with the wolf. She really couldn’t take much more of this.
He couldn’t hope to be as fast. The wolf darted in and out of his reach, snapping here and there until Brian was full of oozing wounds. For a moment, Zelina pitied him. Only for a moment, though. Then she was wishing for the wolf to take his fucking head off and use it as a chew toy. The thought made her feel like smiling, but she found she just didn’t have the energy. Z could feel her neck slowly bleeding out, but she didn’t have the strength to stop the loss, didn’t have the strength to try to save herself. The darkness crept in more and more. The loss of heat was sinking in, almost bone deep. In the last, all she could think of was not having had the chance to bury her face in that wolf’s fur and thank him. Silly, she knew.