Filed To Story: Chasing the Rejected Luna's Heart (Clara & Liam) Book PDF Free
Thoughts like that bothered me if I dwelled too much on them, but it was easier than it probably should have been not to. Maybe I was just good at compartmentalizing.
That night, the bar closed a little later than usual since a fight had broken out between two patrons and the cops had to come to sort everything out. It was easier when it was shifters since we always policed our own, but that night, it happened to be our human patrons. They were as bad as any wolves, I’d give them that. In fact, I was pretty sure it was men in general, regardless of the species.
The streets were quieter than they usually were on my way home, which was a good thing and a bad thing. A good thing because it gave me time to think, but it also put me on edge. I had never realized just how sheltered and protected I was in the pack, or how much I had taken for granted in terms of safety. Now, I was painfully aware of just how much there was to guard myself against, and how unfit I was for the task.
Sam had offered to hook me up with pepper spray from a friend she had in law enforcement, and after tonight, I decided I was probably going to take her up on it.
I couldn’t say what it was that had me nervous exactly. It wasn’t like the streets weren’t lit, and every now and then, I would pass another soul on their way to their destination, so it wasn’t like I was completely isolated. Still, every little sound seemed to make fur I didn’t have stand on end.
When I realized the sense I was being followed was more than just the usual paranoia I had all but grown accustomed to, I had to resist the urge to freeze in my tracks.
Sure enough, to my left about a few dozen yards back, there was a group of men. Four or five, given the sounds of their feet shuffling on the sidewalk. Usually, guys traveling in packs announced themselves with raucous laughter, and the odd catcall, but the fact that they were silent had me even more on edge. I didn’t look up, not all the way, but I stuck my hand into the pocket of my jacket and tucked my keys between my knuckles. It wasn’t much, but it was the closest thing to claws I had at my disposal, and I was ready to use them if need be. I resisted the urge to run and settled for walking just a bit faster, hoping it wouldn’t be noticeable. My hearing was sharp enough to pick up the matching change in their pace.
Okay, they were definitely following me. I looked around, trying to assess my options rather than panic. Nothing whet a predator’s appetite quite like prey that gave chase. They were close enough now that I would’ve picked up on the scent of other shifters, but they didn’t smell like humans either. They didn’t like anything, which in and of itself was strange. It gave me a sharp, uneasy feeling, needling at me like hunger and pushing me to do something, even if nothing was probably the best course of action at the moment.
I was still a couple of blocks away from my building. I could probably duck into the stairwell of the building up ahead since it was shared by three floors of separate offices and there was a good chance it would be unlocked, but that meant backing myself into a corner when it might not deter them at all.
Instead, I took a sharp right at the next street and started running. I didn’t even know what was down there, since I always just walked past it during the day. When I realized I was in another back alley with no clearly visible exit, I knew I had made a mistake.
I turned around, half expecting to find the men waiting for me at the other end of the alley, but they weren’t. There was a dumpster I thought of maybe ducking behind until they passed, and hopefully, they would think I had gone into one of the back entrances to the shops lining the alley. Before I had the chance, I heard something moving behind me and spun around to find one of the guys-at least, I thought he was one of them, even though the hoodie pulled up around his head cast his face and shadows-and gasped. How was that possible? I turned around and this time, the others were there, blocking my only exit out of the alley.
My heart hammered in my chest as I realized I was trapped. There were five of them, and even though none of them was particularly physically imposing, any of them would have been able to overpower me on his own, let alone in a group. I backed away from the five and the closer I drew to the one at the other end of the alley, the more I realized he was bigger than he had looked from afar.
They were close enough I definitely should have been able to smell their shifter pheromones, what brand of deodorant they wore, and any sauce that might’ve spilled on their shirt from dinner, but there was nothing. No blood, no sweat, no pheromones. It was like they didn’t even exist, as far as my nose was concerned. My senses definitely weren’t as sharp as a wolf who could shift, but I should’ve been able to pick up onsomething. It was an uncanny realization that had me even more unsettled than my predicament in itself.”Look here, boys,” the nearest one to my left said, taking a confident stride toward me. He was tall and lean with piercing blue eyes that looked fake somehow. “We got ourselves a lost puppy.”
Something in his voice made my stomach churn. I took a step back, but the only place left to go was against the wall, so I flattened my back against it and gripped my keys tight within my jacket, prepared to stab and run the first opportunity I got.
I felt like such an idiot, but chastising myself wasn’t going to get me anywhere now. I could scream, but the odds anyone would hear me on a desolate street seemed much lower than the chances of just pissing them off.”The one to my right paused and sniffed the air. His eyes were the same unnatural blue shade as the others’. “A wolf, too.” His voice lilted with curiosity. “Ain’t that a kicker.”
The others all looked at me hungrily, and I didn’t need to be a mind reader to know their thoughts were sickening. My stomach churned, bile rising up from my throat. My fight or flight instincts were going crazy, but there was no way I could outrun them for long even if I could somehow manage to slip past. “Just let me go,” I said, surprised at how steady my voice sounded even if my inner environment was pure chaos. “If you do anything to me, my pack will hunt you down.”
One of the others behind the one who seemed to be the de facto leader gave a rough chuckle that made me feel sick in the soul. There was something undeniably, unnaturally wrong about these five. Even if I couldn’t place what they were, I knew they weren’t human and that left plenty of possibilities, each more unsettling than the last. My instincts had settled on one in particular, though, and that was worse than any other.
Vampires.
So much for coexisting peacefully in no-man’s-land. The way these guys acted, they owned the place.”I don’t think so, sweetheart,” he said, stepping out past the others. “Packs don’t let unmarked females walk around at night on their own. If anyone gave a shit about you, you wouldn’t be here.”
His words hit me harder than they should have. The truth had a way of doing that. He was right, of course. No one did give a shit about me, not from my pack at least. My entire life over this past week was proof enough of that. I was alone, vulnerable, and these five knew it well. There was no point in denying it.”I’ll shift,” I warned through my teeth, doing my best to sound like a powerful she-wolf rather than a helpless pup in way over her head.
That earned a laugh from all of them.”Go right ahead,” their leader said, now close enough I could smell something. The faintest tinge of blood, but it wasn’t his. It was human. “We’ll wait.”