I stayed behind the massive wooden work table, even as I knew it wouldn’t stop Caelan if he wanted to reach me. He kept walking, slow and measured steps.
“Yes,” I said simply.
His head cocked in a quick, even movement, an alien gesture that sent terror rolling down my spine. “Do tell,” he rasped.
“I told you no multiple times, and you refused to listen to me.”
He stopped on the other side of my work table and took a deep breath. One of his hands reached out, grasped the underside of the table, and flipped it into the air, sending it sailing into a display. Shattering ceramics and glass were the only sounds at first, followed by my soft breath of dismay. Suffering filled my senses, plants dying, their stems and roots damaged beyond repair.
I swallowed down my fear. “You’re going to pay for that.”
“Bill me,” he snarled. Caelan was less than a foot away from me, glorious in his nudity, though I was too scared to admire his virility because I was pretty sure he was about to murder me. Even so, I couldn’t pull the trigger on those other plants, shockingly undamaged.
I didn’t back up. Why would I? He’d just keep following me. Instead, he reached for me and picked me up, massive hands spanning my waist, his fingers tipped in deadly claws. I gasped in surprise as he walked me back until I was crushed against the wall and Caelan’s body.
A memory assailed me.
Pounding music, my broken heart, a handsome man with an accent made for seduction. A liaison in the woods for a picnic the next time and a shift in the air. Finn was his name, a temporary distraction from my wounded soul and ruined life, until he picked up my scent away from the crush of hundreds of bodies in that club and changed into something I hadn’t even seen in nightmares.
Then the claws and teeth and pain and violation came until I was a ruined husk under the Inverness stars. I remembered the grass feeling like a soft blanket as my lifeblood pumped into the earth, and even the flowers couldn’t save me as the creature’s magic ravaged through my veins.
“Evie.”
From a horrific divorce to a brutal assault, then death in a stunning countryside, it was about par for the course during that time of my life. And all I remembered was his hands and his breath, and the split of my skin when his claws raked through my stomach.
“EVIE!” Caelan’s roar shattered the memory.
My magic erupted.
Crimson magic flung the Shifter Lord away, his hands violently ripped from my waist.
“No.” My voice was a ruined bark as the shift came on. Claws extended from my fingers and toes, ripping through my sandals. I pointed a hand at Caelan. “GET OUT.”
But the Shifter Lord’s eyes were on my face as a crimson glow shaded the room in a wash of bloody light.
“What are you?” he breathed.
“GET. OUT.” I flung my hands out and sent the Shifter Lord flying once more.
His bark of surprise was cut off as he hit the outside concrete with a loud crack.
I spun and ran to the back, snatching my purse and car keys. Magic sizzled in my veins as I fought with everything to deny my shift. I slipped on broken glass and went down hard, cursing through elongated fangs. My shirt hung in tatters, and my pants were ripped right down the side seam.
A broken sob escaped me as I staggered to my feet.
The sound of crunching glass made me freeze. “Evie.”
My shoulders slumped. “Don’t make me kill you, Caelan.”
He huffed a sharp breath. “Let me help you.”
I ignored him and bolted through the back door, my speed enhanced by magic and fury. It took me three times to open my car door, and when I got in, I hissed as glass smashed againstthe seat and my bare legs. When the car started, headlights illuminated Caelan’s bloodied, naked figure.
I squealed out of the parking lot just as sirens sounded from several blocks down.
My entire body shook. Blood poured from dozens of wounds, and a stray thought about being forced to reupholster my car’s interior brought a surprised chuckle.
I was caught in a half-shift and would stay that way until morning. I’d found no way around that particular quirk of my magic. When the Chimera shift started, if I didn’t allow it to finish, I’d be stuck this way until dawn.
