Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87502 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87502 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
And I left Kor too.
I cried as I went, the tears rolling down my cheeks and wetting the top of my dress in an endless stream. But I left just the same. I might have new life growing inside me and even if I didn’t, I wanted to live…though I had no idea what I would be living for with Kor gone.
I was heading towards a new, uncertain future and I had no idea what it held for me. I only knew it would feel empty and sterile without my mate.
FIFTY-THREE
KOR
By the time I got back to the Manor the next morning, she was gone.
I was immediately relieved…and then deeply ashamed. But how could I face her now?
I’d woken up in the Moon Glade with another pounding headache from being drugged. There was a tranquilizer dart still sticking out of my shoulder as well as some bullet wounds that were already mostly healed. I pulled out the dart and threw it away. Then I looked around.
Bodies…bodies and blood everywhere. It was massacre—a slaughter.
And I had been the one doing the slaughtering. Or my Beast had—which was the same thing.
But as I searched my alter-ego’s hazy memories of the night before, I realized that wasn’t the only thing my Beast had done.
I remembered Vivienne on her hands and knees, trembling beneath his bulk as he plowed into her. I heard her thin, breathless cries…the way she begged and pleaded and didn’t dare to run away. The way she was pinned beneath him as he savaged her, thrusting over and over into her pussy—forcing orgasm after orgasm from her unwilling body until he pumped her full of his cum—our cum.
He even sealed her shut and gave her a breeding belly—the final disgrace—a mark of ownership no other Were who saw her could mistake as anything else but the sign that she had been bred in Fur Form.
Guilt and shame flooded me, making me stagger and fall to my knees in the middle of the carnage. The fact that I had killed half the Blackridge Pack paled in comparison to what I had done to the woman I loved.
I had hurt her and betrayed her in the worst way possible—I had taken her when she wasn’t ready or willing. How was I any better than my Uncle Carter now? In fact, I was worse. I had let my Beast use her and abuse her even after promising her I would never even let him come near her.
She must hate me now, I thought. And I thought it again when I saw she had left Wolverton Manor without me.
There was no note—no sign of any kind that she wanted me to follow. Only the fact that her suitcase and purse and the Mustang were gone let me know she’d made it safely away.
Some people think it’s unmanly to cry, but I didn’t give a damn about that. I walked from room to room, my eyes stinging as I remembered the few, brief weeks we’d shared together—the incredible joy and love I knew I’d never feel again for any other woman.
Vivienne was more than my mate—she was my heart. My chest felt hollow now as I looked around the empty mansion.
There was nothing to do but pack my things and leave…leave the memory of everything I’d ever loved and try to go back home and get on with my life.
FIFTY-FOUR
VIVIENNE
Would you be surprised if I told you I started my brand new life in Colorado? In fact, in Kor’s hometown—the place he was going to take me before we started our tour of the world.
I know it sounds dramatic, but I wanted to feel close to him—or at least, close to his memory. Because by then, I was sure he was dead. There had been reports all over the news about a tiny town called Blackridge where half the male population had been murdered by a wild beast. Was Kor one of the dead?
I was sure he was. How could he live through all the gunshots I heard being fired? Or the attacks by any of the other Alphas who might have managed to Shift? He was gone—out of my life—and I would have to find a way to go on without him.
Thankful again for all the money Carter had left me, I rented a little cottage on the outskirts of Kor’s hometown. I thought of going to visit his business…but I decided against it. It would make me too sad, and I was already crying myself to sleep every night.
I was miserable—even though I was trying to go on with my life, nothing seemed to matter. What did I have to live for without my mate? Nothing, as far as I could see. I couldn’t eat…couldn’t sleep…it was possibly the worst time of my life—even worse than the beginning of my marriage to Carter.