Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 58962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
“Quit your yapping.” The other guy gave me a beady-eyed glare, accompanied by a huff. His brown suit jacket didn’t fit right, as if he’d gained a lot of weight since he purchased it. He held a gun, his arm down by his side. I’d watched enough crime shows on TV to recognize a silencer. Oh, dear Lord. My knees buckled, and Cereal Man held me up with his hold on my arm. “Jesus, when people know they’re about to die they do strange things.”
“At least she hasn’t peed herself,” Cereal Man replied.
I hadn’t. Not yet. But if that was part of the I’m-going-to-die process, then it was going to happen very soon.
“Be a good girl and let us kill you the easy way,” the gunman said, his hand coming up, the weapon pointed at me.
I squeezed my eyes shut and whimpered.
Instead of feeling a bullet piercing my skull, I heard my front door slam open, then a roar like a lion at the zoo. I jolted, my eyes popping open.
There was Roy attacking the gunman. He had one hand wrapped around the wrist with the gun, the other around the man’s neck, lifting him off the ground, so his feet hovered over my carpet. Then, with a flick of his wrist, the man’s neck snapped. His eyes went unfocused, and his body drooped, as if all the energy had drained from it. Or he was dead.
Roy, breathing hard, let the man drop to the floor with a heavy thud.
I didn’t even know Cereal Man had let go of me until he went after Roy. I screamed then crouched down as if to make myself smaller.
Roy growled, the veins in his neck bulging, his jaw clenched. Were his eyes green now? He looked feral–totally unleashed–as he punched Cereal Man in the face, then grabbed him, spun the man around as if he weighed nothing, not well over two hundred pounds, and snapped his neck, too.
Exactly how the men in the parking garage died.
Christ. I’d been right to run.
With the two men dead and on my living room floor, Roy stood motionless. Breathing hard. His gaze wasn’t on the bodies. It was on me.
He eyed me with a fierceness that was scary. He seemed almost larger than in the hotel, as if he’d grown or morphed with his anger.
He lifted his nose as if he was scenting the air. Like he wasn’t entirely… human.
I took a step back. Then another one.
He might have saved me from being shot–not once but twice–but he was also a murderer. After what I’d just seen, he was definitely the person who’d killed the men in the parking garage. And now these two.
He. Was. A. Murderer.
Because he didn’t just kill. He killed efficiently.
Instinctively.
Like a Marine.
Like a predator.
He hadn’t hesitated. Not a second. Not even a breath. He’d eliminated them.
Yes, he’d saved me. But somehow…it felt like the beginning of something much worse.
9
ROY
* * *
My mate–my beautiful, fragile, human mate–had almost been killed. Again. I was still having a hard time getting my wolf under control. He wanted to rip the heads off every mobster in the city.
And I was gonna let him.
Because nobody threatened my mate and lived to tell about it. I’d almost been too late.
But right now, I needed to put a leash on him–fast–because she was backing away from me like I was the one she had to fear.
Well, of course she was. She just watched me snap the necks of two huge men right in front of her. She saw what I was–a ferocious beast. Something I would never want her to see.
“Brooke…”
Fuck. What could I say right now that would explain my behavior?
“Listen–”
Too late. Brooke whirled and bolted for the patio door. She was running from me.
My. Mate. Was. Running.
From me!
This was bad. So bad.
I couldn’t let her go. We needed to get out of this place–fast. Before any more of the mobsters showed up. I’d killed the duo in the parking garage, and two more were sent after her. Another two or more would be next.
I used my hand on the back of her couch to vault across the living room, landing on soft feet right behind her.
She screamed.
“I’m so sorry about this, sugar.” I pressed against her back and looped an arm around her waist and lifted her feet off the floor. “But it’s not safe for you here.” She clawed at my arm, kicking her feet and thrashing. With a twist, I tossed her over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry. My feet were already running for the front door.
Brooke pounded my back with her fists. “I’m not your sugar. Put me down. Don’t snap my neck. Please!”
I didn’t scent any other guys in the house, and I’d checked the street before we left, but I had to make sure it was safe for her. Their backup could be right around the corner.