Hunted (Riley Cray) Read Online Free PDF Page B

chords couldn’t form such complex sounds. Instead I scrambled up the incline after him, my powerful legs propelling me forward until he was within reach.
    My jaws closed over a wildly flailing leg, the satisfying crunch of snapping bones reverberating through my skull even as his high pitched scream cut through the air. His wails and pleas for mercy didn’t stop until I had pulled him back down to the pavement. I clamped my jaws over his neck, halting the gurgling cry that rose in his throat before it could even begin, while he thrashed like a newborn fawn.
    Blood covered my face, dripping from my muzzle to splatter across the ground. I wanted to bathe in it, to cover myself in its wet heat and glorious scent, but my hunger would not be ignored. Rearing back I struck again, tearing gobbets of meat from his arm and shoulder, relishing the slick feel of it sliding down my gullet.
    I feasted until my stomach had grown distended and my movements slowed as the lull of sleep called to me, urging me to find a dark hole in which to sleep, but I had one final task to complete before I would allow myself to rest. Returning to the gas station, now blessedly devoid of pointless human noise, I let the wolf recede.
    Fur drifted from my skin, dissolving into gossamer filaments even as it floated towards the ground, until I was the shape of a man once more. Running my fingers through the cooling blood on my face, collecting it onto my fingertips like scarlet ink, I lifted my hand towards the glass door of a nearby beer cooler and began to scrawl my message.
    As the words flowed out of my fingers, leaving gruesome streaks on the frosty glass the world began to grow fuzzy around me as if I was drifting out of myself, slipping into the ether. Looking up I caught my reflection in the glass and felt my heart clench in horror. Samson’s gaunt face stared back me, manic glee shining in his wolf gold eyes. Blood dripped from his lips as they spread in a leering grin, revealing a row of jagged yellowed teeth.
    “I see you, Riley. You can’t hide from me,” he whispered, his voice mangled by the teeth contorting his jaw, my jaw.
    I reared back in fear, my heart pounding in terror and slipped away completely, spinning into the darkness even as I screamed.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
    A SHARP TRILL startled me awake, my heart hammering in my chest as I struggled to make sense of my surroundings. Panic flared white hot in my chest, a scream bubbling up in the back of my throat, until the blurred shapes resolved into the blankets tangled around my feet and my sketchbook lying open next to me. Glancing at the rough sketch of a twisted face staring at me from the page, I snapped it closed and pushed it away from me while suppressing a shudder. I’d filled far too many pages with that leering face over the years, but couldn’t ever seem to stop my hand from drawing its familiar lines again and again.
    Loki’s meow of disapproval at being disturbed from his nap cut through my lingering fear, the familiarity of his presence helping me push the rest of it down into the darkness where it belonged. Normally his weight against my legs would lull me back to sleep, but the half-remembered flashes of blood and violence made me reluctant to slip back into dreams.
    The phone trilled again, the sound slicing through more of the cobwebs clouding my mind. My arms, heavy with exhaustion, were slow to react to my commands as I groped for the phone.
    “Hello?” I croaked, rubbing a hand over my face to remove the grit from my eyes. Looking up at the windows I glimpsed a sliver of dark sky in the gap between the curtains. I felt like I’d only slept for a few minutes, but the stiffness in my neck and heaviness in my limbs let me know it had been hours.
    “You awake over there?” Holbrook asked, his voice pitched low in a drowsy purr that intensified his southern drawl. Arousal flared in the pit of my stomach, chasing away the remnants of my