Hate Awakened: Book 3: The Feral

by Hartnady, Charlene

  Claire opened her eyes and wished she hadn’t. They were streaking through the sky. She’d seen some dark, moving shapes quite close to the right. Dickhead lurched left again, changing course.

  Claire gagged, her empty stomach heaving. She suddenly felt very cold. Then again, she was buck-ass naked. No wonder!

  Dickhead made a weird noise and suddenly dropped a couple of feet out of the sky. Her scream was cut short when he pitched back upwards. There was a loud screech from somewhere in the distance. It sounded fearful. Why would someone following them be afraid?

  Her stomach clenched painfully, and she gagged again, saliva running down the side of her face. It couldn’t be pretty, but she didn’t care. Her hair must be a bird’s nest by now, some of it was in her mouth, sticking to her tongue and the roof of her mouth. Something warm dripped onto the side of her face. What the hell? It had a strange smell. Familiar, but she couldn’t place what it was. She clutched tightly onto the asshole’s taloned foreleg and didn’t dare take her hand away to touch the substance. Not that holding his leg would help if he suddenly let her go. It wouldn’t! She knew this fact, and yet she still couldn’t let go, no matter how hard she tried. The asshole seemed to slow down for a few seconds before resuming his breakneck speed. Shadows darted at them, but they somehow got ahead.

  They flew for what felt like hours. Two, maybe even three. Could be more. He slowed and slowed. More of the warm stuff dripped on her. Onto her shoulder this time. Her hold had relaxed on his foreleg, but she still couldn’t fully let go. Fear was a strange thing. The shifter pitched to the right, seeming to fall a few feet again.

  Claire yelped. More of the substance splashed onto her, a drop hitting her lip. She pursed her mouth. She didn’t want to taste it. The thought made her feel ill all over again. She finally licked her lips and an iron tang hit her tongue.

  Blood.

  He was injured. Shit! She gripped him even tighter. “Take us down,” she yelled. Now that she thought about it, he was flying really slowly, his movements labored. They were in the mountains, had been for a while now. Flying between the twists and turns and valleys and cliffs had helped them lose the following griffins. Much to her annoyance, he was injured and yet he’d still somehow managed to outrun and outfox their pursuers.

  “You’re hurt,” she tried again, shouting against the wind. “You might pass out. You need to—” More blood splattered onto her forehead this time since she was looking up. “You’re bleeding. Losing a lot of blood. You need to take us down!” she pleaded.

  He lurched, dropping a few feet.

  “Now!” she shrieked, sounding as terrified as she felt.

  If he passed out or grew too weak to carry her, she was dead. They would both fall to their deaths. Even if he did take her down, he was probably going to die, and then she would die too. From exposure and hunger. They were in the middle of nowhere. Definitely deep in the mountains. There were dark shadows all around them. Yep, she was dead either way. Maybe falling to her death wouldn’t be as bad as dying slowly in the elements.

  No! That was no way to think. Leukos would find her. She knew he would. There had been a real connection between them. It wasn’t just sex. There was more. He would come for her, she just knew it. Same as before, she needed to stay alive long enough to be rescued. That was all. One minute at a time. One hour at a time. “Take us down…now!” she demanded yet again, looking up at him.

  She heaved a sigh of relief when he began descending. Then screamed when she realized he was going too fast. That he was almost falling from the sky. He pulled back at the last moment, still landing hard.

  The shifter turned at the last moment and crash-landed, with her on top of him. Thankfully he took the brunt of the fall. They skidded along the ground. By the time the dust cleared, she realized that she felt okay. No damage.

  Good!

  Then she lifted herself up and looked down at the man underneath her. He’d shifted back into his human form. Not nearly as big as before, but big enough. She was instantly surprised by what she noticed. His arms were loosely around her. His chest still rose and fell, so not dead. He seemed to be unconscious.

  Stupid of her to notice such a thing, but he had really long eyelashes. They fanned his cheeks. His mouth was full. He was gorgeous. Not nearly as good-looking as Leukos, of course, but for an asshole, dickhead abductor, he was really— His eyes fluttered beneath his lids. He cracked them open, looking confused for a moment. They were bright and intelligent. They moved over her face before looking around them.

  “Great view,” he finally groaned, his gaze moving to her chest.

  Her very naked chest!

  Her boobs to be exact.

  “Pig!” she spat, trying to pull away.

  The guy was obviously still a dickhead even in his broken and bleeding state. That’s when she saw it. Once she saw it, she found herself wondering how she’d missed it in the first place.

  A spear was lodge in his shoulder at an almost vertical angle. “Good lord!” she gasped.

  “It hurts like a motherfucker on steroids,” he grunted. He gripped the wooden shaft of the spear and pulled. His face contorted in pain and…anger. He growled through clenched teeth. Blood gushed out of the wound.

  “Stop that,” she warned. “You’re going to injure yourself.” Why did she care again?

  He chuckled and then groaned, his face pinched with pain. “Like that’s possible,” he hissed.

  “I mean more than you already are,” she mumbled.

  “The head must be barbed,” he grunted. “Fuckers. Silver-tipped as well.” He squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. “Same as the ones we have at home. Hurts like a bitch!”

  “I can only imagine.” She tried to move off of him, but he held on tight.

  “No, no, no sweetheart, you’re staying right there where I can see you.”

  “I won’t try anything.” Funny thing was, she didn’t plan on trying to run away. Not just yet anyhow. He was harmless right then, wasn’t he?

  “Funny that. I don’t trust you. Twice bitten and all that. Actually…make that three times, since you did actually bite me as well.”

  She smiled, quickly pursing her lips. This asshole was not going to make her smile. Not ever! He was still a dickhead kidnapping asshat. The only reason she was out there and in this mess was because of him.

  “I’m dying.” He pushed the words out.

  “What?” She widened her eyes. “No, you’re not. I don’t think so anyway. You just need to hold on long enough for us to be rescued.”

  “Silver is my kryptonite, sugar. It’s killing me as we speak.”

  “Good!”

  “You need me if you want to survive out here. If for nothing other than my body heat. You’re a tiny little thing. You’ll freeze long before help arrives.”

  “No, I don’t need you.” She withdrew abruptly, trying to get away from him.

  His fingers closed more tightly around her just as something howled in the distance. “Yep.” He swallowed hard. “Wolves. A whole pack of them. Not of the shifter variety but the one hundred percent wild type. The type that will rip you into shreds. They’re not the only critters in these parts. There are bears and cougars. You’ll be like a—”

  “Stop!” She held up a hand. “I get it.” Maybe she did need him. It would be for her own good. Keep him alive, so that he could keep her alive until help came. She narrowed her eyes. “You wouldn’t be much help to me in your condition. I doubt you could fight off one mangy dog.”

  “Get this thing out and I’d be back in action in a few hours. In the meanwhile, we can keep one another warm…body heat,” he repeated and winked.

  She made a face of, what she hoped, was distaste because she felt the emotion in spades. “That just makes me want to finish the job.” She glanced at the spear.

  He chuckled. It was a rich, smoky sound. “Somehow I believe you. I told you, I’m not going to lay a finger on you…not in that way. It would be strictly pl
atonic for survival purposes.”

  “Just so that you can deliver me to your…your king.” She looked confused. “I thought Leukos was the king.”

  “You and I need to have a nice, long conversation about Leukos. Not right now though.” He looked at the spear. “We have a more pressing matter.”

  She rolled her eyes and sighed. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Help me to sit up.”

  She shook her head. “You shouldn’t sit—”

  “Help me! This needs to come out.” He touched the shaft of the spear.

  He’d said it was barbed. “We just established that it’s impossible to pull the thing out.”

  “Nothing is impossible, sweets.”

  “Please stop calling me by those stupid names. I’m Claire.”

  “Claire.”

  She got a strange sensation in the pit of her stomach. Hunger. That was it. Extreme hunger! Now that they were on solid ground again, the need for food had returned with a vengeance.

  “Get up, slowly, Claire. I’ll keep your hand in mine.” He smirked.

  Shit! She was going to have to stand up. Naked. With a stranger. Her cheeks heated. Thank god it was still night. She hated the fact that there was a full moon. It was bright out. Very bright. She was pretty sure the shifter could see better than she could too.

  Shifter.

  The asshole was a shifter. He didn’t care about nudity. Not like she did, at any rate. It wasn’t a big deal to them. She needed to hold on to that thought. He’d already seen her naked, so she should try to forget it. There was nothing she could do about it. He was also dying…not that she really believed that was true. At the very least, he was in major pain; he wouldn’t care about a bit of nudity. He had bigger fish to fry.

  “Fine! Give me your hand.” He did what she asked, and she took it firmly, fingers curling around his wrist. Claire stood up and pulled, really putting her back into it. They both grunted and groaned but he didn’t move by much. “You weigh a ton,” she groaned, pulling harder. He finally sat up. His eyes grew hazy, dizziness setting in.

  Yep, he definitely didn’t give a shit about the fact that she was nude. Thank god!

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Never better.” He looked like he was about to pass out. His face was pale, his eyes were glazed.

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “Find a rock.” He was breathing heavily, blood still seeping from the wound. “I’m going to let your hand go, so you can run if you want. I don’t recommend it because of reasons already discussed. I can’t stop you though.”

  “I won’t run. I don’t have too much choice here but to help you.” She scowled. “Even though I should let you die.” She would never forgive herself if she left and he didn’t make it. It didn’t matter that he was an asshole. She needed to be the better person. Then she thought about what he had just said. “Why a rock? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Are you squeamish?”

  “Does it matter?”

  He smiled for a second ‒ or tried to. He was in so much pain it looked more like a grimace. “I guess not. You’re going to have to hammer the spear through me.”

  “What?” She felt her mouth fall open.

  “There is a small…” he groaned as he reached around and touched the back of his shoulder, “small hole on this side already, so it shouldn’t be too difficult. Do you think you’ll cope with that, Claire?”

  “Let me see, you abduct me ‒ naked ‒ and take me to god knows where…” A wolf howled…the howl was picked up by more than one of its companions. “My point exactly. You do all of this so that you can give me to some other asshole…I can’t remember his stupid name. I don’t know why you plan on giving me to him, but I suspect I’ll hate the reason. I’ll find a rock alright.” She began looking on the ground around them. “Here we go.” She picked one up. It was a good weight in her hand. Not too heavy. Not too light. “This should do just fine. I think I’ll enjoy this just a little too much.”

  He chuckled. The sound quickly reverting to an agonized groan. “You’re some female. Ekon is going to fucking love you.”

  “Ekon can go to hell.” She walked back to him, preparing to smash the rock into his face. Forget the end of the spear.

  “Hold on just a sec…” He gripped the spear in his hand and snapped a good portion of the wooden section off. He growled between gritted teeth. Blood gushed from the wound. Claire suddenly didn’t feel all that confident anymore. “It’ll work better now,” he said, looking up at her through narrowed eyes. His face was pinched. If it wasn’t so dark, she was sure she’d see that he was pale and clammy too.

  He put the wooden handle between his teeth and bit down.

  Claire just stood there, frozen to the spot.

  He took the handle back out. “If you hand me the rock, I could do it myself.” He made a face. “It would be easier if you helped out. I did abduct you. I will be giving you to Ekon as his future – very near future, I might add ‒ mate. This is your chance to hurt me.”

  She narrowed her eyes on him. The asshole barely got the stick back in his mouth and she hammered the hell out of the spear, hard. It went in at least two more inches.

  The shifter groaned around the wood in his teeth. His eyes were squeezed shut. More blood trickled from the wound.

  Some of her earlier anger drained. Claire hit the spear again, not as hard this time. It broke free on the fourth strike. She felt it happen and heard it too. A strange, wet, disgusting noise. Throwing the rock on the ground at her feet, she peered around to the other side of his shoulder. Blood flowed down his back. The shaft of the spear was still inside him. “That can’t be good,” she muttered.

  He spat the handle onto the ground. “Pull it out!” His voice was tense and laced with pain. “Careful not to hurt yourself.”

  “Oh, so you actually care about me?”

  “Of course I care.” He paused, breathing heavily. “Wouldn’t want the merchandise to get damaged.”

  “Asshole,” she whispered, looking down at the bloody spear. She covered her mouth, feeling queasy all over again.

  “Pull it out, Claire!”

  She felt another wave of nausea roll through her stomach.

  “So,” his voice sounded more normal, “your tits are all-natural. Am I right?”

  She took a step back. “What?” She almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Claire knew what he was doing. Trying to goad her into pulling the thing out of him. One thing was certain, she wasn’t feeling nearly as nauseous as before he had said that, so maybe it was working.

  The dickhead groaned. “By the way those babies bounced while you were wielding that rock, I’d say they were all-natural. For a female with such full—”

  Claire yanked the spear out. She didn’t think, just did it.

  The shifter gave the start of a yell and then bit back the rest of the noise, gritting his teeth and falling over onto his side. He lay there bleeding for a few moments. His chest heaving. Eyes closed.

  “You’re a shifter, you aren’t supposed to notice certain things,” she announced, using an arm to cover herself. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t looking.

  “I’m definitely a shifter.” His voice was strained. “What things would those be?”

  “Shifters aren’t supposed to…care about nudity. You’re not supposed to look.”

  “I might be a shifter but I’m also a male…” He was still breathing hard. “We look. Especially when a female has a body like yours.” He whistled low, still lying on his side. “I could look at you all day long.”

  “You’re a pig.”

  “Um…nope…part lion…part eagle. Griffin or Feral would do,” he groaned. “Pig…not so much.”

  “You shouldn’t say things like that to people.”

  “I wouldn’t say what I just said…” he grunted, “to just anyone. You’re not just anyone. You’re fucking sexy, sweets. No wonder Ekon’s hunger awakened.�
�

  “Hunger?”

  “It’s exactly what it sounds like.” He lifted his eyes to her for a second before they turned hazy with pain.

  What the hell? She’d never had this much attention before. There wasn’t anything wrong with her, but she also wasn’t one of the popular girls. It wasn’t like she could call herself beautiful. She was okay at best. Claire certainly didn’t look like one of those women on the cover of a magazine. She wasn’t skinny enough. She didn’t stand out like that…yet here she was, abducted twice in one day, guys fighting over her. It was weird. Like she was in an alternate universe or something.

  She realized that she was holding the head of the spear. It was barbed and dripping with blood. Claire dropped the thing and wiped her hand on her thigh. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m in a world of pain, but I’m much better,” he opened his eyes, looking at her, “thank you.”

  “Are you still at risk of dying?”

  “No.” He shook his head once. “Now that the silver has been removed from my flesh, I can heal up. We should be able to head out tomorrow night.”

  “Good.” She turned and began walking. There was no way Claire could stay with this guy. He was rude, obnoxious and had taken her to give to someone. Like she was some sort of possession. Forget it! She’d take her chances with the elements and the wild animals.

  Chapter 15

  No!

  What the fuck was she doing?

  Magnar thought he had made himself clear. “Where are you going?”

  The human glanced over her shoulder, back at him. “Away from you.” Fuck but she had a great ass. He’d known she would.

  “You can’t go.”

  “You said you were in no danger of dying so…I’m going,” she tossed back at him, still walking.

  “I’m not worried about myself. I’m worried about you. You won’t survive more than a few hours out here alone.” He had to project his voice.