Page 17 of Destined Dawn

I’m not even surprised.

“Right then, let’s go.”

We step out into what once was the front yard of the mansion with its overgrown hedgerows and flowerbeds, and stop in front of the crumbling wall.

“This is where you wait,” I instruct her.

“Wait? Where are you going?”

“Far away from you.”

She grips my hand. “No, Spencer. You do it here in front of me.”

“That isn’t what we agreed. We need distance between us to keep you safe and–”

And it’s too late. The beast has had enough. He wants this girl just as badly as I do and he’s tired of waiting.

I snatch my hand from her, stumbling as best I can away from her as my body begins to change, and the vision of her face, frowning with concentration, fades away as I’m plunged into the darkness.

7

Rhi

Spencer fallsto his hands and knees right in front of me and his body begins to jerk and jolt like he’s being hit by a thousand volts of electricity.

He’s right. It isn’t pretty. In fact, it’s really difficult to watch as his body stretches and alters in front of me, his bones crunching and snapping. It looks like agony, like torture, and I swallow down a gasp, my hands flying to cover my mouth.

Soon his body is almost twice the size it was and his face has lengthened and changed, great teeth crowd along his jaw and thick dark fur sprouts all over his skin as his clothes rip and fall away.

It continues for several minutes, though feels like a lifetime, and then it’s a huge wolf-like creature that crouches in front of me, no longer Spencer. In fact, all traces of the boy Iknow are gone, until the great beast swings his head upwards and its eyes meet mine. A deep chestnut color, glowing in the light. They’re Spencer’s eyes and I wonder if he’s in there, somewhere, watching us.

The last time the beast and I met I was frozen with fear. This time I’m not afraid. I know what he is. I know who he is. And I wasn’t lying, he is beautiful in a strange and powerful could-crush-your-skull-in-his-jaws kind of way.

The beast’s eyes flicker over my form and then it staggers up onto its hind legs, stretching up tall and towering above me. It shakes its head, then its neck, shoulders and back, and the dark fur ruffles along its spine as if caught in the wind. It uncurls its paws, the claws on the ends of its fingers razor sharp, and then it flings back its head and howls up into the sky. The sound both beautiful and pitiful.

“Shhh,” I mutter. “Do you want the others to come rushing out here and causing a fuss?”

The beast lowers its chin slowly and catches me in its penetrating stare.

“Little mate,” he purrs, and it’s like before. I’m unsure if I hear his words with my ears or whether the words are spoken inside my head, like Stone has done in the past. He cocks his head, his ears twitching.

“Rhianna,” I tell him.

“Rhianna,” he says slowly, his tongue unfurling from his jaws and sliding along his teeth as if he’s caressing every syllable of my name. Then he falls back down onto his four legs, his head level with mine. He paces closer, sniffing the air around me.

“Your scent.” He takes a deep inhale, his brown eyes rolling backwards in their sockets. “In all the years, it has not changed. I have missed you.”

I take a step away from him. I don’t know what I wasexpecting when I came face to face again with Spencer’s beast. Maybe a repeat of last time. Not this. His words make no sense and yet they stir an unease in my bond. My hands stray to my belly automatically.

The beast’s gaze drops to my stomach too.

“You are yet to bond with the boy. Yet to lie with him. Why not? He is strong, virile. He would stuff you full and make you dissolve into pleasure.” The beast growls, and his eyes flash with heat. “Why have you not sealed the bond?”

I kind of want to tell him that it’s none of his damn business. But I guess it is.

“It’s … difficult,” I say instead.

“Difficult? You are fated mates. Destined to be together. There is nothing difficult about it.”