Page 208 of The Curse Trilogy

“You didn’t really have to come with me, but thanks for helping me shake the she-devil.”

He laughs again, but his eyes still bear the burden of concern. He’s so fucking complicated.

I love Brazen. I love Brazen.

Maybe if I repeat that over and over in mantra, I’ll lose my love for Hale.

“I wanted to come down here to check things out myself. I was finished logging hybrids since our people are a little more prompt than the full bloods and humans.”

“That’s because we were drilled about being on time and beaten when we weren’t. The rest of them just do whatever in the hell they want to with lazy schedules to tag along. I’m only ever late to irritate Clay.”

His eyes soften as he turns to face me, and he halts my steps when he pulls me to his body.

“It’s hard to believe you ever wanted to be with a full blood when you clearly still view their kind as the enemy.”

I tense up all over as I stare into those eyes refusing to love me. I purse my lips, and then I shake my head while looking away.

“Brazen isn’t like the old ones who were at Cheyenne. If he was, my savage would have killed him the first time it emerged in his presence, especially when he tried to keep me from getting to you.”

He seems to wince under that statement which confuses me all the more. He tells me to be with Brazen, and now it feels like he’s trying to drive the wedge of uncertainty between us.

“After you, Ms. Crush,” he murmurs, though his tone is a little chillier now.

“Thank you, Captain Banner,” I grumble while trying to sift through his array of personality shifts.

“Dr. Campbell. I hope you have a report ready for us,” Hale says to the empty room.

“Where is he?” I huff. “He said he’d stay here until I came to collect the report.”

Hale’s eyes scour the room, and he takes my hand in his while leaning over into my ear.

“Go invincible,” he whispers, and a chill sends the prickles all over my body as the thought of something watching us feels certain.

The air feels colder in here, but sweat begins to form on my body that instant despite the chill. Hale pulls his gun free from his holster, and then he tucks me behind his back as he takes lead. I’m invincible, I should be lead.

I hear a gnawing sound, almost like an animal chewing on a carcass from a small distance. It’s disturbingly eerie. The smell of blood and flesh warn me of what Hale has already sensed. My hand tightens on his side as I try to peek around him.

I swallow hard as Hale rips the door open to the lab office, and I scream as something lunges at us. I fling my hands out, and the bloody creature is thrown across the room. It cowers in the corner like a terrified animal, and Hale flips on the light to cast a better view. I gasp when it covers it eyes and screams out in pain… but it’s not an it. It’s a him… the hybrid Hale killed.

He’s hunched up like a wounded hyena. The stench of the blood layering his body forces me to hold back my urge to vomit. I cover my nose to block out my sensitive smell, but it’s no use. I’ve never encountered such a foul, disgusting scent in all my very long life.

Oh, I’m going to be sick. Gross.

His ears have melded into his head, and his eyes are almost white as they try to escape the blare of the light. He ducks behind a cabinet, and we see the doctor lying on the floor with his throat completely jerked free from its place while surrounded by his own pool of blood.

What the fuck?

Hale pulls out his second gun, and he climbs over to the corner to be across from the hybrid who has devolved to an animal-like state.

“Don’t get a drop of that blood on you,” Hale cautions as my hand almost grazes the bloody side of the table in front of me.

I hear the gun firing loudly in the hollow room, and the sparks fly from the barrel as the bullets whiz toward the savage creature. I’ll never complain about my savage again. At least I don’t become a snarling cannibal with a desperate craving for flesh. That’s fucked up.

I hear the slapping of the bullets penetrating the skin, and then the creature screams out before plopping against the floor. Hale walks back over while carefully evading all the blood sprays.

“He was eating the doctor?” I strain out through my held breath as he grips my arm at the elbow to start pulling me out.

“No. He was eating his own self. It’s panic mechanism some animals exhibit when caught in a trap. I know we call our savages devolution, but that really was devolution. That fucking… thing had better stay dead this time,” he growls.