Nashira has been a blood slave for five years when she finally escapes the grasps of Vampires. As soon as she is free, she runs straight into the hands of a handsome Wolf.
Out of the frying pan into the fire, she thinks. The warm and exciting feelin...
Nashira continued to press on. Her whole body screamed in fatigue and protest, but she could not afford to stop now. Not now that she could finally taste fresh air again, feel the sun on her body and hear living creatures around her.
For five long years, she had been locked up at the Sangre Vampire clan compound. She still couldn't believe that she had managed to escape. Her main goal now was to get as far away from their territory as possible before the sun went down and the night-time creatures awoke.
She only had a few hours of sunlight ahead of her so she kept walking. During those five years, she had had plenty of time to think her plan through in detail.
Her first thought had been that she was not going to run and then fall in the extensive forest. A steady pace of walking would get her much further than two hours of running and a broken leg would get her.
The second thing she had decided was the day of her escape, 21 June, the longest day of the year. She knew that even a few minutes of extra sunlight could mean the difference between the success or failure of her plan. Remaining a blood slave for the rest of her life was not an option.
Figuring out what day it was and how long she had been locked up had proved harder than she had thought. The day she had found out what date it was had almost thrown her into a black hole; but now ten months later it was finally here.
The direction was difficult because she didn't really know where she had been held captive. She hoped that she would arrive somewhere in the human inhabited world and then find her way home. At sixteen she had been kidnapped from her father's shop and taken to a location completely unknown to her.
She shivered when she thought back to that day. How young, naïve, carefree she had been. All of those things had been taken away by the one who took her. She had been oblivious to the dangers that lurked in the shadows.
The strange customer who had entered the shop on a winter afternoon had immediately given her the creeps, but she had never thought that those feelings were the omens she should have taken seriously. She should have paid more attention to her father's lessons. If she had listened to him, none of this would have happened.
The only positive thing about being locked up for five years was that she could practise the little magic she had learned from her father to perfection. Thanks to that magic, she had been able to escape, but without her magical ability, she would never have been kidnapped. Her love-hate relationship with her powers had not improved over her time as a blood slave.
Dusk was setting in and she had to use the last hours of sunlight efficiently. She was so focused on walking in a straight line and using the sun as her compass that she did not notice the large Wolf until a growl made her freeze. Carefully she looked up straight into the bright blue eyes of an enormous Wolf.
She cursed when she saw that it was no ordinary animal, but a shifter Wolf. It was beautiful with a light coat and bright blue eyes that could look deep into her soul. Beautiful but deadly. His sharp canines and threatening claws where not things she wished to inspect closely.
Now she really had gone from the frying-pan into the fire. Escaped from Vampires and walked straight into the arms of a shifter. Her father had warned her about both, and now that she had experienced first-hand that everything he had said about Vampires was true. She did not want to take her chances with this dangerous looking Wolf.
She produced a small flame in her right hand and held it defensively in front of her. "Ksst, get away before I set you on fire," she shouted.
The Wolf growled and looked suspiciously at the dancing fire. She put a little more power into the flame and it flared up. Menacingly, he took a step forward and growled commandingly.
She shot the ball of fire at the beast. With little hope that it would work, but not giving up so easily, she immediately turned and started running. Six steps were all she managed to take before she was thrown to the woodland ground by a large paw that had trapped her foot.
She quickly scrambled up and produced a new flame. The fire was smaller than before since her energy level was lower. She probably only had a few minutes before the flame went out.
"I'll set this whole forest on fire if you take one more step!" she yelled at the Wolf while she held it out to him.
He looked at her estimating, calculating. Adrenaline fuelled the flame and she made it jump a bit to scare the Wolf. What she did not expect was that the Wolf would leap forward, turn into a human mid-air, and grab her hand. Before she knew what had happened, she was held in a vice-like grip by a large, naked man.
Her flame went out as soon as she lost her concentration and she stared into the furious face of the handsome male. Her whole body shimmered with his touch. She hadn't been touched by anything other than a Vampire in years and his life force warmed her soul.
"What is a Witch doing in Grant pack territory?" he said with his face only inches from hers.
The anger and warmth he radiated, attracted her and his manly smell intoxicated her. But she would probably be attracted to any living thing at this point. His dirty blonde locks fell in front of his eyes, which were a beautiful dark blue colour. His lips were full and looked like they could give the most intense sort of pleasure. She trembled, not from fear, but from a deeper feeling. Her body reacted to him as it would to a lover.
He smelled her hair and said disdainfully. "Are you a spy for the Vampires? You stink of it, you're probably a Vampire slut who gets off from being bitten."
His words cut her like a knife and she had to fight to hold back tears. The Vampires had taken a lot from her, her life, her freedom, her blood. The only thing she had left was her virtuousness. The attraction was clearly not mutual. While she was already fantasising about his sizzling hands, he thought she was one of those whores who opened her legs for the thrill of a bite.
She struggled and tried to kick or hurt him in some way but it resulted only in his grip tightening. Something else had hardened as well. She tried but failed miserable to not estimate his size by the outline pressing against her stomach. Her estimation could never be accurate, but she wouldn't mind discovering that.
She shook her head at those strange thoughts. She needed to escape, not fantasise about his big strong hands and the other big parts of him. His warm hands felt like a very tight security blanket. Noticing that his strength eclipsed hers by a long shot she decided to try to use words, to persuade him.
"That's none of your business. If you don't let go of me, I'll turn you into a frog!"
The threat sounded ridiculous even to her ears and she saw in his eyes that he didn't believe her either.
He chuckled, "I'd like to see that."
She closed her eyes and attacked the only other way she could, with her mind. She gave him a hard mental push that staggered him for a moment but didn't do more than that. The only result was that her energy level was even lower and she felt her grip on her consciousness fade.
The last words she heard before it went dark before her eyes, were, "You dirty little Witch..."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
