We Paid The Price (sequel to RPAP)

Chapter Seventeen

Tamara Rose~

"Eric," I gasped, my words airy. The breath had been knocked out of me as I'd hit the tree. "Eric, please. Just--"

"You don't get to speak," he growled. I looked up to see him towering before me, his eyes glowing. His wolf was threatening to come out. "You've had years to speak. Years, and years, to tell me how you feel. Why couldn't you tell me?" His voice turned desperate, angry, ragged. Hot tears leaked out of his eyes. "Why couldn't you say the three fucking words? I love you?!"

"Because I don't," I whispered.

His eyes turned black.

Within seconds, there was a growling wolf in Eric's place.

But this. This wolf. It was...unlike anything I'd ever before seen.

"How..." I whispered, backing away. A streak of pain climbed up my spine, but I continued crawling hastily away. Fear spiked my blood as I stared at Eric, my eyes wide with disbelief and terror.

A normal wolf was the size of--well, a wolf. An Alpha male was roughly half a foot larger.

Eric was twice that size.

With a scream, I turned and attempted climbing to my feet. Something clamped down onto my ankle and yanked me back.

"Fuck!" The swear ripped past my lips, etched with pain. The wolf's teeth dug into the flesh of my foot as he dragged me backwards and then suddenly whipped me to side, shaking his head and moving me around like a mere doll.

Fire tore through my muscles, making my nerves shatter. I felt my left wrist snap as my body was jerked to the side. Pain climbed up my arm.

Gritting my teeth, I bit my tongue to keep from screaming. As if he knew what I was trying to do, the wolf suddenly locked his jaw. It felt like a steel vice locked around my foot--a steel vice with sharp, strong, bloody canines.

I felt his teeth scrape the bone of my ankle.

A bloodcurdling scream ripped through the still forest air, shattering the peace.

Feeling blood pouring out my leg, the trees began to blur. "Do not pass out," I murmured weakly. "Do not..."

I didn't know what he would do to me if I wasn't conscious, and I didn't want to take the chance.

The wolf suddenly released my leg. The pressure of his teeth disappeared, but his bite had been the only thing keeping the blood at bay. I never knew there was so much blood inside of humans, but as I watched it stream from my leg, soaking into the dirt ground and showing no signs of stopping, the world began to tilt again.

Suddenly, agony erupted up my spine with the force of a volcano pouring it contents onto my flesh. 

"Ahhh!" I hunched forward, my screams agonizing. They were nothing compared to the wrenching anguish that had just attacked my back. My spine had been snapped.

Numbness began to take hold of my legs, and yet I could still see the blood from my ankle flowing. My spine didn't hurt anymore. Nothing hurt anymore. I couldn't feel anything.

I heard rustling, and then Eric stood up and began walking around my hunched form in order to face me. I tried to lift my head. I couldn't move it. I couldn't move anything.

My eye twitched. I looked at Eric, no more tears falling. My face was the stillest it had ever been. I was scared to breathe, to move, to say anything.

"What did you do?" I whispered, tears slipping down my dirt-caked cheeks. 

He smiled mirthlessly. The action didn't reach his eyes, which stared at me coldly, glinting wickedly. "I simply repaid you the kind favor you granted me year ago."