Healing Haven - Book 2 in Haven Series [Complete]

35| Revenge is best served cold

Eyes dazed, Alyssa brought her hands to her face, struggling to keep awake against the claiming pull of darkness. She couldn't pass out. Not now. God knows what would happen to her if she did.

There was no fighting him off. Not like this. Not with his size and weight to his advantage. Strength pitted against strength, hers would never stack up. Another blow like that and she'd never recover. Added to the fact that he wanted her to struggle. To scream and rail against him. Bastard was enjoying it. And as much as it sliced against her instincts, Alyssa ceased her struggles. Fell silent and limp.

When in the woods and faced with a raging bear, the first thing you were told was to not fight back. Not to scream or flail. Even if it started eating you.

She heard his muttered curses, felt the jerk of his hand between them groping at his flaccid member. His swift, jagged pumps.

Alyssa's bitter laugh rang out, soft at first but soon the sound gained strength. Even though the vibration of it through her chest made every bone ache in protest. "What's the matter? Can't get it up?" His legs were tangled with hers making it impossible for her to slip away so she clawed around her, fingers closing around the curve of a discarded stiletto. The heel five inches of spiked steel.

"Shut up." More pumps. More grating curses.

"It's always the same with you roid-raging junkie morons."

"I said shut the fuck up!" He reared back, levering off of her. His assault distracted by a sobering flicker of recognition. Of understanding. And the fury that gripped him was even more terrifying than his obsessive love. He sees me, she thought. He knows I'm not Annelise.

Eyes blazing his hand reached around behind him and flash of silver stole her breath as Randy revealed a gun and poised the barrel between her eyes.

"Where is sh—?" his question ended on a cry as a blur of stripped fury launched through the air, all claws and teeth to latch around the vulnerable point of his throat. Cleo dangled from the raw flesh, her yowl loud enough to rattle Alyssa into action. Fingers clenched around her makeshift weapon, Alyssa sat up and plunged the thin metal stiletto into the muscle of his thigh. His scream was a roar of agonized fury as he took hold of Cleo and lobbed her across the room like a football.

A kind of rage Alyssa had never experienced swelled up inside of her. Beating her was one thing, but laying hands on her cat? The sonofabitch was going down. Alyssa jerked the spiked metal end from his flesh and shoved it back in a second time, wrenching with all her strength until he buckled back and off her completely.

Staggering free, she skirted past him, snagged a sweater from a hook at the front entrance and had it over her head, unlocked the door and had the knob in her hand when she froze. The smart choice would have been to run. To take off into the night and scream for help until her lungs bled, but to what end?

When Eva had told her about the wave of protective instinct that washed through her, compelling her to take the man who dared hold a blade at Hailey's throat, Alyssa had thought her sister crazy. But now, as she stood here, and it all made sense. Six years of repressed bitterness, anger and fear exploded in her chest within a fraction of a second, obliterating commonsense and rational thinking.

All she cared about was blood. Revenge. Justice.

Alyssa spun around as she dragged the sweater over her head and—gathering his rising head in her hands—drove her knee straight into his face, knocking him back down.

"Come on," she spat, sliding her arms into the sleeves of her sweater, covering her body from his furious gaze. "Come on you fucking bastard."

He swayed to his knees, blood dribbling from his split lip, eyes lethal. The gun was out of reach, for either of them. Randy lumbered to his feet, swiped a hand across his face and spat the blood from his mouth. "You're not Anna."