After the war, London is in chaos.
Packs are battling it out for dominance in the streets, lycans are killing each other in illegal fight dens. The Royals are being murdered.
All Juliet wants to do is forget - forget Sebastien, forget the wa...
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The word 'talk' echoed through my brain like an obtrusive clock:
Tick-talk, tick-talk, tick-talk...
My grip tightened around the bottle of Bourbon as I tried to scramble together an escape plan. My headache was like a full blown migraine, now: pain pulsing with each rapid heartbeat as I tried to subdue the memories and nightmares that threatened to shove through the mental wall I'd piled them all behind.
Focus, focus!
Michael's weight pinned me to the door, boxing me in and making it difficult for me to so much as twitch — never mind manoeuvre the bottle into a position where I could swing it. He was too close, too strong...
Panic rose and like an animal backed into a corner, my instincts screamed at me to do whatever it took to get out.
To get free.
I jerked against him again, trying to trick him into loosening his stance a little. If I could just —
"Stop," he repeated, sounding impatient. His lips grazed my ear as he spoke and I tensed even further. "Relax, will you?"
A retort sprang to my lips but I bit it back, clenching my jaw.
Another plan began to unfurl in my head as I forced myself to inhale slowly, to ignore the rush of panic and anger gathering in the pit of my stomach. Slowly, slowly, I loosened each muscle in my body, going against the voices screaming in my head until I started to sink back into him. The heat of his skin bled through his clothes, leaching through me, and I could feel his heart thumping hard against his ribcage, almost as fast my own.
I stared at the door, mentally pushing against everything I could feel threatening to surface. The memory of heat. The need...
In that moment, it was all too easy to imagine how it would be to give in: how simple it would be to fall to my knees, to lower my head in deference. To just... submit.
Nausea swirled in my stomach. No, no, no, no —
He sighed and took a step back. "There's something we really have to t —"
The rest of his sentence was drowned out by the sound of glass shattering.
As soon as I felt him move, I jerked into motion, slamming the bottle of Bourbon into the door in a burst of adrenaline and speed. The impact sent a jolt of pain up my wrist. Glass scattered across the floor, liquid sloshing down my leg as I hefted the broken neck of the bottle in my hand, brandishing it like a weapon.
But the split second it took to shatter cost me.
I tried to spin around as swiftly as I could — but before I could manage even a half-circle, he had one hand wrapped tightly around my wrist, gripping it so hard I thought my bones my crack. My grip automatically slackened and I hissed as pain pulsed through my hand. "No..."
