Page 55 of Fated Obsessions

I didn’t respond because what could I say? He was right, of course, but I was only feeling the fear from Leland, the Pit, and right now the way Bryce looked at me.

Long moments passed where he didn’t speak or move, and then he pushed off the door and made his way toward me. I stepped back when he stopped beside me, his focus on the moon.Bryce stared down at me then, this weird expression on his face that had me taking another step back before I realized I’d done it.

“If you were mine, he wouldn’t bother you anymore. No one would dare.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t know how to. What he was implying was obvious. I licked my lips and wanted to look away from him. But his gaze was like a trap, a vicious one you couldn’t escape unless you chewed off your own arm.

“If you became mine, Emma, nobody would fuck with you.”

I was shaking my head before I realized I was doing it. “I-I don’t want to be anyone’s. I just want to be left alone.” The last part was whispered from my lips.

The grin he gave me wasn’t pleasant or humorous or anything that came from a warm place. It was sardonic and dark. It held a promise I didn't want from him. “Don’t you understand, Emma?” He took a step toward me, and I took one back. “The world we live in is all about owning things. It’s about having the control and power to survive. That’s how it’s always been and how it’ll always be.” He held out his hands. “You can either choose to be at the top—‘owned,’ as you put it once before—and protected. Or… you can be on your own. And we know how that works out.”

His words were so cold, colder than anything I’d ever heard or felt. “You have enough women to keep you company,” I finally whispered. “I don’t understand why you need me. I don’t understand why you want me.”

I expected him to grin, to show his disgusting lust, but all he did was sigh as if my words annoyed him. “Just because I fuck those women doesn’t mean I want anything from them.”

His crassness was nauseating. And when he let his gaze move up and down my body, I felt like covering myself despite being fully dressed.

“It’s you I’ve always wanted.” This gross sound of need left him. “It’syouI think about when I fuck those other women.”

The fear pulsed through me as he advanced. I’d never seen Bryce look at me like this, never seen him be so brazen and obvious. But then again… we’d never been fully alone, not like this, where we were blocked out from the caves, out here in the open where there were no witnesses. Not like the latter would have helped me anyway, but this situation clearly gave Bryce a power trip and head rush.

I wished I had a weapon, a shard of that stone-like bark so I could defend myself, so I could plunge it into his heart. I glanced to the side at the creeping branches of those dead-looking trees in the distance.Go there. Break off a branch. Use it. Use it on him.

I was breathing harder the closer he got.

“Stop retreating.” His voice was harder, angrier.

Is this how my life will end?Was this how things ended before a new, more horrifying chapter in my life started?

Run!

I didn’t think, just did the only thing I could as a weaponless, threatened female.

I ran away from the safety of the Pit, knowing I’d rather take my chances out there in the desolate, dangerous, dragon-filled world than with the evil men who called themselves allies.

Chapter 5

Azar

It was this prickling on the back of my neck that roused me, this tightening of my skin that had me rising. It was a single word moving through my mind over and over again with such force and jealous rage and possessiveness that had me walking down the tunnel and out into the heat of the night before I understood what I was doing.

Mine. Mine. Minemineminemine.

I was flexing and relaxing my hands at my sides, my claws elongating, my dragon rising with such a startling force I was having a hard time controlling him from bursting free and causing my human form to shift into the fucking beast.

There was something wrong, and it had to do with my female.

Without thinking, I let my dragon come forth, my human body contorting as I shifted into my monstrous creature and took to the air, lifting my head back and letting a fierce roar spill from between my massive jaw and serrated teeth. Somethingwas terribly wrong, and this panic seized me like nothing I'd ever felt before.

I should have taken my mate right away. I should’ve had her with me so I could keep her safe.

I let my senses spread out to pinpoint where she was, and when I heard a soft whimper, my sensitive hearing able to push through every minute sound, I headed in that direction.

I flapped my wings and glided, moving faster to get to her. Possessive rage coursed through me at the very thought of something or someone hurting her. And then I scented her, the mating scent spilling from my dragon form to saturate the air around me, a threat and warning to any other Dragao that was near. But then I scented something else, a sour, rancid aroma that poured from a human male.

Desire. Lust.