– I grabbed my gun as I ran out of my apartment.
Wrath consumed me, and I let the beast within me out of its cage, giving myself over to it completely. There was no room for mercy in my heart. There was only the chase, the determination to capture her and take her. I gloried in the release of that part of myself; it had been fighting to get out, to unleash itself upon her ever since I had first laid eyes on her. And it was maddened from being caged for far too long. She was going to suffer for defying me. But I would force her to enjoy every minute of it. I was going to fuck with her mind and manipulate her body until she was just as dependent on me as I had been on her. She would never dare to leave me again after tonight. She wouldn’t want to.
A frustrated growl ripped its way up my throat when I reached the street. I didn’t know how much of a head start she had on me, and I had no idea which way she had gone.
Fear clashed with triumphant relief when I heard her scream. She was close, but she was terrified.
The dimly-lit street fell away around me as adrenaline sharpened my focus. There was nothing in my world but the need to get to her, to destroy the person who was frightening her.
I didn’t recognize the feral, furious roar that echoed through the alleyway as my own. A man was touching her, holding her, restraining her. He had her wrists pinned against the brick wall, and his fingers were digging into her soft breast.
Possessive rage tore through me. How could he dare to touch what was mine when I had been denied the pleasure for so long? He was going to die for despoiling her innocent flesh with his filthy hands. The right to claim that innocence was mine alone.
The rabid thoughts raced through my maddened mind in the space of a second before I threw myself at him, tearing him away from her. His slight body hit the ground hard. Claudia’s frailty had left her vulnerable to this man, but he was no match for me. I was going to tear him apart.
Vindictive satisfaction flooded me as I felt his bones break beneath my fist. His agonized cry was extinguished when I hit him again. And again. He went quiet; the only sound coming from him was a sick, gurgling noise as he struggled to draw breath. I realized with cold clarity just how easily I could end his miserable existence.
It was that thought that penetrated my homicidal rage. My mind might have been in the grip of insane fury, but some part of myself recognized that killing him would be going too far; I wouldn’t be able to come back from that. She wouldn’t forgive me if I did that.
I pushed myself to my feet and pulled the gun from my waistband. My hand was steady as I cocked it, training the barrel directly at his heart.
“Get out of here,” I ground out, my voice an inhuman snarl. “If I ever see you in this neighborhood again, I won’t hesitate to kill you. Understand?”
The look of terror in his eyes and his shaky nod were all the confirmation I needed. The man was seconds away from pissing himself. I heard him scrambling to get away from me, but I didn’t watch him go. I only had eyes for her.
The ferocity of my anger was unbridled, my rage consuming my sanity. When her wide, terrified eyes met mine, she shrank away from me, her body trembling.
Her fear cut me to the core. For her to look at me with such horror was utterly, grotesquely wrong.
Her shaking knees buckled, and I automatically reached out to catch her. Acting on instinct, I lifted her up in my arms and cradled her to my chest. I held her to me tightly, her warmth reassuring me that she was real.
She panicked, her body instinctively fighting against my restraining hold. But I couldn’t soften my grip on her. Her small, strangled cry tore at me like a knife to the gut, but my arms just tightened around her. I wasn’t going to let her go. Not for anything. And she was going to have to accept
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