Black Wolf's Revenge by Tera Shanley Page A

convulsing against the collar. She spat out the blood that flowed down the back of her throat.
    Marshall leaned back against the door, studying her despair as if she were an amusing amoeba under a microscope. “Since you aren’t tied to a pack and your mate is dead, no one will come looking for you. Do you know what everyone calls your man? The rumors have made him into a real monster. Everyone calls him Demon Wolf. They say he sold his soul to become what he is.” He narrowed his dark eyes. “Any whisper of the black wolf and everyone knows who they are talking about. No one had even laid eyes on him, and he had most of the wolves in North America intimidated. Now I saw him, and I can see where those rumors started, because he was undoubtedly”--he paused as if searching for the right word--“unique. He was the only reason others haven’t tried the same thing we did. They have worked up this fear of him. And what do we do? Separate him easily from you and he is killed by one wolf.”
    “I heard it was four.”
    “No matter, we will rebuild. Who wouldn’t want to join a pack with a silver wolf in it? We will have the largest pack in the country, and every wolf knows numbers mean power.” An empty smile flitted across his stony features as he walked slowly toward her. “You know, someday this pack will be mine. I know you could see it with John. Smell it even. He is rotting from the inside out. His mental state, it’s not well. Losing your pack does nasty things to an alpha. When he falls, I will be there to bring this pack to its former glory, and you,” he said, leaning over her and caressing her cheek with a dirty fingertip, breath hot on her face, “will be all mine.”
    She cringed away from his touch and her back touched the wall. She pulled her shirt farther down her legs and tucked her knees closer to her body.
    “John is at his house getting provisions. So it looks like it’s just you and me for a while.”
    He clamped meaty hands on her ankles and pried open her legs. The chain pulled and she struggled, rearing back and punching him as hard as she could in his injured shoulder. Her position made it awkward, but the blow was hard enough that he rocked back and roared as he held his oozing shoulder with a clawed hand. She took advantage of hesitation and pulled her knee up and kicked him in the groin. He rolled from the tiny mattress and onto the floor, curled in on himself and cursing her entire family tree. A sound, high and keening, filled her ears, and she looked around for anything she could use as a weapon. It was her whimper that pierced the tepid air. A few minutes with this animal and he was halfway to breaking her.
    He yelled and clawed his way to her, landing his full body weight on her before she could flinch away. He pinned her arms to her sides and straddled her stomach, then he pulled his fist back to hit her again. This was it, the moment when she would die. He was going to kill her and her last moments on earth would be in this filthy cell. She pulled Grey and Lana’s faces into her mind, wanting her makeshift family to be her last thoughts. Hopefully, they knew how much she loved them--how much she wished she had done things differently and could be there with them. Slow tears streamed down the outer corners of her eyes as his dirty knuckles arched toward her face.
    When Marshall’s fist was centimeters away from her, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut but nothing happened. Marshall’s weight disappeared off of her.
    She cautiously opened one eye, but he was gone. Her vision blurred from the lack of oxygen, but a man carried Marshall by the throat and slammed him up against the wall by the door with a sickly thud. She could only see his back, but it was enough. “Grey,” she rasped. Despite all of her faults, he’d come for her. Her body betrayed her, pressing against the chain to be closer to him.
    Marshall hit the wall and the entire room shook. Pieces of ceiling dislodged and