toes cut through his sneakers and socks. His trousers burst at the button and seams. And still, he grew.
His skin turned a darker shade to reflect the monster that lived within, and his sight became infused with a tinge of red as his infrared heat vision engaged to better illuminate nearby prey.
“Ava, please. Get off me. Don't make me hurt you.”
“Prove you're stronger. Don't pretend any longer that you deserve me if you can't back it up.”
He roared his denial and held on to a semblance of sanity as he stared up at his mate. “Fuck! You don't understand. I can't help myself. You think this is about a fear of commitment?”
Tersch rose to his feet, forcing Ava to cling to him as he stood. Once again towering over her, he pulled her from his body and pushed her back. When she threw herself back at him, he caught her. Though her weight seemed impossibly as heavy as his, he held her up and stared into feline pupils dilated with rage.
“Little girl, you know nothing about anger.” Tersch's berserker leaned closer until they stared at one another nose to nose. “Did you read all my files? Did you read about Frederik Gunnar Tersch's dysfunctional little family?” He laughed, and she finally showed a modicum of sense.
Ava shrank back and dug her claws into his arms to find purchase in the crushing muscle drawing her closer.
“Did you read about how I killed my sister, my girlfriend, and then my father?” His back teeth filled his lower jaw, and the urge to bite grew. “I choked the life out of him, watched as the capillaries in his eyes burst, and listened as he gasped for his last breath. So sweet, that destruction, that battle for domination.” He nicked her neck for a taste of her sweet blood, captivated by her shudder. He whispered, “I killed him, and sick fuck that I am, I loved him. I loved all of them, you know. But I love you even more. Think what I could do to you with all that precious emotion?” The horror on her face drove him on, and his berserker ripped through her shirt to clutch one firm, brown breast. He squeezed hard, pulling the strong scent of arousal from her, as well as the bitter scent of fear. “When I'm ready, I'll take what I want, what I own . You're mine, Ava. All mine. I wonder if your neck will snap as sweetly as Susanna's did?”
Ava pushed out of his arms and ran away.
He squelched his instinctive urge to give chase and tore down several trees in his rage to find control. Tersch finally pulled his berserker back down, fighting the creature's urge to take care of its mate. Though Tersch wore his berserker's skin, the warning had been all Gunnar, the man. And he'd hated every word of it.
Now she knew. The ugly, distorted truth of a man so unworthy to be loved.
Alone and lonely, Gunnar imagined his life without Ava and felt unbearably sad.
Tears filled his eyes, but he ignored them. Instead, he left the trail and walked deeper into the forest. Then he ran and kept on running.
Chapter Seven
Ava spent the night alone. Despite Admiral London's pending visit in another day, her grandmother's fragile calm, and the danger circling close, she could think of nothing but Gunnar.
She'd wanted to call his bluff yesterday, but the truth in his words, in his voice, shocked her to silence. The berserker she'd been so attracted to seemed suddenly cold and threatening. To the Belles, family was all. Yet Gunnar admitted to killing his sister and father, not to mention his girlfriend. What the hell?
She wanted to blame his berserker for his lack of control, but she'd sensed the man inside the monster as it spoke. He'd seemed pleased to have killed his own father.
Lying in her bed past nine, she couldn't make herself get up. Maybe if she slept long enough, she'd wake to find it had all been a bad dream. Gunnar was a lot of things, but a murderer? He killed to protect, period. Yes, a part of him liked it, but that was the animal conquering weaker prey. She couldn't believe he would
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