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Morgana knew what her attacker was without having to look in his eyes and see the wolf just beneath the surface. His claws pierced the skin at the side of her neck, and she could smell her own blood in the air – now if she could just get a breath through the tight restriction on her throat to …
Do what?
Scream?
And who might come running to help me …? Joseph … a human … a dead man walking from the look in this alpha’s eyes…
First do no damn harm, and putting Joseph in harm’s way applied here … right?
Right!
She lifted her hands and clawed at that one large, right hand that gripped her around the throat … her brain was mush, worse than mush. She knew that she should use magic, and yet all she could think of was to get oxygen into her lungs … free his hand from her throat…
“I’ve been waiting to get you alone…” Reed growled.
His fangs were down and he was full on alpha wolf and she could see it – feel it – touch it with her senses, just as he was touching her.
Touching? Trying to squeeze the life right out of her neck…
I will not go down like this…
I will fight back…
I must fight …
She was getting woozy – worse than woozy – it was like the time that she’d blacked out from too much booze and had cracked her head open on some stupid art décor coffee table in some seedy flat … she had to fight the darkness that would come to claim her…
No … not the darkness … him.
She told herself…
I have to fight him…
Morgana pulled on her magic and pushed it out from her body with all of her might. The roar of the wolf inside the man was almost deafening to her fuzzy hearing, and when he was ripped away from her – tossed across the room by her magic – all she wanted to do was to cover her ears against that sound…
She gasped in and pushed the air back out for more – gasping and pushing back out – over and over as her hand covered the pain at her throat and her eyes focused on her attacker…
Reed was back on his feet in a heartbeat. His shoulders were set. His thick muscled arms were down at his sides, and his claws were still drawn down.
His black hate filled eyes took her in, as he lowered his chin almost to his chest, and when his quivering top lip rose high enough for her to see his fangs … he snarled his intention…
“Mistake…” she breathed out…
Morgana was more than ready to take the alpha on…
“Big one,” Michael came through the curtains like an apparition. His feet looked as if they weren’t touching the floor as he raced towards the alpha…
Morgana knew the vampire. He was a friend of Nathaniel’s – that only made things even more confusing for her.
So many questions rushed through her mind at once that she couldn’t settle on just one – couldn’t spit anything out of her lips as the two men met head on…
She gasped in another breath and rolled her eyes towards the ceiling, just long enough to say a few curses that popped into her brain … and then all hell broke loose as the two of them fought like the super humans that they were – and not with the uttermost care for the damage they did to the walls or furniture around them.
~
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“Give me the phone,” Morgana held out her hand towards Michael and the vampire gave her an unapologetic look.
“I don’t think you get that you don’t make the rules here…” Michael offered back.
Morgana pressed her lips together in annoyance, tipped her head to one side, and looked at him as if she could strip his flesh from his body with just the blink of an eye – and she didn’t blink once the whole time that she was glaring at him.
Then – she slowly raised her eyebrows towards her hairline and Michael knew that he was in trouble…
“Just give her the damn phone…” Nathaniel grumbled on the other end of the line.
Michael blinked first. With a sigh of annoyance; he slapped the mobile into her outstretched palm…
“Nathaniel, I’m going to kill you…” Morgana offered into the handset and heard the silence on the other end of the line.
“For what part … exactly?” He finally asked.
“Oh, let’s see – for the part where you had your minion guarding me…”
“Not a minion,” Michael bit down on his annoyance as he gave a small shake of his head.
“Minion…” she mouthed at the vampire.
“Minions don’t have fangs and claws and kill people,” Michael offered back. “Not a minion.”
She tossed up a shoulder at him.
“Be nice, Morgana. He did just save your life…” Nathaniel sighed.
Witches could be so ungrateful sometimes…
“And decided that I should feed on his blood to stem my own…” Morgana ground out between clenched teeth.
“Tasty?” Nathaniel asked, as the rush of something green eyed and very annoyed rushed through him.
He knew that he should have been there to save her life.
He knew it and she knew it, and now everyone knew it … but, he was still miffed that he’d been on a fool’s errand at the time.
Well, now he was headed back to town and he was going to make it right, by killing the alpha, and proving to Morgana that he was her protector. It was his job while she was working for him, and he’d fallen asleep at the wheel – luckily not of the car, but of life.
He’d been distracted, and that wouldn’t happen again.
“Tasty? Hmm. Ask me that again when you’re standing in front of me and I can kill you with one thought…” Morgana bit out.
“You’ve had time to bitch, witch, give me the phone back,” Michael said and she couldn’t hold onto the anger within her for one more moment.
She unleashed it with the kind of powerful jolt that made every muscle within the vampire’s body lock up so tightly that he might as well have licked a power socket.
“Morgana, let him go…” Nathaniel sighed down the line.
Michael didn’t take kindly to being zapped by witches, and the last one ended up in two pieces. That was, of course, eighty years ago, give or take, but the man still had a mean temperament when he wanted one.
He would hate to have to kill Michael because the man had killed her.
“He called me a bitch…”
“No, he said you were being a bitch, that’s two different things – now let him go. There’s a good witch.” Nathaniel offered back with that sickly sweet tone to his voice that told her that he knew that she was really only mad at him and taking it out on everyone around her – which she was – but that was so not the point…
It had made her feel better, finally having someone to unleash her magic on. And that was a good point to make.
“Fine,” she bit out, snapping off her magic and watching the vampire’s whole body convulse as his muscles relaxed.
She tossed the phone in the air and gave him something to think about besides killing her. His hand shot out and he caught it by instinct alone, and gave a deep grunt of annoyance in her direction…
“One of these days…”
“You’re going to cross the line from which there is no return.” Morgana offered him a sweet smile, but there was anger still deep within her eyes and her tone.
“What do you want me to do with the body?” Michael eyed her from head to toe.
“I hope you’re talking about the wolf,” Nathaniel offered back in a tone that said the man had better be.
“It’s a tossup right now.” Michael replied.
“I’m nearly there…”
“Then I won’t kill him yet…” Michael offered back.
“I thought you already had…” Nathaniel ground out.
“She … asked me not to,” Michael scowled as he cleared his throat.
“And you listened to her?” Nathaniel bit out in disbelief.
“Just get here…” Michael bit back, snapping off the phone and stashing it back in his pocket. “Don’t look so smug. I still have time to kill you before he gets here.” Michael informed her.
“Give it your best shot.” Morgana bit back, folding her arms, and offering him the stink eye.