Free Your Lycan or Mine? (Broken Heart Book 14) by Michele Bardsley Page B

can always be displaced by logic. Remembering her father’s advice steadied her. She tip-toed to the light switch and flicked it. The florescent bulbs kicked on and she looked around the kitchen. The normalcy of its yellow wallpaper and neat counters settled her.
    She walked through the dining room and into the hallway. To the right was her Mom’s office. Her Dad’s lab equipment and other geekoid stuff took up most of the basement. She veered left then, as quietly as she could, Tashie turned the handle and opened the door.
    Blech. It smelled terrible.
    Her eyes roved over the inner darkness.
    She saw the prone forms of her parents in their beds, and there, stretched between them, slept Jack. For a long moment, she stared.
    “Mom? Dad?”
    Her parents didn’t stir.
    Her heart pounded crazily as she flipped on the lights. Neither her mother nor father jolted up and admonished her for waking them.
    She hurried to the bed, drew back the covers.
    Blood. On them, on the bed, on Tashie’s hands. She screamed and backed away, trying to process the horror. No, no, it wasn’t true. Her eyes were playing tricks on her.
    “J-jack?” She stumbled forward and reached out. She wanted to grab him, wanted to drag him away from the carnage, but he felt wrong. Like a toy that had lost its stuffing.
    He was dead, too.
    Someone had killed her dog. Someone had killed her parents. She fell to her knees and emptied her stomach, the fermented smell of vomit mixing with that awful rusted scent of blood.
    She greedily sucked in oxygen as tears squeezed from her eyes. Bile rose in her throat and she tasted yeasty-sour beer. For a second, she thought she would puke again.
    “Natasha.”
    She rolled onto her side and stared up at the thin creature with its round head and stick-like limbs. His eyes were red, his skin green, and his clothes tattered. He smelled like mold. He looked like death.
    Her death.
    “You were not here,” he said in an incredibly beautiful voice—an angel’s voice that did not match his devil’s body. “So, I had a snack. Your mother tasted especially delicious—as I imagine you will taste.”
    “Get away from me!” She tried to kick at him, but he merely laughed. He bent down and grabbed her by the throat, lifting her easily, as if she weighed nothing. She flailed, trying to strike him with hands and feet.
    “You will give me great power, my beautiful girl. With your blood, I will no longer live in the shadows. I will be revered. Feared.”
    He was crazy.
    He was a psycho serial killer.
    He was strong.
    With his hand squeezing the breath out of her, she couldn’t scream. Her limbs grew too heavy to move.
    “Look at me, sweet Natasha.”
    She lifted her eyes to his monster gaze. Her stomach cramped so painfully, she opened her mouth to cry out. Only a rasp escaped. The pain throbbed through her unmercifully. Every nerve ending felt on fire.
    And still she could not break the stare of the creature holding her.
    I’m dying. He’s killing me.
    The pain welded her to the man. She felt … connected. Now, she could feel his shock, the coldness of his flesh, the fetid breath his wizened lungs, the double beats of two hearts.
    Blue light erupted from her skin. Tendrils elongated and stretched, wrapping around him.
    “No!” he shouted. “No!”
    Tashie felt as though she had shouted the words. She was fused to him. His evil tasted as horrid as the bile crowding her throat.
    The blue light glowed brighter and brighter. Through her terror and her graying vision, Tashie saw a strange, red radiance pulsing like a heartbeat. The small luminous globe radiated in the center of his being. It was so pretty. So warm. So alive.
    She reached for it. Not with her arms, but with her mind. She plucked it from him, as if she were merely pulling off a ripe apple from an old tree.
    He released her. She collapsed to the floor, inhaling in shaky breaths. She felt electrified.
    Her gaze landed on the heap lying a foot away.
    Tashie