Free Lovers' Tussle by India-Jean Louwe Page A

panted breath as hot as the smoldering flames of hell in his face. Panicked eyes stared back at him. He smelled the man’s fear. It fueled his beast, the silent devil within him. It was his right to kill the man. But at the very last second, he lightened the blow, dragging his claws down his chest instead of tearing out his heart.
    Leaving the man writhing on the ground, he stared at the edges of the forest. He could not bring himself to look at Tienna again. Her horror would be too much for him to bear. So he did not look her way as he leapt into the shelter of darkness. He kicked up dust and leaves as he flew to the hell he knew he would reside in forever. The tears blinded him, but he pushed on. He faltered only when he heard the sweet voice of his love.
    “I’m sorry.”
    But he knew she spoke not to him now. She spoke to his dead brother. Her mourning tore down all the walls of her mind and lashed out at him like the very whips of the demon. He stumbled but kept going as he echoed the apology, for which he knew he deserved no forgiveness. “I’m sorry, brother.” His howl to the still shining, uncaring moon was forlorn and grief-stricken. It was lonely. It was pained. It was the tortured cry from the soul of the damned.
     
    * * * *
     
    Tienna raised her head from the Roth’s chest. Anyone passing by would have thought she’d been the wolf who’d ravaged him. Her face was stained a deeper red with his blood. Her cheeks and muzzle were crimson, coated with his life’s essence. Well, if they had witnessed such a scene, they would not have lingered.
    Brother? She blinked down at Roth’s still form. She could not have possibly heard right. Aiden’s voice had cut straight into her head. She must have heard it because he had spoken to Roth. And Roth’s blood coated her palate. But there was no time to contemplate this new knowledge. She had work to do.
    She had rushed to Roth’s side as soon as her paralysis had been broken by Aiden’s charging of Matthew. The first thing she had done was search for a pulse. No matter how faint, she needed one, for without it there was nothing she could have done. She was no miracle worker. Dead was dead, and nothing could bring life except God. But the devil had gifted his subjects with a blessing of his own, and while it was not nearly as powerful as the one of divine spirit, it was at least something. There had been a flutter against her fingertips. And she had set about her healing immediately, taking on her red-coated form as the devil’s advocate.
    The other packs were so very primitive in their skills compared to her regal family. She had turned her attention to implementing that valuable talent and had never paused even as her whiskers had twitched, sensing Aiden’s departure.
    She now did the same. Roth was, at this moment, knocking on death’s door. She just prayed that the strength of her saliva would be powerful enough to bring him back. Continuing from where she’d left off, she began to lick his wound once again. She worked fast, yet she remained meticulous. If a single vessel was left unsealed, even slightly, it would continue to bleed, or worse, become infected. And she would not even know that she had merely prolonged his death once the surface of his skin had been mended.
    The taste of his blood was sweet and arousing, mighty even in the face of death. His scent was pure and intoxicating, alluring against the stench of decay. She struggled to keep her body’s reaction under control. She battled against the need to drink and drink until she drained him. Her body trembled from the effort. But she remained ruthless, fighting her own lusty, greedy demon who snapped within her, at her with snapping teeth. She licked, latching on to and savoring what his open injury offered freely. Sexual pleasure had no right here, not now, not for her. Ultimately it had been by her hand that Roth had fallen. Aiden, Matthew, they had been but actors on a stage, in a play she