Fiona POV:
His gaze dropped to my tear-filled eyes, a flicker of something unreadable in their depths. It was a minuscule opening, a crack in his predatory focus. It was all I needed.
My free left hand shot up like a striking viper.
My target wasn't his throat or his eyes. It was the mask.
My fingers hooked around the sharp, sculpted edge of the silver fox. He sensed my intent a fraction of a second too late, jerking his head back.
I held on, digging my nails into the mask's edge, my other hand still pinned behind me. I felt one of my nails scratch the skin of his cheek, but I didn't care. With a surge of desperate strength, I ripped the mask from his face.
The leather strap snapped with a faint, crisp sound. The silver mask tumbled from my grasp, landing with a soft thud in the mud and leaves.
At that exact moment, a gust of wind tore through the canopy, pushing aside the thick clouds that had been obscuring the moon. Cold, white light poured down, illuminating the clearing, illuminating his face.
My breath caught in my throat. My vision narrowed, focusing on the face before me. It was a face sculpted by gods, brutally handsome and yet radiating an aura of absolute, chilling malevolence.
The deep-set peach blossom eyes. The high, aristocratic nose. And there, at the corner of his left eye, a faint, almost invisible tattoo-a dark, swirling pattern that I knew was the mark of the royal bloodline.
The memories hit me not as a flood, but as a tidal wave, a tsunami of pure terror that shattered the fragile walls of my new reality.
I knew that face.
It was the face of the tyrant who had led the Alpha King's armies into Redwood Creek in my past life. The face of the monster who had ordered the execution of hundreds of rebels, their heads mounted on pikes at the town entrance.
The heir to the Southern Ridge Pack. The beast whispered to have a curse that made his inner wolf uncontrollably feral.
Damien Vanderbilt.
The name echoed in the silent, screaming chambers of my mind. A cold dread, so profound it felt like death itself, seized my heart. My right hand, the one that had been ready to strike, began to tremble uncontrollably.
The silver hair pin, my last weapon, my last hope, slipped from my nerveless fingers. It fell to the ground, its soft clink against a stone lost in the roaring of blood in my ears.
Damien watched the recognition, the sheer, soul-deep terror, dawn on my face. The playful, predatory amusement in his eyes vanished, replaced by an instantaneous, murderous ice.
He hated that look. The look of fear people got when they saw his true face.
His hand shot out, not to restrain me, but to kill. His fingers, strong as steel, wrapped around my throat.
The world dissolved into a blur of pain and pressure. He lifted me effortlessly, my feet dangling inches above the ground, my back scraping against the rough tree bark.
Air. I needed air. My hands flew to his wrist, trying to pry his fingers away, but it was like trying to bend iron bars. The futility of my struggle was absolute.
A deafening roar erupted from deep within his chest, the sound of his inner wolf unleashed. A wave of pure Alpha command washed over the forest, a suffocating pressure that made the very air tremble.
My lungs were on fire. Black spots danced in my vision. The phantom pain of being torn apart in my past life flared in my chest, merging with the real agony of suffocation.
The PTSD hit me with the force of a physical blow. The forest around me warped, the trees twisting into the jeering faces of Chaz and Jasmine, laughing as they watched me die all over again.
A broken, keening sound tore from my throat. Tears, born of physical agony and a mind shattering under the weight of trauma, streamed from my eyes.
A hot tear splashed onto the back of his hand, the one crushing my windpipe. The heat of it, so starkly different from the cold night air, seemed to startle him. He flinched, just slightly.
With the tears came the scent. My fear, raw and undiluted, intensified my natural lily fragrance, mixing with the tang of blood. The unique aroma, which had only momentarily quieted his beast before, now flooded his senses.
It was an antidote. A balm. A command to the monster inside him to be still.
The crimson glow in his eyes faded by a fraction. The pressure around my neck lessened, just enough.
Air. Sweet, life-giving air rushed into my burning lungs. I exploded into a fit of desperate, hacking coughs, my body sagging against the tree like a marionette with its strings cut.
I gasped, my vision slowly clearing. I looked up and saw him staring down at me, his expression a maelstrom of confusion, fury, and something else... something I couldn't name.
But it didn't matter. The terror of my past life, of him, had already won. My heart was beating too fast, an engine pushed far beyond its limits.
The world began to spin. The sounds of the forest, the distant howls, my own ragged breathing-it all faded away into a dull, rushing sound.
My hands fell limply to my sides. My eyelids, heavy as lead, slid shut.
The world went black.
Just before I lost consciousness, I felt his arms catch me as I fell, pulling my limp body against his chest.
