THE AWAKENING

Her padded feet ate up the ground, putting distance between her heartache and pain and she wasn’t surprised when she heard Tieran’s enraged howl but she didn’t care.

He could beg Serra to come back to him for all Cassandra cared. The exhilarating rush of freedom soothed her ragged heart and she ran for miles.

Her pregnant belly didn’t slow her down and she much preferred this form at the moment than her human body. When she was a beast, she reveled in the freedom to simply act naturally without overthinking.

It seemed when she was in her human form, all she did was fret and worry about everything. Being the Prophesied One was a heavy gig.

One she hadn’t asked for, by the way, but the time for crying in her beer was over. She had two pups growing inside her and they were going to need her to protect them.

If Tieran was too much of an ass to realize she was the real deal, then, screw him. She broke into a clearing and her senses picked up the scent of something gamey and delicious.

She swung around and spied a deer picking its way delicately through the dense overgrowth. Cassandra’s muscles coiled beneath her fur and she launched herself straight at the deer’s throat.

Within seconds warm arterial blood gushed in her mouth as the deer flailed in one last ditch effort to live and then went limp. In her human form she would’ve been sad at the loss of life; in her beastly form, she simply accepted the fact that she was at the top of the food chain in the forest.

She sated herself with the deer, leaving behind precious little for the scavengers and then plunged herself into the icy waters of the deep, fast-moving creek winding itself along the thick forest floor.

She emerged from the water, invigorated by the bitter cold and her full meal.

For the first time in weeks, she felt sated.

on full alert as her ears pricked at a foreign sound. Another beast emerged from the shadows. She didn’t need

upper lip curling in warning. She

wide berth, his gaze never leaving hers. She’d known he would follow but she wasn’t

and she caught the subtle scent of pheromone on the air. He lifted his big, black snout and caught the scent she was

her to whine and shy away though her channel was already slicking

focus and snarled. She didn’t care what form she was

herself to a wall

off! and he faltered, shaking his head. Yeah, that’s right,

aside from the mental warning, she kept

her human form but the thoughts were jumbled and didn’t follow a

still clumsy in her attempts — most of her success had been by complete accident and usually prompted by traumatic or emotional events.

Perhaps the Mother Goddess had

Who knew?

Tieran’s form shuddered and with the snapping and knitting of bone and sinew he appeared in his human form, naked and glorious — the

foolishness,” he said sharply. “You will come

skin just so she could yell at

I know you’re stuck in the dark ages still so let me enlighten you: I’m not about to sit around at home

flashed dangerously and he advanced with a warning growl. “I would tear another man limb from limb if he dared touch a hair on your head. I would rip out his still-beating heart and hold it before his astonished eyes before allowing him to die,” he

her skin prickled against the night air. “So start