Maybe, Damon was just what she needed right now: a challenge. The same thing Ulric used to be before he decided to simplify everything.
Chapter Twelve
Rage surged through Ulric, making his blood boil and skin itch.
His neck twitched. He watched them hold hands and walk away as if they’d been together for years.
Alex had never shown this level of familiarity with
Who was this man who dared to touch Alex when she belonged to someone else? Why had he kissed her? More importantly, why did she let him?
Yet, he’d witnessed the intimacy between them.
Ulric snarled and felt it rumble deep in his throat. He dropped onto his back legs, digging his claws into the dirt beneath him.
After crossing into this enclosed fortress, he hadn’t been able to avoid the moon’s glow. Even ducking behind a bush or shrub wasn’t enough to conceal its influence and keep the moon’s invisible fingers from caressing the beast out of him.
He used the tip of his tongue to pick a piece of meat from between his teeth. Blood had dried on his snout, but he didn’t care. Killing a man with his own hands and then chewing into him should have horrified the human side of him, but it didn’t.
All Ulric could focus on right now was Alex-how she was slowly slipping away from him, and that another man seemed more important to her than he did.
Had she even thought about him once, since crash landing here? Did she care about what he’d confessed to her back on Anteris?
He stayed in the shadows behind the row of trees, as he made his way back to the area where he’d killed the man and discarded him like a lump of meat after being interrupted. The corpse might be cold, but hunger was once again starting to make Ulric’s stomach tense.
The corpse wasn’t there, though. Just two guys kneeling over the area, scrubbing the concrete path.
He watched their very methodical way of cleaning for a while and found the swooshing noise of their scrubbing brushes and the constant motions lolling him to sleep.
With half-lidded eyes, he watched the two guys get to their feet and stare at each other. For the longest time, they didn’t say a word-just stood facing each other like statues. Until the shorter man took a step forward and closed the distance between them.
Ulric’s eyes widened when the guys started kissing, but he decided he didn’t want to watch them any longer.
Instead, Ulric lowered his body, burrowing himself deep into the underbrush. Enough to feel the fur slowly recede into his pores as the moon’s influence slowly subsided.
Pain tore through him as he tried to catch his breath. Shifting only seemed to hurt when he changed back into a human. It felt as if the moon wanted him to remain a monster by making him realize that becoming a man would hurt him a hell of a lot more.
He
He knew she enjoyed spending time with other men, even long into their trysts. Alex was a free spirit who liked to roam and do her own thing, so sharing her body and enjoying sexual satisfaction came with the territory.
He hadn’t cared about it before. Not until his view of her developed into something else. Not until all Ulric could think about was her returning to his bed, so he could spend more time with her. Not until he started thinking of their time together as making love, rather than just fucking.
Ulric had been stupid not to realize the truth when she denied his offer to stay with him.
He’d overheard the conversation near the dead body he’d had to abandon. He now knew Alex wasn’t accepted by everyone in this foreign place. There was one man who was suspicious of her.
If Ulric couldn’t convince her that what they had together was worth exploring, he was going to have to do something else to ensure she returned to him.
After catching his breath and collecting his thoughts, he stepped out of the thick shrubbery. The moonshine and the hunger struck him simultaneously. It burned deep inside his stomach as his body convulsed from man to beast.
The corpse he’d discarded hadn’t been enough, and now with the rage of seeing Alex with another man, he had to satisfy the need, again.
His stomach ached for more flesh, more blood. He wanted to guzzle until he couldn’t take any more, gorge on meat and blood to fulfill the desperate need.
It was the only thing that would help him ignore the pain she’d caused him, but the two cleaning men were gone.
He paused for a second, positive he could hear the sound of footsteps echoing each other.
The sound of laughter caught his attention.
Unable to wait any longer, he swiftly rose onto his four legs and followed the sound. He walked across one path, and then another, all the while trying to figure out why this garden suddenly seemed familiar.
He didn’t dwell on it. Not when he spotted a couple holding hands and smiling at each other as they walked toward him. Neither had noticed him.
“We’re not supposed to be here,” the woman whispered.
The man smiled. “Don’t worry about it. That just means we’ll have more privacy. We’ve got the whole place to ourselves.”
She giggled, but the humor died when they stopped in front of Ulric.
The man took a step back, defensively pushing the female behind him.
Ulric wasn’t about to let them get away. This time, he would consume as much as he could digest, and while he was at it, he’d leave Alex a little memento. Then, maybe she’d realize he was here and would stop playing with the locals.
When Ulric leapt into the air, the man raised his arms up in front of him, but he still landed with both paws against the man’s chest, causing him to stumble and pin the woman beneath him. The man struggled but wasn’t much of a challenge.
When Ulric sunk his teeth into the side of the man’s neck and devoured his flesh, the male stopped moving.
Ulric drank some of the succulent blood before biting a chunk out of the man.
The woman screamed and squirmed, still caught beneath them.
