“Let me go!” she screeched. When the other man came forward, she kicked her feet out, doing her best to connect with any part of him she could reach. “Get away from me!”
“Christ,” the guy holding her grunted. “Calm down. No one’s going to hurt you.”
They had a pretty funny way of showing it. “Get your fucking hands off me! I’m not going back. I’m not!” She screamed her denial, her voice ringing throughout the corridor. “I won’t. I can’t go back there.” Tears filled her eyes now, streaming hot and fast down her cheeks. “Don’t make me go back.”
The double doors burst open, and several more people filed into the hallway. Their presence only intensified her panic, and she redoubled her efforts, kicking and flailing, contorting her body in every direction to try to break the hold. When that didn’t work, she jerked her head back, wincing when her skull connected solidly with her captor’s nose. The loud crack and resulting curse said she’d broken it.
The arms around her middle vanished, and she fell to the floor, but there was nowhere left to go. Surrounded, she scrambled across the tiles to a bare space of wall and pressed her back to it. She pulled her knees up to her chin and rounded her shoulders, trying to make herself as small as possible as if that might somehow save her.
“Please,” she sobbed. “Just let me go. I’ve never hurt anyone, I swear. I just want to go home.”
The drone of hushed conversation buzzed in her ears, but she couldn’t focus on what was being said. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She’d failed, and now, she’d never be free.
“Mackenna?”
She recognized the voice, but not from a memory. It felt more like she’d heard it in a dream. A familiar scent accompanied it, cool and earthy, like the forest after the rain. The sense of peace and safety she’d remembered from the previous night surrounded her, warmed her, and eased some of her panic.
“Hey, it’s okay. No one is going to hurt you.” The male crowded closer, crouching just inches away, but he didn’t reach out to touch her. “It’s Cade, remember? We met last night.”
Cautiously, Mackenna lifted her head to meet his gaze. Eyes so dark brown they looked almost black stared back at her, intense but not unkind. Beneath the scruff of dark hair on his face, she saw his jaw tick, as if he wanted to say something but held back. She detected nothing in his scent to indicate fear or unease. No trace of malice or ill intent.
He was incredibly handsome, but that wasn’t why she couldn’t look away. It wasn’t what made her throat tighten or her heart flutter in her chest. Like a siren’s song she couldn’t ignore, everything about this human called to her, lured her in, entranced her. It was primordial, instinctive, a feeling that enveloped both her mind and senses, and it could only mean one thing.
Cade was hers.
“I…” He’d carried her to the car and held her against him in the back seat. She couldn’t picture it clearly, but bits and pieces were returning. “I remember.”
“That’s good.” His smile was electric, and it transformed his entire face into something too beautiful to look at.
Mackenna ducked her head. “Where am I?”
“Technically, we’re in a hospital about forty miles outside of Denver. It was abandoned after the Purge, and the Revenant took it over as a safe house.”
The name sounded vaguely remember, but if he’d told her who or what the Revenant was, she couldn’t remember. “What does that mean? What is the Revenant?”
The crowd that had gathered for her meltdown had started to disperse, though a few still lingered nearby. They kept to themselves, and they didn’t try to approach, so she did her best to ignore them and focus on Cade.
“Come on, let’s get you back to your room, and I’ll try to explain as much as I can.” He held his hand out, his palm turned up in offering. “You’re bleeding, Mack. We need to get that looked at.”
Blood smeared the inside of her arm where she’d violently removed her IV. The bandages on her hands and feet had also come unraveled during her dash for freedom. While the skin had started to heal, the appendages were still a mess of burned, oozing skin.
“I don’t…” She turned her palms outward to show him the damage. “You probably don’t want to touch this.”
“It’s not going to bother me, but it might feel like shit for you.” Instead of taking her hands, he looped his fingers around her slender arm and helped her to her feet that way. “Steady,” he murmured, wrapping an arm around her when she swayed. “Are you good?”
As much as she wanted to snuggle into him and soak up his warmth, she didn’t dare. He might be her mate, chosen for her by some higher power she couldn’t begin to comprehend, but he was also human. She didn’t know if he felt the way she did, or if he could sense the growing connection between them, and the last thing she wanted to do was scare him.
Scared humans were dangerous humans.
“I’m okay.”
“Hey, Cade.” A petite female with long, raven locks and the biggest, greenest eyes Mackenna had ever seen bounced up to them. “Do you want me to come tell you when the others return?”
Mackenna didn’t know who the female spoke of or where these mysterious people would return from. What she did know was that the stranger, with her full breasts and smooth, fair skin, stood too damn close to Cade for her liking.
“Yeah, I want to know.” His gaze darted between them. “Mack, this is Roux Jennings. Roux, this is Mackenna.” He arched an eyebrow. “Sorry, I don’t know your last
