“She ain’t our girl, and this is on you. I’m not after her. She’s Cole’s claim. Not mine and certainly not yours.”
Cole’s claim. The way he said that dumped ice into her veins. The fine hairs on her arms electrified with chills, and she inched away from Miller.
His rough hand jerked her to a halt, and before she could stop him, he tore the neck of her sweater downward with a riiip. With a curse, she pulled away from him, shielding Ian’s new bite mark, which was still red and painful and hadn’t scabbed over yet.
“Did you see that, boy?” Miller growled in a voice she’d never heard before. It was low and snarly, and a long growl rattled his chest. What the hell? “Cole’s dead, but she’s still marked. She’s a McCall claim.”
Elyse stumbled off the stool and flung her shot of whiskey into Miller’s face. “Get the fuck away from me.”
Too fast to be human, Miller grabbed her by the throat and pushed her backward until her shoulder blades hit the wall behind her. His eyes were blazing such a light color they looked like snow against his flushed, whiskey-soaked cheeks. “Careful, girl.” He pressed his hard erection against her. “I like my women feisty, and you’re gettin’ me all excited in this public place, you kinky bitch.”
“Miller,” Lincoln growled out.
Elyse was struggling to draw air into her lungs as Miller’s grip tightened around her throat. Soft choking sounds slipped past her lips, but she couldn’t scream.
Scrambling, she reached into her pocket for the knife Ian had told her to always carry. She flicked it open with a jerk of her wrist and pressed it against Miller’s neck. She was going to pass out soon, but she could take this sadistic asshole with her. Desperate for air, she shoved it harder against his skin and a stream of crimson trickled out of him. “Get off me or I’ll slit your fuckin’ throat,” she gasped out.
Miller smiled and cupped her sex hard, then leaned into her blade, the psychotic sonofabitch. Spots dotted the edges of her vision now, and his smile shook and blurred. He opened his mouth to say something, but the crack of a gun being cocked drowned out everything. Miller’s eyes narrowed.
“Get your hands off her,” Eric gritted out, jamming a sawed-off shotgun hard against the side of Miller’s head. “Are you deaf? I said get your hands off her!”
Miller let off a single, humorless laugh, then released her. Stepping back, he raised his hands in surrender. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch, bartender. We’re just having a lover’s spat.”
“Get on out of here, Elyse,” Eric said in a steely voice.
Clutching her aching throat and struggling to draw air into her body, she rushed past Miller.
“I’ll see you soon, baby,” Miller called after her.
In the front seat of the truck, she looked at the red blade of her open knife and dropped it to the passenger’s seat in horror. She’d cut a man. The blade had sliced into his skin so easily. Nausea made her swallow hard, over and over— she couldn’t puke here. She needed to escape to somewhere safe.
Safe. This morning safe had been Ian and the homestead, but now everything had changed.
Miller and Lincoln exited the bar with Eric right behind them, so she threw the truck into reverse and blasted out of town toward home.
She was caught in the middle of something big. Much bigger than she’d thought when she’d kicked Cole out of her life. Miller wasn’t human. He wasn’t. His eyes had changed colors, and he’d growled a feral sound like Ian sometimes did.
And he’d known about Cole biting her. He’d even called it a claiming mark. She knew what that was because Ian had given her one. But when Cole had bitten her before, she had assumed he was just being cruel.
Werewolf.
The word breezed through her mind.
Ian said bear shifters were rare, but there were also werewolves, and from the way he talked about them, they were bad news. As much as she wanted to reject anything Ian said as truth right now, Miller had always been a half-deranged pill. His mishandling of her in the bar said he was losing his fucking mind. He’d asked if he looked like Cole. Well, he definitely reminded her of Cole at the end. Something was wrong with that man, and her instincts said Ian knew more about the McCalls than he’d let on. And now the realization that Cole had been a werewolf and so easily hidden such a huge part of himself slammed into her middle.
She tightened her strangle hold on the steering wheel and hit the gas.
Ian had mountains of explaining to do.
Chapter Nineteen
When Elyse blasted through the final grove of trees and into the clearing in front of the homestead, Ian was sitting on the porch. His eyes reflected strangely in the headlights as she pulled around and parked the truck.