Mine, Bitten

Chapter Twelve

Lily


For a second, the world had turned blissfully black, and peaceful, but the moment she became aware of the chaos around her, she realized alarmingly, she lay smack in the center of it all. But it was all hazy and unclear, the sounds stretched and images blurred.

Her head lolled sideways and she tasted dryness in her mouth. Her body felt lethargic and slow as she attempted to roll onto her stomach. She struggled to hold her head up and her eyes were intensely heavy.

Her hands smoothed over the earth beneath her, pulling at the dirt and strays of grass as she tried pulling herself upward.

She could feel tears lodging tightly in her throat and swallowed them down. Through her blurriness, she spotted a familiar and staunch figure.

Something erupted from her throat, and she realized, it had been a soft cry.

Ward moved toward her and she cringed inwardly as she spied the needle in his hand.

"Why?" her voice was strangely brittle and weak.

The man kneeling before her was a different man, a man bent on obsession with an unnatural gleam to his blue eyes.

"Professor!"

Ward

Ward leapt to his feet and spun around. The sight that met his eyes drew him back to the night he discovered the creature barreling down on his men.

Fangs bared, eyes glazed in red, eyes that leveled hungrily on the woman at his heel. The creature stood several feet away, but Ward knew, it would only take a preternatural speed, to bring him precariously closer.

A man fell in at his side and handed him a tranquilizer gun. "Radu and Xander went to retrieve the rope. Are you certain this will work?"

Ward grinned, his eyes never straying from the creature. "It has to work."

He could hear the bushes rustling from behind him and knew the others had returned with the rope. This had to work, if not, all his strategic planning would have been for nothing.

He knew without a doubt, the creature would be drawn to Lily and it knew why, even now, its black eyes hazed in red, gazed cravingly at her.

Take her. He coaxed.

The creature, though it appeared very much like a man, pulled its head up, his mouth pulling into a grin, revealing one-tipped fang.

You think you're clever, Scientist? I could have had her all along, in fact, I've already tasted her.

Ward's face flushed a deep and angry red.

Impossible!

Those black eyes glinted like ominous orbs of darkness. Is this what years of hunting me, tracking me has gotten you, a mere rope and a fistful of men?

Ward's fingers curled painfully around the gun.

Your desperation has made you messy.

"Take her!" Ward growled, raising the gun and firing.

The creature moved with such frightening speed, that it swept the circle of men, wiping them clean off their feet.

Lily

Lily stirred at the violent ring of voices that resonated around her. When her eyes widened on Ward standing over her, she felt her heart turn over in fear.