Rapture

Prologue: Run

Claws tear open the back of of my dress, piercing in my skin. I feel the tapered ends ripping out of my flesh as I keep running; my torn white dress soaking with the warmth of my blood.

A growl of hunger rumbles behind me, ending with a howl of unholy excitement that echoes through the night.

My heart beats against my eardrums. My breathless pants burning in my chest and wheezing through my throat as I sprint with all the strength I have left.

My bare feet get cut and bruised on the sticks and the stone of the forest. The ground shudders with the steps of the beast closing in behind me.

This is it.

I can feel the werewolf's moist pants at the back of my neck. He is faster than me. He's just playing with his prey now.

My foot hits a root, and I fall on my hands. I try to roll back up, and the werewolf leaps on me.

His paws fall on my shoulders, the mass of him almost popping them out of place.

A string of saliva drips from the beast's curling lip onto my cheek as he leans closer. Red eyes gleam a craze against grimy black fur. Jaws open towards me, heavy breathe rolling on my sweaty skin, the stench of it infiltrating up my nose.

I catch a last glimpse of the full moon before his shadow falls over me. Sharp canines are the only way out.

Then a hand hits the side of the werewolf's neck with blurring speed. Fur and vertebrae split apart under crushing force, and the hand slashes out the other side in a crimson splash.

The full turned werewolf's giant head is sent spinning off his shoulders, spiraling blood in the air. The headless body collapses lifeless on mine; trapping me under. The last thumps of the beast's dying heart pouring blood on me through the stump of the neck.

Even then, I cannot move. Not because of the dead weight on top of me. Nor because of the sickening warmth of being bathed in werewolf blood. Because my eyes are frozen on him.

Hair like silver silk falls down to his broad shoulders. His ash-white skin knitted with crisscrossing scars and hard outlines of muscle. His gaze holds mine with eyes that shine like molten gold in the dark. Unreal in their beauty.

His hand dripping with the werewolf's blood.

He steps forward, and kneels before me. For a moment, I think he'll push the corpse off of me, but he grabs my chin instead.

I feel my jawbone can snap in an instant between his forefinger and thumb.

"You cannot run from me, Elena."

I feel his fingers caressing down my neck through the slick coating of blood, nails like razors sliding over my skin.

"You are mine."