Read Online Bitten By Deceit by Shawntelle Madison - Free Book Online
Authors: Shawntelle Madison
Tags: paranormal romance
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what—poison ivy, spiderwebs, or worse. I’d have to bathe for hours to get it all off me. The next step should’ve been to leave the car. Unfortunately, I used it to shut the door.
There had to be another way. Some other way to reach my destination and maintain my sanity. I kept driving south.
The scent wasn’t as heavy, but it remained.
Eventually, a right-hand turn appeared. Maybe a real path could be found. The gravel road led to a vacant lot with a small building and a tool shed. Based on the shape of the large building at one corner, a township stored their snow plows here. Bags of salt were stacked on top of each other. Not far from the piles was a second gravel path. My nose told me to go that way.
I pulled off the side, got out of the car, and then slowly strode toward the path. The scent was ever so faint, like detecting perfume left on clothes from the night before. The trail led me behind the buildings.
Spring had sprung all around me, yet I didn’t notice its fragrance due to the forest’s filth. Broken branches covered in sickly green moss. There had to be red trilliums nearby. The wildflower was lovely, but it stank to high heaven like carrion. Sadly, the only thing that smelled sweet was the faint fragrance of barren strawberries that had yet to come into full bloom. Yet another scent prevailed over everything, a swampy one from the rain that had fallen a few days ago.
Every awkward step in my heels sent shocks of pain into my ankles. But I kept going. I kept moving. What drew me forward was the hunger for confrontation, the hunger to see whatever had taken what was rightfully mine.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to touch any trees or step on anything other than the gravel. The dust from the path would be easy enough to clean off. After a ways, the path turned into a clearing. With each step, I told myself, Stop looking around you. Don’t think about the fallen trees. Don’t think about the grass, and for goodness sake, don’t think about your damn shoes .
I was a werewolf, and I needed to focus on the hunt.
Rays of sunlight peeked through the trees. Branches hovered over the clearing like a mother protecting her child from the rain. But even with the speckled light, I could make out some kind of tool shed surrounded by a graveyard of scrap metal. The haphazard piles included refrigerators, televisions, and other electronics.
I sucked in a breath. They were rusted, putrid things.
Right next to the junk, leaning against the shed, was another unsteady structure which couldn’t be classified as a home. Bits and pieces of the scrap metal, along with crumbled bricks, had been used to protect it from the elements. A thick tree, most likely oak, jutted out from the back and provided ample shade over the shed and ramshackle house. My mom always said a home was any place where you could burn what you caught and quartered, but this was ridiculous. I gazed with disdain at the place. At the mud along the bent-in door. What kind of person lived like this?
Yet a trail of smoke from a slanting chimney told a different tale. Something lived here. And that something had the scent of the intruder who took my package.
His sneaky butt was mine to chew out—when I learned how to get in.
I shouted instead.
“Whoever took my package needs to show themselves. Now .”
Silence.
“You know, you just can’t take what doesn’t belong to you.”
Would it be sad to admit I stood there for a few minutes before I mustered the courage to get really pissed off? How long had it been since I’d showed another supernatural creature who was boss? A few months? Over a year?
“I’m going to give you ten seconds to come out before I rip off your door—or whatever constitutes your door—and shove it down your throat,” I belted out. “You know what I am and what I’m willing to do.”
One of the thick sheets of metal creaked the slightest bit and parted, revealing three pairs of glowing eyes in the
There had to be another way. Some other way to reach my destination and maintain my sanity. I kept driving south.
The scent wasn’t as heavy, but it remained.
Eventually, a right-hand turn appeared. Maybe a real path could be found. The gravel road led to a vacant lot with a small building and a tool shed. Based on the shape of the large building at one corner, a township stored their snow plows here. Bags of salt were stacked on top of each other. Not far from the piles was a second gravel path. My nose told me to go that way.
I pulled off the side, got out of the car, and then slowly strode toward the path. The scent was ever so faint, like detecting perfume left on clothes from the night before. The trail led me behind the buildings.
Spring had sprung all around me, yet I didn’t notice its fragrance due to the forest’s filth. Broken branches covered in sickly green moss. There had to be red trilliums nearby. The wildflower was lovely, but it stank to high heaven like carrion. Sadly, the only thing that smelled sweet was the faint fragrance of barren strawberries that had yet to come into full bloom. Yet another scent prevailed over everything, a swampy one from the rain that had fallen a few days ago.
Every awkward step in my heels sent shocks of pain into my ankles. But I kept going. I kept moving. What drew me forward was the hunger for confrontation, the hunger to see whatever had taken what was rightfully mine.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to touch any trees or step on anything other than the gravel. The dust from the path would be easy enough to clean off. After a ways, the path turned into a clearing. With each step, I told myself, Stop looking around you. Don’t think about the fallen trees. Don’t think about the grass, and for goodness sake, don’t think about your damn shoes .
I was a werewolf, and I needed to focus on the hunt.
Rays of sunlight peeked through the trees. Branches hovered over the clearing like a mother protecting her child from the rain. But even with the speckled light, I could make out some kind of tool shed surrounded by a graveyard of scrap metal. The haphazard piles included refrigerators, televisions, and other electronics.
I sucked in a breath. They were rusted, putrid things.
Right next to the junk, leaning against the shed, was another unsteady structure which couldn’t be classified as a home. Bits and pieces of the scrap metal, along with crumbled bricks, had been used to protect it from the elements. A thick tree, most likely oak, jutted out from the back and provided ample shade over the shed and ramshackle house. My mom always said a home was any place where you could burn what you caught and quartered, but this was ridiculous. I gazed with disdain at the place. At the mud along the bent-in door. What kind of person lived like this?
Yet a trail of smoke from a slanting chimney told a different tale. Something lived here. And that something had the scent of the intruder who took my package.
His sneaky butt was mine to chew out—when I learned how to get in.
I shouted instead.
“Whoever took my package needs to show themselves. Now .”
Silence.
“You know, you just can’t take what doesn’t belong to you.”
Would it be sad to admit I stood there for a few minutes before I mustered the courage to get really pissed off? How long had it been since I’d showed another supernatural creature who was boss? A few months? Over a year?
“I’m going to give you ten seconds to come out before I rip off your door—or whatever constitutes your door—and shove it down your throat,” I belted out. “You know what I am and what I’m willing to do.”
One of the thick sheets of metal creaked the slightest bit and parted, revealing three pairs of glowing eyes in the
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