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She looked around just to be certain and saw no one suspicious. The parking lot was busy, the traffic fairly thick.
She watched Mike curse before he moved across the street, his shoulders thrown back, his expression pugnacious.
“We couldn’t do this in the shade?” He sneered. “You always have to be difficult, don’t you, Natalie? Big-time Breed teacher has to call all the shots.”
“I can go back inside, and we can forget this,” she retorted. “Saban’s waiting just inside the doors, Mike. Make this fast.”
“I want you to come home. Dammit, you have no business here. You’re my wife.”
A sharp, amazed laugh left her throat. “Drop it, Mike. We both know this has nothing to do with you wanting me back and everything with losing control of me. I’m not your wife. I’ll never be your wife again, and if you don’t get that through your thick skull, then you’re going to end up dead.”
“Siccing that rabid animal of yours on me, Nat?” Disgust filled his voice. “How can you let that thing touch you?”
Natalie wanted to roll her eyes but knew it would only make this little fight run longer.
“Mike, I agreed to meet you so you’ll see this isn’t happening with me.” She tried to keep her tone soft, gentle. Sometimes it worked. “Our marriage was over the first year; I just didn’t want to admit it. Now, let it go, and go back to Tennessee. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
His lips flattened, his face flushing with anger.
“Don’t you see what those Breeds have done to you, Natalie?” He pushed his fingers through his hair as fury flashed in his eyes. “They’ve done something to you. They drugged you.” He reached for her, his teeth clenching violently as she jumped back. “Look at you, you can’t even stand to be touched by anyone but that bastard fucking you.”
“Stop this, Mike. You don’t know what you’re talking about, and it’s not a discussion we’re going to have. You need to leave. I didn’t want you before I came here, and I don’t want you now.”
His nostrils flared, a telling sign. Only at his most furious had Natalie ever seen that. Those were the times he had wrapped his hand around her neck and pounded the wall beside her head. When he had smashed furniture and spent hours accusing her of screwing every man they both knew.
“You’re my wife.” He advanced a step, and in his eyes Natalie saw something she had never seen before. A fury so violent she knew Mike would never keep his control.
Had he truly been working his way up to this over the years? How had she not seen it, not suspected that he would retaliate like this the moment he knew he was no longer a part of her life? Forget the divorce, the bimbo; he had still controlled her. She hadn’t dated, she hadn’t sought out friends, because she knew Mike, and she knew he wouldn’t have tolerated it.
And she hadn’t even suspected she knew until now.
She stepped back warily toward the doors now, wishing she hadn’t slipped away from Saban, that she had just fought it out with him, made him at least let her try. She would have been safe. Or safely in her bed screaming in pleasure as Saban argued his side. Either one would have been preferable to this.
“They drugged you, Natalie. The doctors that talked to me after you left told me all about it. This drug their bodies make. It makes you addicted, dependent.”
Oh God. Oh God. She looked around frantically, knowing what was going on, certain Mike had set her up.
She turned to push through the entrance doors into the mall, to run, to escape back to Saban.
“You fucking bitch, you’re not running back to him.”
Natalie almost screamed as his hand locked over her upper arm, pulling her back as she scrambled to grab the handle to the door, to get away from him.
The pain, though not as severe at first, became mind-numbing as he dragged her back. She felt his arm lock around her waist, his chest against her back as she clawed at his flesh, guttural whimpers leaving her lips as she tried to scream for Saban.
She heard screams, but they couldn’t be her own. A haze of pain covered her eyes, filled her brain, and with it came terror.
Mike was cursing, raging. She could hear tires squealing and she knew, oh God, she knew he was taking her away. Taking her away from Saban and the dreams she hadn’t known she had.
“You bastard!” Fury, rich with terror and mixed with adrenaline, spiked through her mind.
Her hands curled back, her nails clawing back at Mike’s face as she tried to tangle her feet with his legs, throwing him off balance.
They hit the street as horns blared and a siren began to scream through the air. As she rolled to her stomach, she felt hands grab her ankles, pulling at them, trying to drag her back as she kicked, screaming, trying to roll, fighting for release.
There were too many voices. Too many hands touching her, and a second later she froze in a terror so thick, so horrible it nearly stopped her heart.
A feline roar of rage split through the chaos of sound as she heard the rapid, staccato bursts of stunners and bullets ripping around her.
