Page 81 of When Ashes Fall

Briar

I didn’t demand that Knox release me as I pushed myself higher to right myself on the saddle.

“When are you going to learn, little thorn, that I’m the one in charge?” Knox growled.

Do not humiliate yourself. Do not humiliate yourself.

I told myself this over and over again, but his words festered like a splinter trapped beneath the skin. The only way to remove it was with a knife.

“When are you going to learn, dickhead shifter, that I don’t care about your delusion of being in charge of me?”

Knox laughed before his hand came down on my ass. It wasn’t a blow, but it stung, and I almost yelped before white-hot fury blazed through me.

How dare he!

Without thinking, I sank my teeth into his thigh, right near his balls. If I could have bitten his balls, I would have, but my angle didn’t allow for that. Instead, I clamped down hard enough to tear through his skin. Hot blood rushed into my mouth as I gnawed on his flesh like a rodent on wood.

“Fuck!” he shouted as his hands tangled in my hair.

I waited for him to rip me up, punish me, and make me hurt as I’d made him, especially when his claws scraped my scalp. But he didn’t strike or tear; instead, he pulled back on Magnazius’s reins, bringing the stallion to a skidding halt.

Once the jarring motion of the horse stopped, I released my bite and squirmed to get off his lap. He released his grip on my hair so abruptly that I staggered back when my feet hit the ground and nearly fell on my ass.

I was regaining my footing when Knox came down in front of me. The breadth of his massive chest and his tattoo filled my vision as his hands swallowed my upper arms. He lifted me off the ground as he hauled me toward him.

“You want to bite?” he snarled.

I didn’t know how to respond as my head tipped back and his ferocious face swam before me. “I’m going to bite him!” Gizzi screamed in my head.

“No!” I yelled back; the word also tore from my throat as I screamed it at Knox. “I don’t want to bite! I want to be treated fairly and with respect! I don’t understand why that’s so difficult for you and my mother!”

“Are you comparing me to your mother?”

“Why not? You’re as brutal, unforgiving, callous, calculating, and indifferent to me as she is!”

“Indifferent to you…” His words trailed off as he unexpectedly released my arms; it was so abrupt I stumbled back a couple of steps when I hit the ground. “Get on that horse, Briar, before I throw you on him.”

Fire blazed in his orange eyes, and the guttural tone of his voice raised the hairs on my nape. He sounded like a monster trying to transform and break free; I’d seen what that monster could do and didn’t want it turned on me.

I opened my mouth to tell him to shove his command up his ass, but sanity prevailed and my lips closed. Keeping my shoulders back, I stepped around Knox and strode toward Magnazius, who watched us curiously.

I was on the wrong side of the horse for mounting, but I managed to get my foot into the stirrup and swing myself onto him. As I gathered the reins, I contemplated turning the stallion and bolting toward the woods.

If I believed we’d have any chance of outrunning the beast, I would, but Knox would stop us in seconds. And once he caught us, it would be bad, very, very bad.

His forehead and jaw remained elongated, his shoulders hunched forward, and his hands twisted into the paws of the beast. I was tired of being pushed around by him, but I couldn’t push back too much.

As the man, he retained some control of himself. As the beast, I feared he wouldn’t have any.

I didn’t speak again as I nudged Magnazius into a trot. Popping, cracking sounds accompanied my movement. When I glanced down, the beast ran alongside us.

The disconcerting sight of the creature moving so effortlessly beside us caused me to gulp. If I tried anything, he might take Magnazius down to get at me.

“We have to get away from him,” Gizzi said.

“You think?”

“He’s not very stable.”