The beast shuddered.

We ripped into it. It was the creature or us, do or die.

The beast stumbled, careened to the side, and crashed down.

I looked up, breathing hard. Across from me Raphael stood, covered in gore. His muscular furry chest heaved. Between us the beast lay, the bones of its rib cage bare. We had nearly stripped its carcass. It should’ve died ages ago, but the magic must’ve kept it alive.

I sank to the floor. My body was red with blood, some of it the beast’s, some my own. Long scratches marked my side and right leg from the hip down—gouges from the beast’s claws. The cuts burned. If I were human, I’d have needed hundreds of stitches.

We won. Somehow we had won and both of us had survived. It was some sort of miracle. I was bone tired. The floor looked so nice. Maybe if I just lay down here for a minute and closed my eyes…

“Andrea.”

Raphael’s eyes glowed with ruby fire. His face, a meld of human and hyena, didn’t mirror emotions well but his eyes stared at me with a chilling determination.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’m taking you home.”

My mind chewed on his words, trying to break them into chunks. Take me home? Take me home…Home. With him.

My fatigue evaporated in an instant. “No.”

“Yes. You’re coming home with me. We’ll take a bath and eat and make love, and everything will be fine.”

I got my ass off the floor. “I don’t think so.”

“I’m done doing things your way. Your way means we don’t talk for months. You’re coming home with me.”

“You hurt me, on purpose, but everything is cool now, because you didn’t sleep with Rebecca and we can go home.”

“Yes!”

“It doesn’t work this way. I’m not going home with you. You and I are done.”

“You’re mine,” he snarled.

What the hell. Maybe the fight had knocked some screw loose in his brain.

“You’ll always be mine.” He stepped on the carcass and started toward me. I looked into his eyes and saw bouda insanity glaring back. The fighting had tipped the balance between rational thought and crazy passion. Raphael’s emergency brake was malfunctioning and he and I were on a collision course. “You know it and I know it. We love each other.”

“We’re bad for each other.”

“You’re not leaving me again!” he growled.

The adrenaline still coursing through me surged up. He was challenging me! I marched toward him, put my muzzle as close to his as I could, and said slowly, clearly pronouncing every word, “I am leaving you. You don’t get to play with me. I’m not your pet and you don’t get to hurt me because you think I should be punished.”