Natalie POV
The freezing rain beat down on us like a barrage of iron needles, but I couldn't feel the cold. All I could feel was the terrifying, volcanic heat radiating from Richard’s hand where it was wrapped around my throat.
He held me suspended over the mud, my toes barely scraping the rocky path. The sheer, suffocating mass of his Alpha pressure pressed down on my chest, making every breath a jagged line of agony.
Down our bond, the blood-contract was thrashing like a wounded beast, pulsing with a violent, white-hot current that demanded total submission.
"Answer me!" Richard roared, his voice cracking the night air like thunder. The white-hot celestial light in his silver eyes flared so brightly it illuminated the dark pine trees around us in a ghostly, jagged glare. "Why do you
