Chapter 677

Serena had backed into something hard and unyielding, with bad breath. Before she had a chance to scream, a thick hand came around to cover her mouth, while the other wrapped firmly around her waist. He dragged her back into the house and threw her onto the pile of trash she used to call her living room. She had no purchase to scramble away and hardly any breath left, since her hard landing had knocked it clear out of her. Splinters of some unidentified piece of wreckage poked through her shirt and scratched her back. Plumes of fluff from a seat rose in the air. Dazed and in pain, she thought a bear hovered above her, but it morphed into a burly man with a ski mask. He pounced on top of her, squeezing out the last pockets of air in her lungs. He’d drawn his arm back, and a meaty, clenched fist seemed eager to pummel her face. And then, the thug growled as his eyes glowed a fiery red.

She closed her eyes and braced for a brutal assault that never came. Instead a voice sh