Taken by the Beast (The Conduit Series Book 1) by Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley

down the stairs, but the old wood snapped beneath my touch. I fell in a series of painful tumbles. My head hit hard against the floor, but only enough to rattle me—not enough to stop me from trying not to die.
    But when I attempted to stand or even move, it was no use. My vision darkened. I struggled, pulling myself across the floor, but I didn’t even make it half-way to door before things went black.
    I was about to become the world’s best-dressed doggie treat, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Chapter 9
    Stretching against the cool, soft sheets, memories filtered in the way they often did in the morning. But when the image of the beasts came along, my mind snapped to attention, and my eyes flew open.
    I wasn’t on the floor anymore. I was in a lumpy bed, satin sheets covering me and pillows propping up my head. How did I get here? What happened to the monsters that seemed so intent on making a meal out of me?
    The vision of their yellow eyes and bared fangs clouded my thoughts. Surely they hadn’t left such an easy meal passed out at the bottom of the staircase, and even if they had, that didn’t explain how I’d ended up in this bed.
    I leaned forward, my body aching all over as I scanned the room for danger. Not that I would be able to defend myself should anything pop up. My head was spinning, my vision blurred, and worse than that, my phone was nowhere in sight. Embarrassingly, my stomach rumbled, as though food should be the most of my concerns.
    Flinging the sheets back revealed a cut red rose lying beside me on the bed. It had been pruned, too, free of thorns.
    Okay, things just went from weird to weirder.
    I still had no idea whose house I was in, but it was pretty clear someone had been here. Maybe the owner of this place, the one responsible for the burning light on the second floor window, had saved me. Maybe he had beat back those animals, and when he was done with that, scooped me up Rhett Butler style, put me to bed, and sat a rose beside me for good measure.
    Thinking it over, I couldn’t decide whether that was cute or pervy.
    “H-hello?” The word scraped my throat.
    No answer came.
    I threw my legs over the side of the bed and stood, taking the rose in my hand. I cleared my throat. “Is anybody there?”
    For the first time, I had a chance to really look at the house I had broken into. It was plain, the walls free of picture or painting and the furniture sparse and nondescript.
    A pair of slippers waited at the bedside beside my high heels, which were now cleaner than they had been before I took my unplanned trip through the forest.
    At the thought, I froze.
    I hadn’t worn those shoes in the woods. I had thrown them off the instant I saw the first creature. That meant whoever put me in this bed went all the way to my car, got my shoes, and brought them back here.
    All that, but they clearly hadn’t called the police … 
    Suddenly, a new dread—a more human one—seeped into my soul. I grabbed my heels and made a beeline out the door.
    I was on the first floor. Evidence of the fight lay strewn all around me; chairs and tables had been smashed in a way that reminded me of The Castle after the looting.
    I had never met this person, and he had just saved my life, but I wasn’t about to take a chance on dodging a wolf-shaped monster bullet just to end up like Clemp’s backwoods bride.
    I shoved my feet into my heels, wincing against the pain, and darted toward the front door, chancing only the slightest glare in either direction. When I got to my exit, though, I found a note hanging from the handle.
    Leave this place. Don’t tell anyone about it or anything you saw here, and don’t ever come back.
    Of course, I took the advice.
    ***
    It took me an hour to find my way back to the main road, stumbling over hills and valleys on my heels so hard that I soon wished I had reached for the slippers instead. Lord knew the damage from running barefoot last night was enough on its own to