AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My steps were quick as I made my way down the corridor, eager to meet with him. I was on the opposite side of the palace so I tried to hurry. I wanted to get in as much time as I could before meeting up with Ryker. I fumbled with the book as I tried to get my jacket on before coming around the corner where several corridors intersected, not paying attention to my surroundings.
Someone barreled into me as I turned down the hallway. I dropped the book as a large body crashed down on me, taking me to the floor under its weight. The air was knocked out of my lungs when my back hit the floor and I groaned under theheavy figure. The male lifted his head after having smacked it on the floor next to my shoulder.
Hakoa’s eyes widened when he realized who he had toppled over.
I felt it then through my terbis, those familiar steps that I could never forget. If he saw another male on top of me…
“Get off, get off. He’s—” My wheezed voice was cut off by a snarl.
Blinding rage rippled down the bond and I knew that Ryker’s primal instinct would snap seeing another male on top of his mate, pushing all logic aside and clouding his true nature.
Hakoa’s eyes bulged from their sockets. This situation looked very, very bad.
Hakoa tried to push himself off of me, but Ryker had lost all sense of control of himself. I could feel the writhing chaos through the bond as he ripped his friend off me and threw him against the wall. I jumped to my feet just as Hakoa grunted from the impact. Ryker immediately gripped him by the throat and held him against the wall, his toes barely touching the ground.
Hakoa didn’t fight back, even as Ryker manifested his wings, splaying them outward in threat. He knew that Ryker was not in his right mind. What Ryker saw when he came around the corner panicked his bond, making him think that another male was trying to bed his mate.
Ryker’s shifting didn’t stop with his wings. Before my eyes, his skin turned dark as scale after scale appeared until his entire body was covered with swathes of rounded plates, each layer overlapping the one below to create a thick leathery hide of impenetrable armor.
I didn’t have time to marvel at his transformation. He was going to kill Hakoa over an accident, and it wouldn’t behimdoing it. I leapt forward, ducking under Ryker’s arm, puttingmyself between him and Hakoa, and looked up into his eyes, the vibrant silver glazed over with fury.
“Ryker, I’ve got you.” I grabbed his face and the tether of our bond as tight as I could, hoping to reach through to him in more ways than one.
Hakoa tried to gasp for a breath.
But still, Ryker didn’t look at me, his face was twisted with ferocity. Smoke and shadows pulsed from his body, encompassing us in near darkness within a second. I could feel his body trembling with ire through the stone and my fingertips. He was fighting with himself. Trying to prevent an irreversible mistake that he would regret.
Not knowing what else to do, I hoisted myself on him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and my legs around his waist, filling his line of sight. Leaning my head forward, I brushed my lips across his ever so slightly.
It wasn’t a full kiss, but enough to get his attention. I knew it was wrong at that moment, but I couldn’t help the urge any more than he could control himself.
His entire body shivered and he blinked rapidly. His silver irises, free of the haze, glowed.
“He tried to claim what is mine,”he growled into my mind.
I took a deep calming breath, soothing the bond. I spoke back through my thoughts.“I belong to you and no one will take me from you. What you saw was not what you think. It’s—”
Ryker was flung back away from me.
Hakoa’s arm held me steady against him so that I wasn’t hoisted across the corridor with him. He placed me down as he coughed heaving gulps of air back into his lungs.
Ryker’s body was tense where he lay against the wall, his chest rising and falling heavily while glaring off to the side where I felt someone standing. I turned to find that Mavris had his handheld out toward my mate. Muscles strained, sweat beaded at his brow that was furrowed in intense concentration.
He was controlling Ryker.
A blood wielder.
“Mavris…” I said cautiously as I slowly approached. “You have to let go, you could kill him.”
Blood wielders were forbidden for a reason. With a simple thought, wielders could kill someone within seconds without leaving a trace. When fae came into their abilities during adolescence and were found to be blood wielders, they were either killed or sanctioned under the control of the Sages in Bhara with the use of elixirs that tempered their abilities. How Mavris had gone all this time without being discovered was beyond me.
“Mav,” Hakoa choked out a warning.
“I’m not going to fucking kill him. I’m slowing his blood flow and lowering his heart rate until he calms and can come back to himself,” Mavris gritted out through clenched teeth.
I looked to Hakoa who nodded in reassurance that Mavris would not kill his brother. I rushed over to Ryker and held his rigid, scaled hand. His pulse felt unnatural, and I cringed but refused to let go while he rode this out.
After several minutes, Ryker’s pulse slowed and the tension in his body eased. The scales across his body began to shift back into his normal tanned skin. Mavris breathed a sigh of relief and braced a hand against the wall as he let go of Ryker’s blood. Ryker hung his head, shaking it back and forth, and I squeezed his hand.
