He adjusts his torn and bloody shirt and cracks his neck, without losing the pressure of air holding Jay back.
“Handsome, the Big Bad Wolf needs to go,” he says to Grayson, who is trying to stem the flow of blood from Finn’s head with the button-down he’d worn over his T-shirt.
He looks up at the sky and frowns. “Now look at what you’ve done. We’re almost out of time; it figures Carnell couldn’t be on time if his life depended on it.”
The irony is completely lost on him, but he smiles suddenly at Jay, the light of madness practically a light bulb over his head.
“But you’ll do nicely instead.”
The wall of air holding Jay back collapses, sending him stumbling forward. He uses the momentum to lunge at Withers—but the bastard sidesteps easily, shoving Jay toward the altar.
In a blink, he’s forced down, flat on his back, iron shackles locking his wrists and ankles to the cold stone.
With a roar, Jay pulls on the restraints, only to feel them cut into his burned flesh like knives. The harder he fights the enchanted restraints, the tighter they become.
“I’d stop that if I were you—unless you want to lose your hands? No?” Withers mocks and bends to pick up his fallen book.
“All I need is a strong wolf. One who leads. One who rules his domain. It’s not ideal, of course,” he says, as if Jay has disappointed him by forcing him to settle.
“But I suppose a good alpha’s heart is better than none. It would be best if you cooperated, but I can make you, if you’d rather.”
Jay snarls and pushes back against his bonds. “Go fuck yourself.”
“Hmm. No, thank you. Not when there will be so many handsome faces to choose from lat—”
His voice is cut off with a piercing shriek as the skin begins to melt from his face, the flesh falling away in chunks, leaving charred bone and sinew.
It doesn’t last long, as Withers stops the traveling invisible flames with a deluge of water, but by then, the damage is done.
Floating over the ground, his hair swirling in the wind, with his eyes glowing red, Grayson is every bit the warrior Nimue had named him.
His voice carries an undeniable command across the distance. “Release him. He is mine.”
Withers rises to his feet, and the scent of burnt, rotting meat makes Jay hold down a surge of bile.
“Well, Handsome. I’m sorry to say that I don’t think it’s going to work out between us. I should have swiped left.”
He sighs as he flattens the few pieces of charred hair still left on his head.
Grayson tenses, raising his hands to send another wave of magic, when Withers holds up his hand directly over Jay’s chest.
“If you move a finger, I’ll turn his blood to ice. It’s something new I’ve been working on since I leveled up. Cuts all the blood vessels from the inside out. Riveting to watch, and I can just as easily take his heart as he dies.”
Rowan-wolf growls at the deadly threat from his crouched position, with only Grayson’s restraining hand holding him back from charging.
“I’ll never get anything accomplished at this rate. Dude, I think we need some private time, don’t you?” Withers says conversationally, his tone mocking.
In the next instant, the air around them solidifies, forming a shimmering, impenetrable cage. The sound of Finn’s shout is muffled, reduced to a faint echo.
Despite Withers’s dire threat, Rowan-wolf slams into the barrier with everything he has—teeth bared and claws battering against the invisible wall, his growls guttural and raw.
Grayson steps forward, too, red eyes blazing with determination. Flames burst from his hands, each blast brighter and fiercer than the last as they strike the barrier.
The air ripples under the onslaught, but the cage holds.
He doesn’t stop until his legs give out beneath him.
Catching him, Finn pulls him close as Grayson’s tears streak his face. His magic is spent, his body trembling with the effort, but his gaze remains fixed on the cage—fury etched into every line of his face.
