He caught the shifter’s wrist mid-strike and twisted hard, snapping the bone like it was nothing more than a brittle twig. He howled in pain, and Mordecai used the momentum to send him flying into the debris littering the corridor floor. The shifter landed on a massive slab of the collapsed ceiling. He let out astrangled gasp as his body was pierced by jagged pieces of metal sticking out of the stone.
A few seconds later, death claimed him, and he went limp.
The mage was smarter than the others since he had tried to run while Mordecai was occupied dealing with the others. Still, it was no use. There was no escape for a male like him. He let out a shrill, panicked scream as Mordecai easily caught up with him. He lifted the human off his feet and slammed him against the wall. The air left the mage in a ragged grunt. Blood splattered across the stone as Mordecai methodically smashed him against the wall once, twice more with savage efficiency, then he dropped the mage’s broken body on the ground.
With that done, Mordecai hurried back over to the female lying on the ground. Anger still throbbed through him like a second heartbeat, hot and violent, but some of it eased the moment he finally got a good look at her. Death’s arrival, the wreckage, the broken males at his feet, none of it mattered as much as the fact that she was still alive.
Relief swept through him when he realized her eyes were still closed. He was grateful she hadn’t witnessed his brutality. The violence had been unavoidable, even necessary, given the current situation. Those within the prison system lived by a different set of rules. Still, that didn’t mean he wanted her first impression of him to be tainted by blood and terror.
Staring down at her, Mordecai felt completely enthralled. With her pale blonde hair pulled back into a long braid and a face that looked like it had been blessed by the Goddess of Beauty herself, she was a gorgeous specimen of femininity. Every delicate feature of her beautiful face was impossibly refined. From her high, sculpted cheekbones to the graceful curve of her perfect lips, there was something almost unreal about her appearance.
She had the kind of beauty that made people covet her.
The kind that people fought wars over.
And the very thought of that filled him with rage. This perfect female had been out in the world without him by her side. Protecting her. Caring for her. Guarding her so that no one or nothing could ever touch her or hurt her.
The silver uniform she wore clung to her slender frame, its sleek, form-fitting design accentuating the graceful proportions of her petite body. While he was grateful the material protected her from getting too bruised and bloody during the fall, he wanted to rip the offensive cover off of her so he could run his hands over every inch of her glorious body. Partly so that he could personally check every inch of her for injuries, while the rest was pure atavistic lust.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the time for that, nor was it the proper place.
Her survival was more important than his desire for her. He forced himself to be content with watching the way the metallic fabric shimmered faintly in the dim light as her chest rose and fell with each breath she took. It gave him an acute sense of comfort watching that visible proof of life.
If she had died in that fall, she wouldn’t have been the only one to perish. The aftermath would have been catastrophic since he would have made everyone pay. Not with a riot, and not with some brief outburst of rage that the guards could stamp out and contain. But with a reckoning the likes of which the prison had never seen before.
No one would have been spared from his wrath, not even Death. Because the female lying before him wasn’t just some nameless visitor caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She was his mate.
And if she died, he had no reason to live.
She was the one being in all existence who could reach the part of him prison had not quite managed to kill. The one femalewith the power to tame the beast raging within him. Only she could pull him back from the brink of insanity and still find something worth saving.
Somewhere beneath the brutality and the primal instincts that had kept him alive, there was a real person. He had once been a demon with a heart and soul, not just a weapon forged by confinement and survival. And he knew without a doubt that she was the only one who could ever bring that version of him back.
He crouched beside her and reached out with hesitant fingers, softly brushing them along her cheek. Her skin was warm despite their cold surroundings, and impossibly soft against the roughness of his own. His chest tightened with a strange, painful anticipation as her long lashes fluttered before revealing the most beautiful pair of bright blue eyes. At first, her eyes were unfocused, clouded with confusion. But then her gaze met his and held in one beautiful moment of clarity.
She felt the mating pull between them.
He could see it. Sense it.
It was in the way her pupils dilated, in the faint hitch of her breath, in the fragile warmth that tinted her cheeks despite the horror of their surroundings. For a moment, her composure seemed to falter. A storm of emotions flickered across her face, and her eyes glistened with unshed tears, making them shimmer like twin sapphires. Then, her lips curved into a smile, like she was happy to see him.
The sight made his chest tighten painfully.
It should have been impossible, but it seemed like she saw the real him, not just some prisoner. He wasn’t just some chained-up creature, broken beyond redemption. She looked at him as though he were someone precious to her.
That realization shot through him, making his throat tighten with unfamiliar emotion. For so long, he’d existed in a state of numb indifference, his feelings buried beneath years ofbitterness and isolation. But now, his own carefully suppressed emotions stirred to life for the first time in what felt like an eternity.
The sensation was unsettling.
And yet, strangely, it felt good. Right.
He might be the beast to her beauty, the darkness to her light, but he would gladly be whatever she needed if it meant she would keep looking at him like that.
With her, he finally had an identity again.
He was her mate, and that was all that mattered.
