His claws punched through the soft tissue of the male's throat, and there was a moment—just a split second—where he felt the pulse against his fingertips.Felt the male's heart beating one last time before he tore the warrior's throat out.
Blood sprayed hot across Raaevik's face.
The male's eyes went wide, his mouth opening and closing like a fish drowning in air, and then his legs buckled, and he crumpled.
Raaevik stood over the body, his chest heaving, and blood dripping from the ends of his claws.
He should feel horror.Disgust at what he'd done.Something.
He didn't.Instead, he feltsatisfied.
Another male bolted through a side door, robes billowing behind him.The predator in him locked on, tracked the fleeing male for half a second, and dismissed him.The only thing that mattered was three feet to his left.
Strapped to a table.
Alive.
The red receded from Raaevik's vision like a tide pulling back.His body shifted back with a snap and grind of his bones.His frame shrank back toward something recognisable, shoulders narrowing, spine resettling as the hardened skin softened across his arms and chest, colour returning in patches.
But not everywhere.
The chest wound stayed, a blackened, thickened scar.His claws didn't fully retract—dark and sharp at the ends of trembling fingers he couldn't control.
He fell to his knees beside the table.
She looked small and cornered, waiting for the final blow.Her chest rose and fell in panicked gasps, like an animal caught.Dark lines traced her veins in a wrong pattern—poison or drugs or something worse branching through her.
But her eyes.
Her eyes locked on his face with an intensity that stopped his breath.
There was fear there, yes.Terror even.But beneath it… There was trust.She looked at him like he was the only thing standing between her and the end of the world, and the weight of that trust crashed into his chest harder than any weapon ever had.
She was so fragile.So breakable.And they'd hurt her.
"Emily."His voice came out rough, broken.
Her lips parted.She didn't flinch.Didn't scream.Just looked at him like she was trying to memorize his face.
He started to reach for her face… to brush the damp hair back from her forehead, totouchher and prove to himself that she was real and alive, but his hand froze halfway.
His claws.
They were still there.Dark and sharp, streaked with blood.
His hand hovered between them, trembling so hard he couldn't stop it.These hands had just torn a male apart.Had felt bone snap and flesh part and had gloried in it.How could hands like that touch something as fragile as her?How could he be sure the thing that had just killed with such satisfaction wouldn't hurt her by accident?
"Raaevik."Her voice was barely a whisper.
His name.
She'd just watched him tear a male apart.Had watched him kill with a savagery that should have terrified her.
But then she'd said his name like he was stillhim.
Not a monster.Not something to fear.Not something to run from.
Just...Raaevik.
His hand hovered over her cheek, trembling, and her eyes were wide and dark and terrified, but not ofhim.
Then boots thundered in the corridor outside.
The blast door he'd torn free was gone, leaving the entrance wide open.Imperial troops flooded through… twelve, fifteen, twenty warriors in full combat gear, weapons raised, scanning for targets.
He moved without thinking, putting himself between the doorway and the table.Between the armed warriors and Emily.His claws lengthened again, and his lips pulled back from his teeth.
He would kill them all to protect her.
