Page 76 of Binding His Fated Mates

A golden dome sprang to life around me. And the sucking hunger was abruptly gone.

I wheeled around to face it. Black smoke rose from the Mara’s flesh where the light of my shield had touched it. Some of it got into my mouth and I fought the urge to gag.

The Mara wheeled backward to get away from me.

And directly into Lee’s waiting blade. It pierced the creature through the heart from behind.

The back door of the house flew open and Daniel was there, his hands already glowing vivid green, but then he paused, his eyes widening in surprise at the sight before him.

The backyard filled with the sickening sound of squealing metal as the creature’s agonized shriek split the night.

The pack raced across the lawn just in time to see fissures of light spread from the creature’s wound, splitting the gray flesh. The creature’s shriek climbed in pitch until it was almost beyond hearing, causing me to clap both hands to my ears.

Lee held the blade steady, both hands on the hilt, his jaw set and absolute murder in his expression as he watched the creature come apart around the iron buried in its back.

Then, just like the first one, the Mara shattered into gray light and black smoke.

The yard went completely silent after that.

Lee stood there for a long moment, breathing hard, his blade still extended out in front of him, the last fragments of gray light dissolving at his feet.

I let out a sigh of relief and my shield faded away to nothing.

It was over.

* * *

Daniel came to join us, his expression tight with worry, as his gaze raked over Lee and then me.

He relaxed visibly when he saw that we were unharmed.

“Well, that was something you don’t see every day,” Harris commented mildly.

“Unless you’re us,” Lacey muttered.

“Well done,” Reed said, looking from Lee to Daniel and back to me. “Is Jensen still alive?”

As if on cue and before any of us could reply, Jensen staggered out of his back door, pale as a sheet, his gun in hand.

He stood there for a long moment, staring at us with wide, terrified eyes—the people who had just saved his life—then his knees buckled and he collapsed to the porch.

“What the hell was that?” a new voice asked from behind us.

I turned to find Shirley Green, an elderly Black woman dressed in a nightgown and a bonnet, on her back porch. She was holding a shotgun. Her husband, Daryl Green, was next to her, holding his pistol. They were both staring at us, frozen with sheer disbelief.

Reed shot Daniel a meaningful look.

The expression on our mate’s face went grim and he nodded. Then he spoke a spell—three words in a language I didn’t recognize—and pointed at Shirley and Daryl. A wave of golden light—it would’ve been invisible to anyone who wasn’t a wolf—rolled over them.

The effect was immediate. They both blinked with surprise. Then Daryl yawned and sat down. Shirley wavered, her eyelids drooping.

Then she swayed and sat down as well, the shotgun tumbling out of her hands.

Daryl passed out first. Shirley shot us a terrified glance, as if she knew she was being spelled into sleep against her will, but she followed her husband into unconsciousness an instant later, slumping over.

It definitely wasn’t the first time, but it occurred to me all over again how much power Daniel really had at his disposal. It was a testament to the kind of person he was that he didn’t abuse it.

“Well, this is a mess,” Oliver remarked dryly.