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I was about to open my mouth and yell for help, to get their attention so they’d hopefully stop fucking before I saw them and had to bleach my eyes out, but the very animal growl that ripped through the air had me stumbling forward before falling onto my knees.
I cried out softly as my hand landed on the jagged edge of a rock. I pulled it up and brought it close enough to my face so I could see. A nasty-looking slice went through the length of my palm, deep enough I may need stitches, but that was the least of my worries.
I pushed myself up just as I heard the sound of… men speaking, their voices gruff and deep.
My pulse picked up in relief.
I found myself moving toward them before I realized what I was doing, the voices growing louder yet now becoming a little distorted. All I kept thinking was they could get me out of here. It didn’t even occur to me—at least not more than on a superficial level—that I could be walking into something far more dangerous than being lost in the woods.
But all I kept replaying in my mind was getting out of this damn forest, going back to the little bed and breakfast I was staying in, and sleeping for the next twelve hours.
The trees started to thin out, and I knew I was coming up to a clearing—to where the voices were. The sounds became louder, more distinguishable, and that had me lowering my brows in confusion, because it didn’t make any sense—the conversation I was hearing.
Mates? Lycans? Vampires having to be called in?
And when I stumbled again and threw a hand out to brace it on the closest tree, I hissed when my cut palm landed on the rough bark. But the pain faded as I stood frozen in place at the scene before me.
I shook my head, confusion and fear so thick in me I felt the hot tears sliding down my cheeks before I realized I was crying.
They were too big. Too muscular. And their… eyes were glowing. They’re glowing just like I’ve been dreaming about my entire life.
And right in front of me, I saw the men becoming bigger, their muscles getting stacked upon each other. They looked... inhuman.
None of this is right.
Because what I was staring at couldn’t be real, not when the men in front of me looked like they’d been ripped right out of a horror movie.
16
Luca
“Ye started a war.”
I bared my teeth at Banner after he spoke, not even fucking giving a shit that I was going up against the Scottish Lycan leader.
It made no difference. Nothing did.
Not that I was mated to his daughter and he clearly didn’t like that.
Not that I’d been insane for hundreds of years.
Not because I fucking refused to give her back.
And certainly not that I was all in where it concerned taking down every single fucking one of these bastards in order for them to back off.
The only thing that mattered was that I finally had Ainslee, and nothing on this planet was going to separate us.
I tightened my hand around her waist, and she tried to get around me. My wolf growled low, an alpha act to keep my mate safe where she was.
“Luca. They are my family. They don’t want to hurt anyone.”
They did. They wanted to take me down. I scented that pouring off them.
“Let my sister go, and we can handle this like males of worth.”
“Caelan, please stop. You don’t understand. This is a huge misunderstanding.” Ainslee’s voice was soft, and she pushed at me. I didn’t want to let her go, but I was also a slave to my need to give her anything she wanted.
I bared my teeth at her brother when he shifted as if to come forward.
“Stand down, boy,” I seethed.
Ainslee stepped beside me, but I kept my hand around her waist, my fingers curled against her hip. The very real fear that she’d go to them, run from me, was something I couldn’t get over. She held up her hands in surrender, and I hated that she felt like she needed to. It made the protective side of me rise up.
My mate was afraid, and I was the cause of that.
“Caelan…” She paused and looked at each Lycan who stood no more than twenty feet from us. The bastards made this barricade of muscle and bone, a wall of threat. “I’m asking you to let me do this on my own, and in my own time, to let me figure this out.”
The pleading note in her voice had my wolf emerging and taking a territorial stance.
“Luca won’t hurt me.” She looked up at me then, her eyes so big and blue, and so full of want and promise. The hope reflected back at me could have brought me to my knees.
