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“No,” Christian says, raising his gun. “Elizabeth’s not here. But I’ll make sure you tell her to meet you in hell when I see her next.”
Wrong on both counts, asshole.
What happened? Did Christian dupe that poor kid into being his pawn? Or did he sell him on the same martyrdom that Jack Walker believed in? Either way, watching as Christian prepares to pull the trigger on the gun, something snaps inside of me.
For the first time in my life, I see fuckingred. I don’t think. I don’t hesitate.
I attack.
I’m not sure if Christian even had the chance to fire off a shot; if so, he also missed. Rearing back on my hind legs, I pounced on him. So consumed with staring down Aleks, he never saw me coming until I got my first bite in.
I went for his gun hand. I bit the whole fucking thing off. With a sickening crunch and a thud, both the hand and the gun go flying.
Christian howls, and maybe if he’d taken a second to shift in the beginning of the brutal fight, he might’ve won. He was a Beta, after all, and an experienced pit fighter. His weapon of choice might’ve been the gun, but he had claws and fangs and knew how to use them.
But I had the desperate need to protect my mate on my side, and years of pent-up frustration of males like Christian controlling me to fuel my rage.
He never stood a chance.
I don’t know how long I continued to rend and chew and slash after he was dead. Enough that Aleks finally dared approach me. I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to going feral in my entire life, and if he hadn’t been there to whisper my name, I’m not so sure I wouldn’t come back at all.
But he is, and he does, and I do.
“Elizabeth? Elizabeth? Ksiezyca? Can you hear me?”
Mate. That’s my wolf trying to poke my human consciousness.Maaaate.
Mate.
I shift. As soon as I’m in my skin again, my legs buckle.
Aleks is right there, catching me before I hit the bloody earth.
My eyelids flutter. “Aleks? What… what happened?”
“We were ambushed, my beloved. Roman’s murderer… the skurwysyn who nearly stole you from me with his silver bullet… it seems he came to finish the job. Only my fierce she-wolf stopped him before he had the chance.”
I follow the direction of his stare. When I see the blood clumps everywhere, my stomach rebels.
“Oh my Luna.” I peer down in horror. “I killed him!”
Like I said, I’ve never killed another being before. I’ve fantasized about it when it comes to Kyle and Peyton, and even Jack Walker, but I didn’t think I had it in me.
Aleks cups my face with his hands, forcing me to look at him instead of the mess I made of Christian. “No,” he says gently yet firmly, “you saved me. Oh, my beloved ksiezyca, you saved yourself.”
I… I guess I did, didn’t I?
CHAPTER13
THE VAMPIRE’S BRIDE
At my urging, Aleks buries Christian and the delta kid behind the shack.
I have to explain that I could care less if the crows and vultures pecked Christian’s corpse; he kid I feel kind of bad about, but he threw his lot in with the disgraced Beta, so maybe nottoobad. However, one look at Christian and it’s obvious that another shifter tore him to shreds. I don’t know if those two were working on their own—or if other wolves sympathetic to Walker and Christian’s cause might be looking for him. Then there’s also the little matter that I’m technically a fugitive of the Alpha collective. My scent and blood is all over him.
That’s all I have to say. Trembling in my bare skin, Christian’s blood painting me red where my own gashes and quickly closing wounds aren’t already lending it color, I explain it to him. I’m barely done before he swoops in, gives me a quick kiss, then starts to gather up the pieces of the wolf I left behind in my rage.
Once he’s done, he leads me back into the shack. I’m still a little shell-shocked, though I feel a lot better once I know Christian is buried. With gentle hands, Aleks uses the shred of my blouse as a washcloth to wipe away the blood. He hisses when he sees how deep some of Christian bite marks are around my midsection, but I assure him that I’ll be okay.
