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It is late. I am filthy, and every muscle in my body twitches.
“I’m too tired even to eat,” Bron moans next to me as we strip out of our clothing to stand beneath the water spout to rinse the dirt and sweat away. The water comes from deep underground and is blissfully cold. I want to linger, but I am also impatient to return to our quarters and see my mate.
Only, when I open the door, Jasmine is not there.
I sniff, searching for some lingering scent of her to see whether she has been nearby.
Nothing.
The hairs prickle at the back of my neck. I stalk out of our tiny room, eyes going to the small window, shuttered against the night, where Melody and Bard reside. There is no light on.
Fear and worry crash over me. My beast prowls beneath my skin, lifting his snout and sniffing.
Where the fuck is she?
I take off at a jog for the door leading into the main building and the long passage that she usually emerges from when she has finished her duties for the day. She is on her way to me, she must be. I curse myself for not coming for her sooner.
As I enter the sturdy wooden door, scents hit me.
Her scent. Her blood.Hisscent.
My head swings toward the other end of the corridor, and a terrible premonition dawns.
A roar—an ungodly combination of orc and beast, erupts from my chest. I charge the corridor, my tired body flooded with a potent cocktail of emotions that tear all sense of lethargy away, and I slam through the door to the courtyard, nearly taking it from its hinges.
My beast thrashes for dominance as we pick up more scents, and I pound down the narrow passage that leads to the building site, following their scents while I attempt to crush down the mounting dread and sense of failure.
I stumble over a mound of sand and pitch into a darkened room that has three walls and no roof.
Trent.He has her by the throat, pinned to the floor. My nostrils flare. I see the glisten of blood on her lips, the way she thrashes under him. Her skirt is already lifted, and his hand fumbles between them as he seeks to shuck from his pants.
His head whips around, jaw going slack just as my vision shimmers. I feel like every bone in my body explodes and then reforms with apop. The angles are all wrong. My head is lower, and yet I fill the space. I see tusks: white, long, horrifying, and white shaggy fur.
I snort out a breath and scrape one big, clawed paw against the stony ground. Lips curled back, I issue my challenge in the form of a roar—and charge.
Legs pumping, Trent scrambles back, falling over himself before, loose pants held in one hand, he takes off at a run.
I leap over Jasmine, bowling over a stack of mud bricks and sending them tumbling as I chase down my quarry. Trent stumbles again.
I am on him.
With a sideswipe of my head, my left tusk pierces his back, lifting the weak human who dared to touch our mate clean off his feet.
He screams, his body thrashing. The struggles only impaled him deeper upon my tusk.
I shake my head, flinging him off, smashing his body against the stone wall. I charge him, skewer him with a tusk and toss him over again, smashing his body from one side to the other, raging and roaring.
I must eliminate the threat.
He is dead long before the wildness in me calms. I snort. The body is unrecognizable, the walls and floors smeared with his blood. I stamp my feet and snort again before my head swings back to where Jasmine is.
She kneels on the floor, her chin bloody, with one hand grasping the bodice of her torn dress.
My nostrils flare, and I stamp again, head swinging back to the fallen male who hurt her. Lifting my snout to the sky, another savage roar erupts from my throat.
I shudder a deep breath, her scent reaching for me, pulling me back from the brink of madness, and I take a tentative step toward Jasmine.
The world explodes around me as every bone in my body dissembles and reforms again with an agonizingpop. I collapse to my knees in time to see Jasmine faint dead away.
