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No, no, no. Not now! Seriously?
I knew this sensation.
My wolf howled in my mind, the sound mimicked by the battle still waging behind me.
Forcing myself to my feet, I nearly groaned from how my clit throbbed between my thighs.
This is so not the time,I scolded myself, but I couldn’t stop the reaction if I tried. And I did.
I spun, and my eyes scoured the battlefield.
Lorn, Axel begged, picking up on my distress.Go, Lorn! Run! You have to run.
I… I can’t.I couldn’t leave if I wanted to. My wolf was tied to the clearing until we knew.
Ihadto know.
A portal opened beside me, and Maple Syrup stepped out with…
“Mara?” My throat was raw, and her name came out roughened by my wolf.
It was quite the accomplishment that I didn’t growl at her. There was no chance that Mara didn’t have something to do with this uprising. It wasn’t a coincidence that she had been talking with Maple Syrup before all hell broke loose.
Her eyes were wide as she took in the carnage. There would undoubtedly be lives lost tonight because a few skinwalkers couldn’t accept the wordno.
“It wasn’t supposed to go like this,” she murmured, desperation thick in her tone.
“You convinced them to question me.” The pieces were slowly coming together. Behind me, Tye, Mato, Nahele, and Chayton worked to keep the snarling shifters away from me.
But my chance to escape was over. Maple Syrup leered at me, and he dropped Mara’s hand to stalk closer.
I shifted on my feet, burying my body’s need for a different kind of release to latch onto the anger coursing through my veins. I needed a release all right. And I was going to get one. The violent kind.
“I’d never accept you, even if you were my mate. But read my lips now and listen very carefully. You. Are. Not. My. Mate.” I ground out every word, and my eyesight sharpened with the presence of my wolf.
“We’ll see about that,” Maple Syrup drawled, and his eyes flashed yellow. “If you had behaved earlier, you only would have sacrificed a tiny prick of your finger. Now you’ll bleed for me. You’ll pay for the humiliation you caused, and if you are my mate, you’ll soon learn how to behave in the presence of my pack.”
A knot of anger unfurled in my chest, and a foul sound ripped from my throat, deeper than a growl and more lethal. Fur sprouted down my arms and my nails changed into wicked claws as I prepared to defend myself.
“I will never bleed for you,” I snarled, “and I’d rather die than take you as a mate.”
The glint of something silver caught my eye as I lunged at Maple Syrup. I’d mostly ignored Mara, focused on the threat Maple posed, but now she stood in front of me, shock making her face pale, her brown eyes wide as she held the ancient-looking dagger now protruding from my stomach.
A wave of magick rushed through me, and I felt like I was being severed alive.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, her eyes watering.
Tears streaked down my cheeks as a cry silently screamed from my lungs. My claws shifted to fingers and back again as I clutched at my wounded abdomen and stumbled backward.
The dagger jutted obscenely from my belly, and my brain went into shock as one by one, the connections to my mates disappeared.
“What have you done?” I gasped the words, struggling to get them out as blood pooled across my dark tank, adhering it to my body.
One by one my mates howled. Long, low, and agonizingly.
“You’ll be able to heal yourself,” she stammered, fidgeting with her hands as she looked from the dagger back to my face. I had a feeling I was paler than she was, a combination of shock, pain, and blood loss leeching away my coloring.
Dason, I cried, trying to reach any of my mates, but my chest was achingly hollow.Jolon? Chayton?I reached for my alphas and the man I was mated to, yet nothing but silence reigned in my mind.
