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It tastes rancid in the back of my throat, like… I can’t explain it. It isn’t darkness, but it isn’t light. It’s not anything I have ever felt. It’s lukewarm, yet cold and warm.What in the world?
Within seconds, Casen jerks upright, clutching his throat. He breathes heavily and wipes his mouth before twisting and throwing up on the ground. Blue liquid gushes from him as he speaks or tries to.
“White wolf, Blue eyes,” he rasps, lifting a shaking hand to the side. “She went that way.” Malachi doesn’t wait to hear more before he shoves forward, forcing the shift and following the sounds of fighting and her addictive scent wafts to us stronger, along with the scent of her blood.
The trees blur into the shadows as we race toward her, sliding under low branches and jumping fallen logs when we run into some clearing on a cliff edge. Wolves surround her as they back her up, her hind legs slipping on the loose rock. She barely claws her way back to safety as seven wolves close in. Yet none are Alpha Satish, that much is clear by their size and nonexistent auras. As I lunge after her, I am suddenly jumped from behind.
Claws rake through our fur, and Malachi pivots as our eyes land on Alpha Satish. My skin burns violently where his claws hooked in. Malachi snarls, and Satish’s huge black wolf digs his claws into the earth, his teeth snapping and dripping with blue venom when I hear her whimper behind me, and pain shoots up my ribs.
“What in the fuck!” I hiss at Malachi, confused by what I’m seeing.
His wolf charges at us, and Malachi snarls as we clash, teeth tearing into hard flesh, and claws slashing. Fur goes everywhere when I hear her scream behind me. I know she has shifted, yet my focus is on Satish’sbeastbecause that is the only word I can conjure. He should be no match for me, yet it feels like fighting a werewolf on steroids, his flesh almost impenetrable when I see gray fur rush past out of the corner of my eye.
Zyan races past just as Satish’s wolf tears into our hind leg. Malachi pivots, and I feel the poison flood my bloodstream before it sizzles out. Whatever he is, his bite has a minuscule effect on me, and Malachi tears into him when we are hit from the side. Malachi and I go skidding toward the cliff edge I hadn’t seen we were being pushed toward.
Malachi sinks his claws into the rocks, sparks zapping as they carve through the rock. With all his might, he scrambles back to the top. Satish is gone, and all I can see is Casen is fighting three wolves, having taken down two, while I face off with this new sandy-colored one.
Hearing a bloodcurdling scream, I notice the seventh wolf dragging my mate’s naked, thrashing body back into the treeline. Malachi sees red and lunges at the wolf’s throat, his sharp canines bite through his flesh easily as my magic slips out, and he harnesses it, something he’s never been able to do before. His canines grow longer, and he shakes his head, the wolf’s bones crunching like chicken bones.
“Malachi, he’s dead!” I scream at him, trying to take back control. He’s turned savage and rabid. He doesn’t stop until the wolf’s fur is completely red, his head no longer attached to its body, and the ground beneath our feet drenched in blood turning it into mud. Forcing control, Malachi fights me but surrenders when I remind him of Temperance, his mate, bringing him back to his senses.
Getting to my feet, I see another wolf drop as Casen takes it down.
“Go get your mate. I got these assholes!”he snarls through the link.
“I am!”I growl. I know Casen can hold his own and doesn’t need me holding his hand. Zyan charges at the last one while I run for the trees. Her frantic cries echo off the trees, the scent of her blood thick in the air as I frantically search for her. The sound of flesh on flesh makes me stiffen when I hear her whimper, my eyes honing in on the thick brush in the gully below.
My heart nearly stops, only then for it to pump harder, boiling the blood in my veins and turning to lava when I see him slap her again. She tries to crawl out from under him, but he rips her back, pulling her ass into the air.
I don’t even recognize my voice as the command leaves me. The sound is ice-cold, detached.
“Freeze!”
The man turns rigid, and my hands fist at my sides, knowing what he had been attempting to do to her. My magic ripples under my skin like a live wire, zapping with energy.
“Stand up!”
He does as I walk down the slope toward him. My mate scrambles away from him, her eyes going to me, yet I’m stuck in this rage-fueled trance. One that not even Malachi can fight. The same trance-like state I was stuck in when I attacked my father. Only it isn’t Malachi this time. It is me.
“Remove it!” I snarl. My voice sends a shiver up my spine, and the man blinks, his hands shaking as he grabs the appendage between his legs.
“You won’t be needing it where you’re going. I said remove it…”
ChapterEleven
Temperance
My heart races in my chest when I find myself face down in the dirt. Nova is completely drained as the wolfsbane burns through our system. I try to pull the poisoned spike from my leg when I feel hands grip my legs. I kick, thrashing violently as I’m dragged from the cliff edge. I can hear fighting, hear wolves tearing each other apart when my vision slowly returns and Nova recedes.
The spike comes out of my skin as I’m dragged across the rocky earth. A scream erupts out of me, and the stars taunt me as I give up, knowing it is inevitable, knowing what’s coming.
“Nova?” I murmur to her when I feel my legs drop, my entire body aches, unused muscles aching and burning when he shoves my legs apart. His putrid breath on my neck and his face too close, take away the sight of the stars peeking through the treetops.
“Close your eyes,” Nova whispers, her voice barely audible in my head as she keeps slipping further away.
“Remember when Lulu made those dream catchers?” Nova whispers, trying to flood my memory with washed-out grainy memories before Lulu, too, was killed, along with the rest of the women. Lulu was my babysitter when I was a small child.
“Yes—”
