Chapter 22 #2
My cheek hit the ground, soil grinding into the cut at my temple as he wrenched my arms behind my back, twisting until pain tore through my shoulders and stars burst across my vision. I tried to buck him off, to roll, to bite, anything—but he was heavier. Stronger.
Tears slid freely, mixing with blood and dirt as his weight pressed me flat. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“You bitch,” he snarled, grabbing my hair, forcing my head back.
“We would have made it quick. Painless. But now,” he said as the others closed in, “I don’t think we will. Do you men?”
The others answered with low murmurs, and somewhere behind me the man I had maimed spat curses through clenched teeth.
Despair sank in as I heard the unmistakable sound of fabric shifting, belts loosening.
He forced me flat, kneeling beside me, one knee driving into my back as he pinned my wrists in a crushing grip.
“No—please don’t,” I screamed. “Don’t do this.”
I had never begged. Never known fear like this—stripping pride down to nothing, leaving only survival.
But pride was useless here. I would say anything to buy even a second more.
Their shadows swallowed what little moonlight remained. One of them seized my hips, forcing my lower body upward.
I flinched as something sharp pressed against my back.
The blade drew upward, slicing through my leathers in a single stroke. It split, falling away in torn straps, exposing my skin to the night air. Shame burned hotter than the fear.
“How lovely you are,” he murmured, his voice disturbingly soft.
The tip of his dagger traced along the curve of my back before catching at the waistband of my trousers. He hooked it there and sliced again, baring me fully to the sky and the indifferent glow of the moon.
A sob slipped from me, my body trembling as the edges of consciousness began to blur, the horror of it almost merciful at the edges.
I heard fabric shift. Felt his hand slide along my lower back.
And then, cutting through the night—
a low, lethal growl.
Heavy paws thundered across the forest floor, each strike shaking the ground as a roar split the night open.
I turned just in time to catch a black blur tear through the clearing. Kharos vaulted over me in a single motion, slamming into the man restraining me with bone-shattering force. The impact drove him sideways, his grip breaking as they rolled across the dirt.
The man with his trousers half-lowered staggered upright, scrambling to pull them up, panic flooding his features. His companion’s body hit the ground with a dull thud.
Kharos rose from the collision. Between his jaws hung a severed head.
For a heartbeat, there was only ragged breathing and the metallic scent of blood.
Then his jaw tightened.
The crunch echoed through the clearing as bone gave way, skull collapsing beneath the force of his bite. He shook and flung the ruined head aside, gore spraying across leaves and bark.
He stood to his full height, black fur slick with blood, green eyes blazing with something ancient and merciless, fixed entirely on the man.
The other turned to flee, blood dripping from his fingers, crashing blindly through the trees.
Kharos didn’t look at him. He advanced with predatory precision, a low growl rumbling through him. The man stumbled backward, sweat pouring down his face as he raised his dagger with trembling hands.
It didn’t matter.
Kharos lunged.
He hit him full force, slamming him onto his back and pinning him with one enormous paw planted squarely over his chest. The ground cracked beneath the weight. Saliva dripped from bared fangs onto the man’s face as Kharos loomed above him, breath hot and thick with blood.
He screamed. Kharos pressed down harder.
Ribs snapped beneath the pressure, one after another. With his other paw, claws extended, he raked downward in a single sweep across his abdomen. Skin parted. Flesh tore.
Blood spilled freely as his intestines slid into the dirt. The scream broke into wet gurgles as he thrashed weakly, life draining from his eyes in helpless disbelief.
Kharos leaned down and tore out his throat with one savage bite, ripping it free before casting the body aside like refuse.
Silence fell again, broken only by the ragged sound of the third man fleeing blindly through the forest.
Kharos turned, blood dripping from his claws and fangs, his body heaving with feral intensity, eyes still burning with unspent violence.
I lowered my head to the forest floor, trembling as I gathered the torn remains of my leathers around me, trying to cover what had been exposed, reclaim some fragment of dignity.
The weight of what had almost happened crashed over me then, stripping away whatever strength I had clung to. Leaving only raw, shaking relief as tears spilled into the soil beneath my cheek.
Kharos prowled toward me, his massive form slick with blood, and lowered himself carefully at my side. He didn’t touch me at first, only pressed his solid warmth along my back, a living barrier between me and the night.
I turned into him without hesitation, curling against him, burying my face into the dark fur at his neck, clutching him as though he were the only thing left in the world. I drew in his heat, the steady rise and fall of his breath until my own began to slow in answer.
“Thank you,” I sobbed into his fur.
A low rumble answered me, something protective and resolute that vibrated through me.
I heard movement behind Kharos. Thanor stepped into the clearing, calm as ever, dragging the third man behind him, his bleeding hand scoring the dirt.
He stopped a few paces away. His gaze moved over the clearing—the torn remains of my leathers, the disemboweled corpse sprawled across the forest floor, the severed head lying discarded in the leaves—taking it all in without visible reaction.
Then it settled on me. On the blood at my temple.
On the tears I hadn’t yet managed to stop. A dangerous stillness came over him.
“Which of them touched you.”
He dropped the man at my feet.
“Did this one lay a hand on you?”
Not trusting my voice to hold, I nodded. If possible, his expression turned colder still.
“He will not die quickly.”
He knelt beside me. His fingers brushed the blood at my temple, then slid to my wrist. They stilled as he noticed my bared skin. His hand dropped.
“Are you… harmed?”
“Yes,” I whispered, forcing the word out. “But Kharos arrived before…” I swallowed. “Before they could take it further.”
He rose, already reaching for the man. “Kharos, take her to the—”
“No. Please.”
He paused, glancing back as I pushed myself upright, ignoring the weakness dragging at my limbs.
“I want to see,” I said, steadier now. “I need to.”
For a moment, I thought he might refuse. His jaw tightened, something unreadable passing through him. Then he gave a curt nod.
“Stay behind me.”
He hauled the man upright by his collar and slammed him back against the nearest tree. The impact knocked the breath from him, his blood-slick hand scraping uselessly against the bark as he tried to find purchase.
“Please—” he choked.
Thanor didn’t let him finish.
“Who sent you?”
The man shook his head, too fast, too desperate. “I don’t know—I swear, I don’t—”
Thanor dragged the man’s dagger free and held it low between his thighs. “You tracked her. You were prepared to use this disgusting cock.”
The point pressed in.
The man’s breath hitched. His eyes widened, too late. He twisted the knife.
“Please—nooo! I don’t know names!” He gasped.
“Liar.”
The blade turned. The sound that followed was wet, strangled—half sob, half scream—as his head dropped forward, breath shuddering out in broken gasps.
“We’re given orders—just orders—” he cried. “I don’t know names—”
Thanor caught his jaw and forced his head back.
“Who.”
“I don’t—please—”
The dagger shifted again. Not a thrust this time. A slow drag. Fabric tore first. Then flesh.
The man screamed, high and raw, his body twisting uselessly against Thanor’s hold as blood spilled freely, dripping down his legs.
“I don’t know!” he sobbed. “I don’t know—please—”
I didn’t look away.
His screams seemed to close in around me, until it felt too close, too loud, too real.
Thanor stilled. For a moment it felt like he might hold there. Push further. Tear something more from him. The man was breaking. It was there, at the edge of him—one push more—but something gave way. His grip tightened.
The dagger drove in. The scream tore loose, high, ruptured, cut short as the blade sheared through him.
Something dropped into the leaves between his feet.
Blood followed. Fast. Dark. Silence fell heavy in its wake.
Thanor remained where he stood, his hand still locked in the man’s collar, as if the answer might still be dragged from him if he held on long enough. It didn’t come.
He let go. The man collapsed at his feet. He didn’t look at him again.
Without another word he strode over, removing his cloak. In one effortless motion, he lifted me from the ground, wrapping the cloak around my bare skin as he brought me against his chest.
The warmth of him closed around me. I gripped at his chest, fingers tightening on the leather straps as I pressed closer, seeking the solid strength of him. For once, I didn’t resist the possession in the way he held me, the quiet claim in the way his arm locked around me.
I needed it. I needed him to be immovable and merciless.
He began walking back toward the small camp we had made, his hold on me steady, and I couldn’t imagine anything in this forest daring to challenge him.
Over his shoulder, through the haze creeping at the edges of my sight, I saw the man bleeding out onto the forest floor.
Kharos gave a final growl and followed. Then the world tilted. The warmth around me blurred into darkness, and I surrendered to it again.