Chapter 11 #2
Jabir suddenly appears, yanking Qinnu back by the collar. “Are you insane? He could shift at any second.”
Qinnu slams the door to the cell, turning the latch with all his strength. Jabir watches me with lips in a grim line. My canines have dropped, claws now fully protruding from my hands and feet. I’m close to losing the battle. Close enough that I’m frothing at the mouth.
“Go,” he urges the Sentinel. “Patrol regiment needs backup.”
Jabir watches me intently as he grips his pistol.
He doesn’t want to use it, but if I know this male, he won’t hesitate if he’s given no other choice.
Over the next hour, he stands there, listening to the muffled activity streaming from the surveillance room.
Ignoring my heavy panting and searing muscles as I thrash against the force of the metal.
“Bring her to me,” I thunder. The reins are loosening now. The wolf is shoving me down, down under boiling water. “I need to see her.”
“No.”
The feral undercurrent swells with rage.
My back arches, ribs expanding. I gasp at the agonizing shatter of bones.
Normally, the shift is rapid and painless.
Every breath I take becomes more labored.
But I wrestle against the sweat-slicked chains, nonetheless, trying not to think of her.
Of the scent that’s driving me to the brink of fucking insanity.
With a roar, I throw my head back and scream until my throat is raw.
“If I let you out, the only person you’ll hate more than me is yourself,” Jabir mutters. “Keep fighting it, Axe.”
For another hour, I do, thrashing, coughing, burning from the inside out. I groan her name. Wishing I could hold her. Trace her lips. Taste them and every part of her—soft moon-kissed skin, sweet wetness, and her blood coating my jaws as I clamp down on her neck.
Mine. Yes . . . mine.
Warm copper seeps along my gums, canines and incisors radiating with sharp pain. Every instinct commands me to bite. And so I bury my teeth into my arm. Again and again, crazed with the need to free myself. Even if it costs me my hands.
Through the air vents above, Vessa’s heavenly smell magnifies. Cocking my head, I listen for light footsteps drawing nearer. An accelerating heartbeat. She’s close. Close enough that if I don’t pull those pheromones in my lungs within the next few seconds, I’ll go hypoxic.
Pure carnivorous hunger envelopes me. The foul stench of my burning flesh subsides. As the trance of the moon fully sinks in, all heightened senses converge. There’s only one scent. There’s only her. And I will have her.
Enough, the wolf declares, kicking me under with blunt force.
First, the chain holding my right leg gives out. Then, the left. Fractures spread along my arms and legs like fault lines, giving way to a surge of adrenaline, the tearing of ligaments too vehement to register any pain. Hair and skin rip at the seams, rapidly repossessed by fur.
As I mount, Jabir curses, scrambling to load his pistol. He thrusts the magazine in and comes face to face with a nightmare. With a roar, I charge, heaving my entire bodyweight into the lock. The bars groan but hold steady.
Jabir’s eyes are two merciless voids as he raises the gun and cocks it. “Don’t make me do this.”
I barrel into the door, blocking out the pain. When that fails, I roar again, fury throbbing in my ears. I grip the silver chain in my mouth, desperately smashing it against the outer lock. My gums singe from the burn.
We both freeze at the same time. A window has been shattered upstairs.
Nostrils flare as we detect the threat. A lone male, hell-bent on taking the human for himself. If he gets to her, then it’s game over.
The barrel of the gun pans over to the cell lock. “Get back,” Jabir growls.
Vessa
A chorus of howling persists well into the night, breaking my train of thought as I draft a letter to Maurleen.
Don’t stray far from your room tonight.
I should’ve realized how near it was—the one day of the month when males are irrationally on edge and females are in a constant state of arousal. A full moon is the greatest chance that a mated lycan couple has to conceive a child.
Maurleen always tracks the lunar cycles. While I lived with her, she had a way of making sure to send me out with a lengthy list of errands whenever the moon reached its culminating phase. To keep me far away from the forest and the hungry creatures that hunted for a lover to tangle with.
My pen comes to a jolting halt as a monstrous howl shakes the house. A roar not so different from the one Axe made in the forest of Shanoah, just before he found me. Is he calling for me now?
I cross the room and peer through the window of my private balcony.
The moon is high and glorious in the sky, casting its beams along the forest edge.
Two males are pressed against the massive trunk of a balsam fir, the taller of the couple thrusting into his partner from behind.
My hand clamps over my mouth, face heating as I jerk the blinds shut.
Holy shit. So, this is what I missed back at Glacier Meadow. If there was a television in this room, I would crank up the volume to tune out the escapades. My books . . . well, they aren’t exactly noise-canceling.
A second howl rumbles the floor beneath my feet.
The tremor, while terrifying, causes my chest to tighten.
Abandoning all sense, I grip the knob and step into the dim hallway.
No one stirs on the second level as I descend.
Downstairs, only the great room is illuminated, the only sign of life coming from a crackling fire.
But waiting for me just as I turn the corner of the foyer is Nell.
Her arms are crossed over her chest. “You should be in bed.”
I feign a look of innocence. “What’s going on? Where’s Axe?”
“He’s . . . incapacitated.”
Carnal music echoes through the forest, a chorus of growls and yips. Grimacing, Nell promptly shepherds me back in the direction from which I came.
Down the main corridor, a loud shatter galvanizes us. The floors creak as heavy footsteps pound closer. Nell grabs my elbow and tugs me against her, breaking into a desperate stride.
Both of us nearly jump out of our skin when a loud pop suddenly goes off downstairs. My eyes flick to the cellar door as we pass the kitchen.
This is a den of lycans. If an Alpha truly wanted to get to me, it would take more than a steel barricade to hold him back. It dawns on me then, why Axe wanted to know if I thought him a monster. It was never about the challenge with Colton. It was about tonight. When he would come for me.
Veering into the foyer, Nell gives me a gentle shove. “Go back to your room, Vessa. Now!”
“Going somewhere?” a guttural voice taunts. A naked male looms not ten paces behind us. Fully erect. Salt and pepper hair wild and tangled, his chest heaves like he’s drunk on all that moonlight. Silver eyes ogle me like I’m his next meal.
Heart pumping wildly, my feet propel me higher.
He’s there in an instant, shoving Nell down the stairs.
I gasp her name, pulse hammering inside the confines of my mind.
The male snatches my throat with one hand, tearing at my sweater with the other, not a morsel of humanity to be found as he regards me with rabid hunger. As I beg to be released.
Around the corner, the basement door blows off its hinges with the force of a grenade. The lycan tightens his grip on my throat, eyes bulging as lengthy fangs descend. Light fixtures tremble as an ear-splitting roar erupts through the main level.
Axe, in his deadliest form.
Before I can brace myself, the male is torn away from me.
I close my eyes as he raises his claws to lunge.
But his snarl is cut short. Hovering above me is Nell, fuming.
Ichor drips from her hand, claws clutching the mangled throat of our attacker.
The gory sight of him at the foot of the stairs rakes a scream from my lungs.
For a second, I glimpse my mother’s torn throat, blood sprayed over the dashboard.
Bile rockets up my esophagus, and I heave it out on the stairwell.
Jabir finally catches up to us and nearly slips in the puddle of blood that’s begun to seep along the wood floor.
Nell throws out a hand. “I’m fine.” The other settles over her stomach. “We’re fine.”
A low, simmering rumble sounds from Axe’s chest. Salivating gums pull back, exposing a menacing set of enlarged canines. Nell orders him to leave, voice cracking.
Jabir backs up to the first step, aiming his gun right between Axe’s eyes. “You heard her.”
I grip the railing, watching Axe breathlessly as he weighs his choices. He doesn’t move a muscle.
“Not like this, Axe,” Nell whispers. “Push him out. You’re not coming any closer.”
He answers with another bone-chilling growl. I’m too shaken to draw my next breath.
“Push him out.”
When our eyes finally meet, the rumbling dies out.
He lowers his head. Silence drapes over the foyer, blood seeping down the steps in a macabre stream.
The wolf takes the limp body in his jaws, the dull sound of dragging weight following as he takes his leave.
Jabir scrambles to his mate’s side, stroking her cheek.
A sudden flight response kicks in, sending me up the stairs, bolting back to the Luna’s suite. I duck inside the restroom, making for the toilet. Burning tears stream down my face as I heave. Every muscle spasms as I picture the lycan’s shorn flesh.
Another death I have brought on these people. How many more will die at Axe’s feet before his pack plunges into hysteria? Before I am blamed indefinitely?
Forget keeping a low profile. Forget evading vampires and Heartlands enforcers for a godsdamned minute. If the lycans of Bleeding Sun turn on me, I’m dead. That’s if Axe doesn’t rip my spine out first for withholding the truth.
A screeching realization clamps down on me.
I have to get out of here. Tonight. Now.
I jump out into the foyer, just in time to hear a scuffling clack outside. A slender woman in a spotted trench coat and knee-high boots passes by with a rolling suitcase. Shay. Heading towards the parking lot.
Through the doorway, I spot my own bags.
They haven’t been opened since I moved up a level.
Panting, I scribble a note down on the vanity and throw open the balcony doors.
I don’t have time to assess what must be a twelve or thirteen-foot drop.
All that matters is that it’s survivable.
The frigid air nearly causes me to reconsider.
But I toss my luggage over the balcony and swallow a scream as I fling myself over the ledge.
Thanks to the thick layer of yesterday’s snow, my tailbone doesn’t fracture when I hit the ground.
A few lights illuminate the manor’s exterior, though my view of the carport and gated lot is mostly clear.
At the end of the parking lot is a black SUV with its open trunk guarded by the warrior in training, Gemma.
While Shay stuffs her items inside, the younger girl bites her lip, looking around nervously.
They must be sisters. Their freckles and skin tone are too similar for them not to be.
I slip between the brick arches, pulling hard on my suitcase as the wheels kick up against the slushy gravel pavement. When I reach the final archway, Shay whips around to face me. Her nose crinkles, detecting the trace of vomit as I gasp for air.
"You're leaving?”
Turquoise eyes narrow on me. "Don't look too excited, now."
I gesture to the trunk. “Do you have room for one more?”