Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
Adreadful chill traveled down my spine. Torin had taken bullets for me. My heart pounding, I lowered my gaze to his chest, but I couldn’t see any blood there.
“Torin?” My voice came out shaky.
We lay on our sides, facing each other, only inches away.
How badly was he injured? I crooked my head to look at his face for any signs of pain.
His amber eyes watched me with so much tenderness and worry that he stole my breath.
My heart melted at the sight of him, and tears welled up.
His gentle expression calmed me, and I put my hand on his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breaths.
He lowered his head and kissed my forehead as if it were the most natural thing for him to do. His lips left tiny, tingly sensations on my skin, comforting me. I wanted to stay right here in this moment forever.
Then he tensed, likely having realized that his mouth was only inches away from the open skin on my forehead. My cut was still bleeding.
Tension and something dangerous stretched between us. The scent of my blood must have been as alluring as drugs to an addict.
Torin’s fangs protruded in an instant, and I gasped at how close his mouth was to my head. His ear slimmed and grew pointier on the top.
The wrinkle between his thick black eyebrows deepened, and his eyes turned crimson and sank into the sockets. He was so close I could see the pupils change from a human circular shape to the oval shape of beasts.
The tip of Torin’s nose became thinner, and his cheeks hollowed. His facial features were sharper, his jaw squarer.
Extra adrenaline shot through my system at how quickly Torin had shifted into his vampire form while I lay in his arms.
The vein on the side of his neck and another on his forehead, near his temple, pulsed underneath the skin.
His hair turned silver, completing his horrifying, deadly vampire appearance.
I was terrified, but at the same time, the sense of safety engulfed me. He’d saved my life, after all.
I fought the urge to reach out, touch his face, and run my finger through his shiny hair. Torin’s eyes narrowed at me as if he knew my thoughts, and he stood exceptionally fast, releasing me in the process. I propped myself on my hands and sat up.
Baldy still lay on the ground with a drawn gun pointed at Torin. But the man had frozen. His horrified eyes were as wide as the moon. Since he worked for vampires, he might have seen them in their true vampire form, but seeing transformed Torin was an entirely different level of horror.
Torin’s crimson eyes could freeze a person in his tracks.
My gaze caught on Torin’s broad back. Two holes in his shirt with small blood stains were the only evidence that he’d taken the bullets for me.
But they weren’t silver, from what I could tell of the casings on the ground.
The three intruders must not have expected to run into any supernaturals today.
Torin’s body must have pushed the bullets out. I couldn’t come up with another explanation. He must have been that powerful.
His next movements were fast, calculated, and merciless. He grabbed the man from the ground, his feet now dangling in the air. The man’s hands pried at Torin’s gloved fingers, but his futile actions only seemed to make the vampire madder.
The bald man was turning purple, unable to take his next breath. Even I felt bad for him, although he was on my naughty list.
Torin brought the struggling man close to his face, and my breath caught in my lungs. He sank his fangs into the man’s throat, and the crunching of bones and tearing of flesh resonated in my office. The man desperately gurgled for air as streams of red liquid ran down Torin’s chin.
Torin tossed the limp body to the side, blood splattering, and moved on to man number two.
I pressed one hand against my stomach and decided to stay on the ground. I didn’t want to risk catching Torin’s attention.
The vampire Alpha hoisted the handcuffed man off the ground by his arms and squeezed. The horrific symphony of bones cracking and screams carried in the air. Torin bit down on his shoulder and greedily gulped his blood as if he hadn’t eaten for a week. Red liquid oozed from the wound.
The sound of the gurgling blood and the shrieks of pain overwhelmed me. Torin must have severed an artery, the body slouching almost immediately.
I wasn’t a fan of the bad guys. Obviously, they’d wanted to hurt me, but Torin’s punishment was a whole other level of violence. I wasn’t sure if Torin’s rational human mind was even present. He was a wild beast on a mission to destroy.
I wasn’t as scared of the sight of gore and blood smeared on my office floor, but Torin’s vampire side was terrifying. Even to me.
The pungent stench of death and blood disgusted me. Nausea swirled within me like a churning storm, and acid coated my mouth. With a grimace, I forced the bitter taste down in a hard swallow.
I blinked repeatedly as if I had watched a horror movie play out in front of me.
The last man on the ground started mumbling something, pleading for his life.
“Then you shouldn’t have touched her,” Torin growled.
“I didn’t. I didn’t,” the man kept repeating.
“I’ll make it quick for you, then.”
Torin crouched next to him, grabbed his neck, and snapped it. He knew these men were not professional assassins but still showed no mercy.
The vampire Alpha had justified, right in front of me, the werewolf kingdom’s fear of him.
Torin had lost control in front of me, the princess. Wasn’t he concerned I would rat him out to the King? I would never, especially after he’d saved my life, but the Alpha must come back to his senses.
I tried to stand, but my wobbly legs wouldn’t hold up my shaky body. He turned to face me, and I gasped. Torin wiped his bloody mouth with his long sleeve. His sharp and deadly talons had torn from his gloves. His red eyes settled on me, and a cold shiver ran down my spine.
His gaze zeroed in on the trail of blood on the side of my head. He looked at me as if I were his next meal. I wanted to back off, but my legs wouldn’t work.
“Torin, snap out of it,” I said in a shaky voice.
The vampire’s nostrils flared, and he took a deep inhale while briefly shutting his eyes. They were still crimson, and he showed no sign of returning to a human.
In three long strides, he stood in front of me. His head lowered to mine, but I knew he wasn’t thinking of kissing me like I’d always imagined. He was going to sink his fangs in and feed on me.
I would be lying if I didn’t think he would kill me, but before Torin could hurt me, a noise came from the door.
“Alpha!” a deep male voice shouted, which froze Torin midway to my neck. “Alpha?”
Torin’s trance broke, and his gaze sharpened and focused on me and then on his Beta, who stood at the doorway, running his fingers through his straight dark hair.
Now I understood better why the Beta’s black strands were always disheveled. I’d also want to pull my hair out if I worked with Torin. I’d seen Torin’s right-hand man at the kingdom but was especially thankful to see him now.
Would Torin really have gone down that dark path that would have ended my life if his Beta hadn’t walked in?
The vampire Alpha stumbled back as realization seemed to kick in. Torin’s posture stiffened, and then he walked away from me to the other side of the office.
“Patch her wound,” Torin said through a clenched jaw, and his gaze scanned me up and down, looking for more injuries. “Bring me fresh clothes and get the cleaning crew here.”
I let out a sigh. Did this man know how to say please? But his Beta didn’t seem fazed. He pulled out his cell phone, and while he made a call to whoever, I stared at Torin, speechless.
After a moment, Torin’s features relaxed, and he shifted back to his human form, but he still looked ruthless and cold-hearted to me. His domineering aura was so powerful that it crashed intense waves over my body.
Torin could have detained the bad guys, thrown them in his dungeon, or tortured them for information, but instead, he’d torn them apart. Could he not control that side of himself?
Dad had never mentioned that Torin lost control of himself during meetings, and yet, the King had asked me to keep away from this Alpha.
I looked around my office and searched for the magic book. It was safe, still on my desk. But my office was a messy, bloody gladiator arena.
“Princess Breanna?” The Beta’s voice made me yelp. “Sorry.” He was holding a dark-blue square box. “I’ll get you a chair.”
Torin’s right-hand man had a muscular build but wasn’t as hulky as his Alpha. The scattered freckles on his nose, cheeks, and forehead gave him an inviting quality. He appeared to be a no-nonsense kind of man but also down to earth.
He dragged my office chair closer to me, making sure he placed it in a dry spot. He gestured for me to have a seat, and I did so.
The man pushed the hair on my forehead away, and when our eyes locked, my body jolted at the sight of pale-blue eyes that were almost gray. Although the Beta struck me as an easy-going person, I saw wisdom and unwavering loyalty in their depths.
“The cut is on the surface. It'll heal quickly, but you’ll have a nice bruise to go with the bump.”
He wiped the open skin with an alcohol pad, the scent of it stinging the inside of my nose. I sucked in a sharp breath at the burning sensation, and the Beta, leaning in, blew over my injury.
I wanted to laugh because it reminded me of how Mom used to do the same when I was a kid. Bruises and cuts from Dad’s trainings were constant, but sometimes I managed to injure myself by climbing trees, jumping over small creaks, or stumbling over moss-covered rocks and losing my balance.
A low growl vibrated in the air, and the Beta’s gaze snapped to Torin.
“What? I do this to my son, and he said it feels better on the wound.” He then ignored his Alpha’s glare and continued applying ointment to my forehead.