A worthy opponent, Kraft thought, feeling a lot more respect for the alpha-in-waiting than he had when the male had been their prisoner. Max had layers, apparently.
Riley wobbled to her feet and shook her head.
“Riley,” he growled.
She blinked at him in shock.
He saw blood trickling from her ear and a broken leg currently mending itself. “Damn. Did that thing do that?”
They both turned to see Max doing a decent job keeping it engaged. But with the sorcerer fighting Khent, the male seemed to lose control over the beast, who started stomping through the stalls and shops it neared instead of keeping to the open spaces.
“You okay to fight?”
She sneered at him, showing some big-ass fangs.
“You are so hot.”
She blinked and flicked her ears at him. With a few more body movements, she shared that she understood they’d mated. And she knew he knew.
“Well, I, uh. We’ll have to talk about that when we’re done kicking this thing’s ass.” Not the bravest move of his life, but discussing affection and feelings he himself didn’t understand when they had a monster to kill, it only made sense to do the prudent thing and destroy the enemy first.
She looked sad, which unnerved him. Then she jumped up to lick his cheek and darted after the hell beast and her cousin.
Not to be left behind, Kraft knew he’d have better luck as his wolf than in his vampire form and shifted shape. But instead of stopping at Riley’s size, he let himself grow bigger.
At the largest size he’d yet taken, he took a few steps before feeling accustomed to his new form then snarled his challenge. The hell beast had taken another bite of Max and Riley, who kept snapping at its legs.
But Kraft watched as those legs healed right away, whereas Max and Riley were bleeding a lot, healing slowly.
Wondering if the creature’s bite had some ability to hinder healing, he took that into account as he charged. He rocked into it, and they both clawed and bit at each other, the beast burning hot.
Fiery, since it had been created from a hellhound.
It snarled back, and he realized it kept trying to keep Riley in sight.
She barked at it. After nudging Max to the side, she raced after it again.
Kraft trusted her to fight by his side, so he focused instead on looking for the hell beast’s weaknesses.
And found none.
He continued to battle the hellish berserker, not having had a fight like this in such a long time. His awareness dimmed little by little, until he had only Riley and the monster in his focus.
Riley kept moving slower, which wasn’t like her. But when he tried to nudge her behind him, the hell beast ripped into his neck, and Riley raced up his back and leaped over his head to land on the hell beast’s back.
The moment she and it touched, it froze, allowing Kraft to shake off his injury and move back to recover.
The beast whined and tried to reach Riley with its nose.
Smelling its intended mate, perhaps?
The idea of anything but Kraft claiming his female stirred his rage.
Kraft, it’s coming back. I have to let it go,Paz warned, and he glanced down to see the tiny speck of a demon near Khent and the sorcerer’s battle, that part of the bazaar filled with a lot of death magic and shadows spearing the overhead lights to coat everything in an artificial gloom.
Already the miasma saturating the bazaar felt cloying, sticking in Kraft’s throat. He’d stopped breathing a while ago, but he needed air to speak. Unfortunately, that murky funk was now inside him, trying to affect his mood.
Which made him madder.
