“Cammie, wh—”
Ignoring the pain in her side, she thrashed until he was forced to ease her down onto the ground. She fell to her hands and knees. Sand and grit stung the shredded skin of her palms as she emptied her stomach into the thick greenery.
Gods, I almost lost him just when I’d begun to find him again.
Was it not enough that she’d lost her mother? That she’d never known her father? Did the gods need to take her consort from her, too? It was enough to make her wonder just what spectacular sin she had committed in a past life; what incredible blasphemy she must have offered to those capricious deities to warrant a punishment such as this.
Muscles of her throat and shoulders cramping, she looked up through the sweaty fringe of her hair to see the three Guards hauling the shifter to his feet. He slumped between two of them, the look on his face dazed. One leg was clearly broken, and nearly every exposed patch of skin was torn by her claws — including one of his eyes, which was little more than a socket covered in shredded flesh and stringy viscera.
And in that instant, Camille understood her mother as never before.
Rage as she’d never felt coalesced with a grief so sharp, so poisonous, it threatened to slice through whatever remained of her sense of self.
She needed to kill that man. She needed to gut him with her own hands. She needed to find out who he worked for and then do it all over again. Nothing, not even her own wounds, would stop her.
Camille’s body tensed, ready to pounce.He almost took Viktor from me!
“No, Cammie.” A heavy hand landed on her back, drawing soothing circles. “Not yet.”
Her voice was wrenched from her scalded throat, raw and agonized. “He tried tokillhim!”
“Yes,” Kaz answered, “and your mate needs you now. Do you really want to waste time cutting that shifter up when you could be with him?” She stiffened, suddenly torn, and Kaz was quick to drill down on that sign of weakness. “He’s in pain, Cammie.”
Damn, ruthless orc.
Wiping her mouth with the back of one trembling hand, Camille forced her eyes away from her prey and nodded.
Wasting no time, her cousin swept her back up into his arms and hustled down the winding trail. It was a much longer trip than the one she’d taken to get up there. Every step hurt her side and every minute dragged by, increasing her anxiousness to see Viktor, to know that he was well.
In her mind, the image of how satisfying the shifter would look with his head removed was replaced with that of Viktor’s contorted expression, his ravaged shoulder.
All that beautiful golden skin burnt and blackened. The scent of blood and charred flesh. The sound of his labored breathing as he wrestled them back behind the boulder. Her empty stomach rolled again.
“Hurry,Kaz.”
“We’re almost there.” Her cousin tightened his arms around her. When she looked up at him, she found his beautiful face stark, each feature hewn with the jagged edge of fury. He looked as fierce as she’d ever seen him — which was saying something, since Kaz was one of the most handsome and terrifying people she’d ever met.
They rounded a bend and she felt his gate change, shifting to accommodate his stride in the sand. Ten more steps and they turned another corner. The beach opened up before them, once deserted, now swarming with glamoured Guards, shifters, and the unmistakable form of Theodore himself.
The bulk of people were clustered around one spot near the opening of the alcove. The faint glow of the fire gilded a woman’s back as she knelt beside a prone figure. Even in the dark, her red hair gleamed.
Margot.Relief swelled.She’s healing Viktor.
That was a good thing, but as her eyes darted around the beach, taking in all the shadowy figures, tension pulled her muscles into rigid readiness. Camille wanted to struggle, to fight to be let down so she could run to her consort and put herself between him and so many unknown people, but her limbs had turned to jelly as the adrenaline finally evaporated from her system. All she could do was manage a weak, keening sound of distress as she watched people move around Viktor, only granting her the smallest glimpses of him.
She thought that Theodore would be the first to notice them, but as they neared, a tanned arm shot out from somewhere beside Margot, claws digging into the sand as Viktor fought to sit up. His agonized bellow echoed off of the sandstone cliffs.“Cammie!”
She sucked in a jagged breath, her sight blurring as tears of relief came.
“She’s here!” Kaz called back, his arms tightening. His heart beat fast against her side.
Theodore took off like a shot. It didn’t seem to matter that he was dressed in a suit and dress shoes. He loped over the sand with the ease of a deadly predator, every movement well-oiled and perfectly timed. He was by Kaz’s side in seconds.
His expression was hard, his eyes dark with barely restrained rage when he looked down at her. “Is she hurt?”
“Yes.” Kaz answered at the same time that Camille replied, “No.”
Kaz and Theodore shared a look. “Sheis.I didn’t get a good look at it, but the shifter got her side pretty bad, and I think she might have broken some bones in her hand.”
