Grayson let out a roar and shifted into his wolf. He took off through the trees, and I felt her body relax as soon as he was gone.
It seemed to be physically painful for her to be around him, and she started letting out short pants before falling forward out of my arms.
Before I could grab her, Damien appeared, catching her in his arms and holding her close. He squeezed his eyes shut as he let out a groan, and Wren melted into him as her breathing went back to normal.
“What the fuck is wrong with her?” I asked, my heart racing in my chest as fear pumped into my veins. “Is she okay?”
Wren’s pain was like my own, and I was positive Damien had just sucked all of it out of her.
“She’s okay now,” he muttered, with his jaw muscles bunched. “But the pain she’d endured with him in the vicinity was fucking intense.”
Anger flared in his eyes as they met mine. He’d overheard our conversation. He knew Grayson had rejected her, and I’d bet the wolf’s days were limited now that he had that information.
“Let’s take her back to the dorm,” I suggested, and he reached out to grab my shoulder before using the shadows to take the three of us to the dorm.
TWELVE
Damien
I’dfuckingskinhimalive.
We took Wren back to her room, and she’d fallen asleep between us during the shadow trip like the delicate angel she was. I put her in bed and told Kian to monitor her since Trixie was out cold.
Lachlan went to his suite to tell Thorn what had happened, and I was going to go have a little chat with the asshole who thought he could reject my little bird and get away with it.
I didn’t fucking get it. Who could resist a matebond to a woman like that? I was pretty sure I’d be one of her mates, didn’t really give a fuck if I was or not. She was mine, and I was hers—matebond or not.
But the fact that he had the chance to form a bond with her and he rejected it? I would make him pay for it.
I found him in the woods, running in his wolf form. A disgusting wolf with pure white fur, and I wanted to soak it in crimson.
He’d do more than bleed for hurting her.
Flicking my wrist, I uprooted a tree and swung it like a baseball bat, smacking into him with a magnificent crack.
The sound his bones made as they were shattered by Mother Nature was music to my ears.
He transformed back almost immediately from the blow, and I dropped the tree next to him before stepping out of the shadows.
My tattoo-covered hand ran down my face as I broke into hysterics. For a wolf destined to be an alpha, he was fucking clueless. His eyes rolled back as he tried to gain some traction about what had happened.
He moved his mouth, but nothing came out. His wounds were starting to heal, and he finally cracked his eyes open to look at me. My horns were out, and the shadows wisped around me.
The fear in his eyes poured into me, but I didn’t care for his fear as much as I did for his pain.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to fuck with a shadow demon’s girl?” I growled, pointing at him, and my shadows lurched forward and wrapped around his throat. “Don’t try to talk, just listen.”
I squatted down, flicking out a finger and flaying the skin open on his hand. He tried to scream and tears flooded down his cheeks, but my shadows gripped his throat closed so nothing would escape.
I did my best work in silence, after all.
The bones in his hand were on display, with the tendons and skin peeled off perfectly. “My little bird deserves something of yours since you caused her so much pain,” I decided.
My powers popped his pinky bone from his hand and floated it in front of his face. Terror shone through his eyes as he struggled to breathe.
“I’ll have to wash it a bit before giving it to her.” I plucked the bone from the air and held the bone up to the moonlight and frowned.
Snapping my fingers, I grinned. “Oh, I know!” Letting my shadows coil back to me, I stuffed the bloody bone in his mouth as he gasped for oxygen. “You’re going to suck the bone until it’s fucking sparkling, are we clear?”
