Gently, I reached inside the cage, my fingers slowly wiping the blood that dripped onto his eyes so he could open them. Wiping my hand on my linen pants, I gripped the bars and inched closer, continuing to carefully clean him until a ragged moan escaped his lips.
“Shhh. It’s okay. I’m here now.”
My words caused some lucidity to return to him, and his head bobbed toward me, his eyelids trembling open. Hazel eyes as light as our magical fire crystals glanced back at me, blue specs shimmering along his irises. I had never seen eyes like his. Then again, I had never seen the eyes of a human.
A myriad of powerful emotions filled his gaze the moment he glanced at me, darkening them slightly—disbelief, possessiveness, and even threads of desire. Before I could decide what any of them meant, his eyes closed, his head falling away from me.
“No… Stay with me,” I breathed, low-key starting to panic.
None of this made sense. Why would the hunters attack a human? More importantly, what would a human be doing on the mountain summit during a Vampire attack?
Ryker’s words suddenly slammed into me.“It felt planned, like an ambush… Someone brought them here…”
Horror coursed through me, could this be the human calling the Vampires here? That would mean the humans knew about us and were trying to end us. Shaking my head, I rid myself of the absurd thought. We were their protectors, why would they turn against us?
“Was it you?” I asked anyway, trying to make sense of the situation. “Are you the one who brought those monsters here?”
The man moaned again, turning to look at me as my voice brought him out of the daze. He opened his mouth to speak but the blood caught, making him cough.
Crap!
Ripping the bottom of my long shirt, I bundled the fabric, swiftly glancing to the door behind us to make sure we were still safe before cleaning the blood away from his lips and jaw. I continued to clean his cheeks and forehead, putting some pressure on the initial wound that had caused the mess.
His features became clear as the crimson stains disappeared under the fabric, and I found myself staring at him in awe.
Humans were so… striking; I’d even dare say sexy.
His dark brows framed a soft yet strong face. The angles of his square jaw made him seem almost molded from clay, while his full lips appeared pillow soft. Unable to help myself, I traced his lips with my fingertips, a tingling sensation capturing my hand with the feel of him. The human’s lipswerepillow-soft, making my wolf awake inside me in response.
She liked his lips.
Crystalline hazel eyes weakly opened, focusing on me, and I cupped his cheek as a new emotion crashed into them, reflecting in his gaze.
Hope.
He felt hope when he looked at me, and my wolf strongly reacted to it. Her emotions flooded my being.
No. I didn’t believe it. There was no chance in this world that those eyes belonged to anyone evil enough to help literal monsters end an entire race. I didn’t know what it was about this human, but everything inside me said he was innocent. He didn’t belong here, in this cage, being tortured for information. No one did, no matter what mistakes they had made in their life.
“Help me,” he croaked, and for once in my life, both my wolf and I were in absolute, undeniable agreement.
“You are safe now. I’m here to rescue you…”
Of course, there was the tiny little fact of me not having the slightest fucking idea how I was going to do that, but baby steps, Natasha. Baby steps.
Taking another piece of fabric, I tossed the drenched one away and began to clean the claw slices along his torso. Based on the tattered strips of cotton scattered around him, I could tell he’d had a shirt at some point, but the hunter’s attack had destroyed it.
Though he was weak after being so brutally beaten, his body was anything but frail. He wasn’t ripped like Wolf Shifters were, but the muscles of his chest and abs were perfectly hard and defined—his arms built with lean, yet corded muscles. What seemed like drawings extended all along his left arm and part of his chest under the blood, it was the strangest but alluring thing.
“Can you walk?” Yet another incredibly stupid question. I was killing it tonight.
My head snapped to the door when footsteps became louder outside, the flickering sounds of rising flames joining them, followed by the slicing of sharp claws through what smelled like a freshly killed animal. Those idiots had found a deer to eat after all.
“You keep skinning the deer, I’m going to check on our prisoner.”
What? No. No. No!
Quickly, I glanced around, looking for a place to hide, but there was none. When I stood, a hand grasped mine, stopping me.
