“Vane, I know you are mad, but I had?—"
“Like I said, he wasn’t thinking,” I replied, letting my gaze inspect every inch of Natasha’s form, searching for the injury that caused her such pain.
“Didn’t you see him grab her?” he snapped at me. “I had to do something before that asshole?—”
“D doesn’t stick to plans, he reacts,” Hannes grunted, cutting off D yet again, which I found comical because he was the same way. Though his actions usually extended from his temper, not from lack of prudence.
A frustrated growl left D. “Let me explain!”
“It’s not his fault. He can’t help himself,” Bjørn defended, as he always did. Of all of us, he was most certainly the fatherly figure—never mind that he barely looked twenty-seven. Lucky Fae.
While I continued searching for injuries, I absentmindedly swirled my cloaking magic in a wide circle now encompassing all of us, my shadow shield hiding not just our physical presence from the Hunters, but our scent, and sound as well.
“Can’t you at least try to stick to a plan for once?” Hannes added.
“I don’t care about the freaking plan, Hannes,” Vanessa scolded the Wolf Prince, glancing at her brother. “Did you really have to go and get yourself captured? On purpose, no less?Idiota.” The insult burst out of her mouth in their native Portuguese language, which said how truly scared she’d been for D. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
Noticing Natasha’s nails bloodied and lifted from her fingertips, I held her hands in mine, sending a healing wave through her while my thumbs caressed her soft palms. The blood disappeared before my eyes in an instant, leaving behind healthy, pink skin.
“Sorry, Vane, but if I hadn’t, he’d?—"
“Listen, I know you were restless, we all were,” Hannes pressed, “but we had to wait until tomorrow, D. Wehadto. Couldn’t you stop Ryker from grabbing her a different way? Compel him with your Vamp juju or something?”
“He was going to force her to mate with him, you fucking idiot!” D barked, his last nerve irritated.
Every single inch of my body tensed with his revelation, and darkness instantly surged within my eyes, fully engulfing them. I gently let Natasha’s hands go, slowly standing to my full height and facing D.
“He, what?” Dark magic slithered through my words like an arctic breeze that swept over the others, chilling them.
“She flat out told him she didn’t want to mate with him,” D explained, blood engulfing his eyes and turning them crimson with the memory. “She even slapped the shit out of him, her claws making him bleed, but that only enraged him more. He forcefully grabbed her, and I wasn’t about to let him have his way with her. I was getting Natasha out of there, even if it was the last thing I did. Plan be damned,” he seethed. “If you had seen the fear capturing her beautiful eyes as his filthy hands landed on her…”
The muscles of his jaw twitched with rage, and the gravity of D’s words cut through all of us.
Vane’s appalled gaze connected with Bjørn’s before she rushed to Natasha’s side, making sure she was visibly okay.
My shadow shield trembled along the boundaries like an earthquake, my own body quaking from ire in response. Tendrils of darkness violently jerked out of my being with the viciousness it ignited in me. I expected the others to take a cautious step back, but they didn’t even move an inch. Not even when my darkness was the only magic that could easily consume them, their supernatural powers be damned.
The surging darkness begged me for an order, for the simple command todestroy…
Closing my eyes, I grounded my being in theTwilight, forcing myself to regain control. Although that was the last thing I wanted to do, I could never let myself go there; I couldn’t let myself become darkness itself.
Natasha needed me to beme.I had to remain the man I fought so hard to become for her.
Nevertheless, my reaction was not the only visceral one. A wave of renewed anger visibly slashed through Hannes. His claws protruded, his nostrils flared, his irises glowed, and each muscle jolted with the strength it took for him not to shift and go into absolutebeast mode, ripping that filthy excuse of a shifter called Ryker to pieces. Hannes’ Alpha growl almost reverberated through the forest, were it not for me concealing us right now.
Of the three of us, Hannes was undoubtedly the one with the worst temper, but frankly, I would gladly help him obliterate that asshole.
“You want to rip Ryker to pieces, don’t you?” D asked us both through sharpened fangs, and a unified, vicious growl tore from our throats in unison. “My feelings exactly… but it’s going to have to wait. Besides, he has his hands full right now.”
“I get it, D. I would have forsaken the plan too, but right now, we need to get out of here,” Bjørn reminded, causing Hannes, D, and I to take a step back from our fury and focus on the present situation.
“She got hurt?” Vane asked, calling my attention back to Natasha, and the harsh claw marks on her eye.
I’d noticed that too, but my magic hadn’t been able to heal it, which told me it occurred too long ago for my ability to reach the wound’s core.
D’s head shook faintly, still trying to understand. “It seems to have been left on her many years ago, and it never fully healed.I don’t know how, but what troubles me the most is that it was made by?—”
“Vampire claws…” Bjørn whispered as he stepped closer to me, utter disbelief clouding his eyes while he glanced at Natasha. “Who would dare to touch her? Specially knowing?—?"
