“Sloane, no,” Garlen’s voice from the bottom of the stairs. He’s followed up by Aldar. Both are bruised from being thrown aside. Dane is holding chains.
I put a hand up. “Wait,” I order. Then I don’t look at them. I look only at the wild orc who I want to be my husband. “Jonus?”
I say his name. Not soothing or scared. I try and use the careful, measured tone someone uses with a dangerous animal.
I step toward him.
One step. Two. Three.
Heat radiates off his body from three feet away, like standing near a furnace. His concentrated scent hits me, amplified by whatever the bomb did to his chemistry. It goes straight to my head and makes me dizzy. Heat blooms between my thighs, involuntary and startling.
“It’s me. It’s Sloane.” Another step. “You know me.”
A shudder runs through his enormous body. The growling stutters.
He’s vibrating with need, his massive chest heaving, every muscle coiled toward me. But he hasn’t grabbed me. He stands in this hallway, shaking. Waiting. The scent bomb brought him up these stairs to break through that door but now that I’m here in front of him, some tiny part of Jonus, buried deep beneath the chemicals, is holding back.
I reach for his jaw. My palm presses against his skin and it’s burning hot. The muscles beneath are rigid, like he’s holding himself back by sheer force of will. His body shudders at the contact.
For a moment I think it’s working. His black eyes flicker and brown bleeds in around the edges, just a sliver, and I see Jonus in there, fighting to come back to me.
“That’s it,” I whisper. “Come back. I’m right here.”
But then the black swallows the brown again. His nostrils flare and a new growl builds in his chest, deeper than before, and I can see it — the chemical is too fresh and overwhelming. When Garlen was hit by the scent bomb, he had to run across town to reach Ellie. That distance, that time, it took the sharpest edge off the feral. By the time he reached the school parking lot, there was enough of Garlen left inside for Ellie to talk him down.
With Jonus, like with Keric, there was no distance. The bomb hit and his mate is right here in front of him and the chemical is screaming in his blood that I’m in danger and he needs to take me somewhere safe right now.
“Oh shit,” I whisper. I’m not going to be able to talk him down. Not yet. Not here. “Jonus, listen to me. I love y?—”
He moves. Faster than I can process. One massive arm hooks around my waist and I’m off my feet. The world tilts sideways and then upside down as he throws me over his shoulder the way Keric must’ve thrown Anna over his in that cabin.
The air is knocked out of my lungs. His shoulder is hard as iron against my stomach and I’m staring at his broad, steaming back, my hair falling in a curtain around my face.
I do not scream.
I make this choice deliberately, in the half-second I have to make it. Anna told me she screamed and fought when Keric grabbed her. She told me later she wished she hadn’t because the struggling lit up his chase instinct even further. Ellie told me that Aldar once explained if she’d run from Garlen at the school, it would’ve been worse — it would’ve ignited his worst instincts and he would’ve chased her down and kidnapped her to his lair in the mountains.
Instead, I grip the back of his torn shirt and hold on.
“Jonus,” Garlen roars from the bottom of the stairs. I hear the clatter of chains and heavy footsteps charging upward. Dane shouts something.
But Jonus isn’t heading for the stairs.
He’s going the opposite direction, across the loft, toward the large window at the far end of the hallway.
Oh no.
Oh no no no.
“Jonus, wait?—”
He crashes through the window.
Glass shatters around us in an explosion of sound and light. I tuck my face against his back, arms covering my head instinctively, squeezing my eyes shut. I feel shards hit my arms but nothing cuts deep, his massive body is taking the brunt of it, shielding me even in his feral state.
We’re airborne.
One terrifying, weightless second where my stomach drops and the wind rushes past. I think this is it, this is how I die, not in a cartel pit in Colombia but falling out a window in Truckee, California with a feral orc.
