My hair grows, long down my back as black fur sprouts along my limbs. My leathers spilt and tear, the seams breaking to accommodate my size. Everything gets smaller as I grow in height, shoulders widening.
My top half is heavy and I fall forward, long arms bracing my body. I’m bent and shaped, not quite a cat, not quite a wolf, but something else. Something bigger. Deadlier.
Saliva drips from my canines as I blink, vision changing. Color leaves me, only black and grey images remaining but various other spots of color—scents, body heat, being detected. I shake my head, feeling the long weight of my ears, flapping along my skull.
Glancing down, the same claws on my hands are mirrored on my feet, arches high. Nothing about me is Fae any longer and I can’t seem to care. The beast is fully merged with me, and I’m just a passenger as it steers me forward.
Inhaling, I smell everyone in this castle. Their fear, their anger, grief, and worry. And they smellsweet. At the very end, there is the unmistakable scent of Max’s perfume and her essence. I can no longer feel her soul through our connection, so I let my nose track her down, the bright color of red against so much grey.
I rear up on my hind legs as guards move into the hall, orderly, following formation. A formation I taught them, learned alongside them. They’re here to protect a king who would rather drain his lands dry, hurt a woman I love, than do any good with his power.
“You’d rather die at my hands, than stand beside me?” I ask, voice twisted and broken. It’s hard to speak when the beast controls me, words difficult. The fangs make speech nearly impossible.
They don’t answer, choosing to remain silent but I see their eyes. Smell their terror. I howl and it shakes the walls of my home. A home I will reclaim once I find Max.
“Move,” I demand, but they don’t. Instead, theyattack.
Swiping my large palms out, my nails slice them down immediately. Grinning, I enjoy watching them crumple, blackness and rage twisting along with the beast’s lust for death.
Pushing forward, I continue down the halls. My claws cut through leathers as guards fill the corridors, my fangs breaking necks when they get too close. It’s bloodshed and agony as I crush them beneath my feet.
Turning one last corner, I see the Hadeon, mauling one guard as the other two heads bite at others. They’re protecting the door behind them and as I scent the air, I know why.
Max’s smell drifts from under it. Mixed with her spicy violet scent, is the harsh sting of blood.Herblood.
Growling, I snatch one guard, slicing his neck without a second thought, claw warming with freshly spilled blood. The beast moves and I watch, as my hands tears the guard’s head off his neck, the Hadeon tossing the last guard further back.
Staring at me, they growl, heads lowered. I respond in kind.
The middle head lifts, eyes narrowed, inhaling. But I don’t have time for the beast to understand who I am. Instead, I grab the doorhandle.
A blast of hellfire singes my hair but doesn’t burn me.
Whipping my head, I growl at the thing, irritation and worry bleeding from my lips. I don’t have time for this.
Now it stops, one head tilted, the others smelling me. He sits, steel-tipped tail lazily gliding along the tile as if waiting for me.
I nod, just once, in understanding. One beast seeing another, I can sense he knows it’s me under this monster. Knows I won’t hurt his master.
Yanking the door from the hinges, I stalk into the room, the Hadeon on my heels. The three guards there freeze, but I don’t focus on them.
Max is suspended from the ceiling, long black chains capturing his frail wrists. Her legs are pinned to the floor, morechains wrapped around her. She looks so vulnerable, tiny in this room, that my heart breaks.
Weapons behind her are covered in her blood, all in various stages of drying. They’ve been doing this forhours.
Blood drips down her throat, soaking the ripped nightgown that hangs in tatters along her shoulders. The back is open, her flesh shredded into ribbons of flesh and muscle.
Theywhippedmy mate.
My growl shakes the floor, the two guards scrambling back from me. I don’t think as my shadows react. They slam into their chest, hurling them back until their bodies smack into the stone wall. Watching them crumple into a heap, I exhale as a lightness fills my chest.
They deserved worse.
Using my hands, I break her confinement, letting her body sink into my arms, lowering us to the floor. One claw pushes a lock of purple-black hair behind her ear as her blue eyes flutter. Her body is broken but she still smells like home and I mourn for my failure.
I was supposed to protect her. I did this.
The beast howls, feeding off my rage. The Hadeon comes close, nose pushing at her cheeks. She moans softly and we both exhale, relieved. She’s alive—barely.
