Gavin paced the hardwood floors. “Ithought cutting off our matebond would protect you, but he found you. I can’t–”
“Hey!” I jumped up not liking where thiswas going. “We are stronger together. We’re stronger with our matebond open. Ifhe finds me again then let him. We will kill him.”
Gavin’s face fell as his gaze landed on aframed picture of his mother as a child. “No, Anya, we won’t kill him. He’s toostrong. We should split up—”
My bear roared then, unrestrained andwithout warning. “Never.”
I stepped closer to my mate and met his alphagaze head on.
Gavin’s eyes went yellow and I knew hewas fighting his wolf. They thought they were keeping me safe by blocking meout and closing off the matebond, but that was the opposite of the truth. Wewere True Mates, we could get through this. Together. My knees felt weak as Icontinued to stare into his golden eyes. Power slapped out over my skin and saturatedme, making me feel faint, but I stood my ground. His upper lip had broken outin sweat and I knew this was probably the most important dominance battle of mylife. I needed to prove to him and his wolf that I knew what was best for us. Thatstaying together was how we would beat the Skin Walker. The fact he evenmentioned splitting up terrified me to my core. It meant that Mukesh was in hishead. Gavin would never think of these things on his own. Mukesh planted thatthought and I was going to eviscerate him for it. My vision was going black atthe edges and I knew that if one of us didn’t look away I was going to passout.
With all of the strength I could muster,I called up my dominant power and pushed. “You’remine. We sticktogether. Always,” I huffed through gritted teeth.
With a shaky breath, Gavin’s head finallytipped down and his gaze fell to my feet. Thank God. The pressure on my chestebbed and I took in a huge lungful of air.
Gavin was just standing there staring atthe floor like a lost little boy. I had no doubt that it was Mukesh I’d justhad a dominance battle with and I had no idea how. I reached out and tiltedGavin’s chin up. Relief poured through me as I met his emerald-green eyes.
“It’s gonna be okay.” I really hoped thatwas true, but this sinking feeling in my gut was making me think otherwise.
Mason’s loud scream from the other roomhad Gavin standing erect and ready to run, but I yanked his arm. “It’s okay.It’s just Avery cutting off our marks.”
My mate nodded, his warm chestnut hairfalling in front of his face. He looked frazzled and I didn’t think there wasanything I could do to fix that right now. I was beyond frazzled.
“We’re going to cut off our marks andthen we need to run. Stay no more than two days at one place.” I repeatedNahuel’s instructions because it sounded like a good plan and we needed goodright now.
Gavin nodded robotically, not saying aword. I was terrified to let him out of my sight for fear he would run, so Iyanked his hand and pulled him along to go find Avery. As we passed through thehallway and I glimpsed Nahuel spraying blood and deer guts off of the frontporch, it hit me how surreal my life had become. I had lived a completely safeand sheltered existence on Mount Hood under the protection of one of thestrongest alphas in the world and now … I was on my own.
*
“OWWW! Mother baby bitches monkeyfracker!” Jaxon screamed and we all shook with laughter.
“What did you just say?” Avery was tryingto control her laughter since she had a scalpel to my brother’s neck.
Jaxon was sweating with pain, chewing onhis lip. The only anesthesia we had was ice to numb the area and it barelyworked. I had already gone and it hurt like a mother, but Jaxon had always beenthe one with the weaker pain tolerance. Whether he admitted it or not.
‘I think she must be mad at me. She’scutting me way deeper than you guys,’Jaxon told me and I just laughed harder.
‘Shut up. She cut us all the same.’
“Stop moving, I’m almost done,” Averyinstructed. The thin flap of skin was folded over and hanging off of his neck.If I hadn’t just seen that gutted fawn I might not be able to stomach this.With one final slice, the skin flap fell off and Avery put a white gauzecompress to his neck. It was covered in some kind of ointment to keep the skinfrom adhering to the gauze. Mason had gone first and already his neck washealing. His gauze was off and it looked like he had a three degree burn on hisneck instead of a gaping wound.
Gavin luckily never took the mark, so wedidn’t need to worry about him.
“All right, get up, you big baby. Nowit’s my turn.” Avery nudged Jaxon.
Jaxon looked up at his girlfriend andfrowned. “I don’t know if I can move. I think you paralyzed my legs when youcut so deep.”
She smiled and gave him a soft kiss. Ithink the most lovable thing about my brother was his humor. He was a hard guyto stay mad at.
“Who’s going to do yours?” I asked.
“I am.” Nahuel stood in the doorway ofthe large master bathroom and we all parted ways so he could get through.
Once Nahuel had washed his hands andprepped the surgical station, a.k.a. chair, with a plastic bag over it, he lookedat Avery with his wise, kind eyes. “Don’t worry, this won’t hurt.” And thenbefore Avery could respond, she froze.
Jaxon looked at me and I was justsmiling. “What the hell? Why couldn’t you have done the time freezing thing forall of us?”
Nahuel just shrugged as he quickly butcarefully sliced the tattoo from Avery’s neck.
