Sabrina
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The bodies are gonenow, but blood still stains the grass of the back yard, and the further the sun sinks beyond the horizon, the more potent the smell. It’s a combination of copper, fear, and loathing; so much so that it nearly overshadows the stench, and I make a mental note to send Maddox a gift basket. Better their deaths than ours.
“Reid, why don’t you head inside?”
Giving the open expanse of yard my back, I find him staring at me with rapt fascination; they all are. But where the rest stems from caution and uncertainty, Reid is merely trying to understand, and it’s what I adore most about him.
We both know that I’m fucked up, but he never makes me feel that way.
“You don’t want me here?” He shifts between his feet, suddenly uncomfortable.
Leaning back against Bo, I guide his arms to wrap around me, as if the simple action alone will be enough to hold me together. “No.” When a flash of hurt crosses his features, I’m able to push through enough to regain a small semblance of control, voice barely audible. “I want you a safe distance away when it happens so that I don’t accidentally mark you, too.”
Catching on the shift in tone, he takes a step forward. “Sabrina-”
I close my eyes as my tenuous control slips, but thankfully, she’s in complete agreement where Reid’s concerned. “Your choice, though I suspect you’ll appreciate the view that the balcony will offer more than the front row’s.”
Stricken, he takes a step back, and then another. Finally, he retreats inside of the house and I can breathe easier, not needing to fear the loss of control. The rest of them that are out here with me? They’re either already marked, or wholeheartedly on board with getting mauled if it means being claimed. Reid, though? It’d completely destroy him, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
“Sweet girl.” Cinjin hesitantly comes closer, but as soon as he cups my jaw, we both sigh in relief at the contact, my chest lurching in response to his touch. “Thank you for looking out for him.”
“At least one of us should get a choice in this mess,” I murmur cynically, taking a second to soak up the comforting feeling of being pressed between the two of them.
It lasts all of five seconds before the first pained grunt comes and I release a long breath, relinquishing the reins completely, accepting that I’m out of my element in this. Opening my eyes, I pat Bo’s arm to signal that it’s okay to let me go, and by the time Slade falls to his knees near Damian, I’m crouching in front of them.
“Easy now, you don’t want to break them,” I coax with a voice far smoother and confident than usual, looking beyond the men to the beasts within. “There we go.”
They’ve already shed their shirts, but as a ripple travels down their spines, they begin fumbling with the buttons on their pants, shucking off the rest of their clothes as it becomes clear that this is actually happening, like they weren’t fully convinced of it before now. Damian’s jaw clenches, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth, but Slade? He breathes through the pain, holding my stare and laying himself bare for me, trusting me implicitly to ensure he survives this.
He knows. He can feel the same thing that Reid did, that something’s wrong.
Reaching forward, I palm the back of his neck, lips brushing against his as I use the contact to reach deep within him. “I’ve got you.” Shattering the final piece of the lock, the door separating the two of them swings open as his other half finally breaks free of his prison. Slade cries out, clawing at his chest, and I quickly capture one of his wrists, resting my forehead against his.
“Slowly now. You haven’t been suffering alone all this time; he wants you free, too. If you tear him apart, you’re only dooming yourself. You need him, and I need both of you.”
With a scream of agony, Slade’s flesh begins to shred seemingly of its own volition, bones audibly cracking as his form contorts, falling away from me. Moving to Damian, I gently rake my nails over his collar, adding enough pressure that blood beads on the surface. I repeat a similar mantra, and it doesn’t take quite as long for him to follow suit, like he was listening the entire time that I was helping Slade, and his wolf spent the time throwing himself full throttle at the door of his cage while waiting for me.
A pained sound has me turning back to my other two mates and I shake my head. Rolling to my feet, I return to hover above them, clucking my tongue. “So impatient.”
Gritting his teeth, Bo manages to hiss, “This is hell.” His fingers gouge into the dirt, chest heaving. Placing my hand on his shoulder, I close my eyes to assess his internal state, only to find his wolf is still sealed away well enough that he should be able to regain control if we put some distance between the two of us. Shifting onto my knees, I palm both sides of his face, forcing him to look directly into my eyes.
“Do you want to do this now, or wait a few days?”
Both he and Cin bark out a variation of, “Whatever will make this fucking end.”
While I’m torn, my other half isn’t, not giving me a moment to debate that matter before I’m pulling Bo’s lip between my teeth and biting him in the same spot as when I accidentally claimed him in what feels like a lifetime ago. He curses, tearing at his clothes while writhing in agony. All the while, Cinjin’s busy leaving bloody rivulets streaming over his flesh, breathing erratically.
Giving Boden some space to begin the process, I move over to deal with Cin before he rips himself apart. Straddling his waist, I grab his wrists and pin them above his head in the grass. He bucks, nearly managing to break free, but as soon as I snap my teeth, he completely stills... Only to remind me of our position as he rapidly hardens beneath me.
Leave it to Cinjin to be a bloody, miserable mess andstillget off on me fighting him.
Rolling my eyes, I use the contact to take a deeper look and frown. The block is in a similar state as Bo’s was, but where Cinjin’s other half was nearly dormant this morning, now, it’s far more volatile. I’m already going to have my hands full keeping the other three in check, and they aren’t even resisting, more desperate to be free than anything. Cinjin, though?
There’s something else going on that even my wolf isn’t sure that we can handle right now. It’s like he doesn’t want to be free simply for the sake of freedom. Almost as if he has an ulterior motive, and escaping this cage is simply a necessary step in order to attain what he’s really after. If I give him an inch, he’ll likely take a mile, no matter what I say.
Closing my eyes, the familiar rushing feeling from this morning returns, and I start fighting tooth and nail inside of my head, but my wolf has an iron grip on the forefront of my brain, leaving me watching helplessly from within my own body. Absorbing some of his energy to wrangle his beast into submission, I breathe out a mental sigh of relief as soon as I feel my other half stop of her own volition this time.
