Chapter Nineteen
Violet kicked and spat curses at them as they hauled her down the corridor to the sick bay. The men barely noticed. She had no chance against them, but she wasn’t going to go quietly.
Unfortunately, Madok wasn’t dead. The Reginar gene, with its superior healing powers, had kept him alive, and his medic had apparently been able to counteract the poison. The treacherous Vulfan stood by one of the treatment beds, pale and sweaty and very angry.
“I’m going to skin those furry little beasts and wear their pelts for a cape,” he spat at Violet. She struggled not to weep at the thought. She would not let him see her cry, damn him. The poor Eeplings…she’d promised to protect them, and failed miserably. They would die because of her.
Madok called Treffon on his comm bracelet, but there was no answer.
“Guess he got bored,” Madok sneered at her as the guards held her arms with grips like iron. “That’s okay – I’ll just record what I do to you and send it to him.” He grabbed a laser scalpel. “First I’m going to burn my name into your face.”
Then he paused. “What are you smirking at, human whore?” he shouted.
“Treffon is my true mate.” Violet met his gaze fearlessly. “And I am his. Whatever you do to me, you can never take that away from me. All my life, I waited for the one, and I met him, and we love each other.”
“You crazy bitch!” Madok’s voice rose to a high-pitched scream. “None of that matters!”
“Oh, it matters, all right,” Treffon’s voice rang out from the doorway.
She had repaired the transporter after all!
Treffon rushed through the door, with Kroi and Tristao and a whole squadron of guards at his heels.
The guards surged forward. Madok’s remaining half-dozen men wore plate armor to protect them from the Eeplings’ barbs, and even a Vulfan’s teeth couldn’t bite through steel, but the armor made them slow and cumbersome. Treffon waded into the fray like a Vulfan possessed, the guards behind him, striking down any man who came between him and his true mate. When one of Madok’s men turned and made a break towards Violet, hoping to take her hostage, Treffon literally tore him limb from limb, ripping his arm from its socket with a sickening gristly sound.
The Thorolf and Wor-Lan guards had little to do except keep his bruised and bleeding victims from crawling away to lick their wounds.
And finally he stood face to face with Madok. The miserable, spineless cur who had tried to poison his true mate. To kill in such a cowardly way was shameful – a Vulfan warrior did not skulk in the dark. He fought his battles in the light, like a man. That was bad enough. But when he’d tried to kill Violet – beautiful, fierce, sweet, clumsy Violet – he had signed his own death warrant.
Tristao gestured the guards back, but there was no need. They all knew Treffon was the only one who had the right to fight Madok to the death. They ranged themselves around the circling pair, staring straight forward, their faces expressionless, ritual witnesses to a death match that honor demanded.
Madok didn’t shift. Instead he lunged at Treffon in human form, trying to knock him to the ground. Though they were evenly matched, both with the strength and endurance of the Reginar bloodline, Treffon was younger and heavier, and he stood his ground. They grappled, and Treffon hooked his his leg around Madok’s pulling him off-balance and crashing down on top of him. Madok used his hips to flip Treffon, slamming him onto his spine and knocking all the wind from him. Treffon barely managed to get his forearm up between them.
Then, with his nephew at a disadvantage, he shifted. His fingers retracted into paws, tipped with vicious black claws that tore through the fabric of Treffon’s tunic and bloodied his chest. Fur sprouted and his ears grew into points. His nose and mouth pushed forward into a snout, and he snapped and slathered, pushing against Treffon’s arm in an attempt to tear out his throat. It was a cowardly move…but Treffon had been ready for it. He’d known that Reznik had learned his dirty fighting from somewhere.
Treffon had been holding his beast leashed just beneath his skin. As soon as Madok shifted, he released it, letting it roar to the surface. His transformation was swift and brutal, and enraged by what Madok had tried to do to its true mate, his beast threw off the older man as if he weighed no more than a pup.
Treffon placed his teeth against Madok’s furry throat. The older wolf whimpered and waved his paws, directing a sharp yelp for aid at first one of the Thorolf guards, then another. And one by one, lips curling in disgust or eyes full of contempt, they turned their backs. At the last, he rolled his eyes imploringly at the Wor-Lan guards. He found no quarter there.
Treffon tore out Madok’s jugular vein, leaving him sodden with gore, lying in a spreading pool of dark blood.
Violet had crouched in the corner as they all fought.
Kroi fell groaning at her feet, splattered with blood, his face pale. “Tell Allison I love her,” he moaned, clutching his abdomen. “Tell her she should find a new mate. I will not mind.”
“But Kroi, you’re—”
“No, I insist! She must be happy, and she must have someone to protect her! Tell her I felt no pain towards the end.”
“Kroi, seriously, you—”
Kroi roused himself a little, sitting up halfway. “Never let her forget I love her! Our short time together was the happiest I have ever been!”
Violet tried again. “Kroi, you’re not even—”
He flopped back down, staring at the ceiling. “Farewell, my love!” he cried out dramatically.
“…injured,” Violet finished.
