Page 55 of Wolf Trial

I nodded, couldn’t even speak the words. A coward to the end.

“I’ll come back,” I promised. When I didn’t have my gran’s words echoing around my head, when I didn’t have Derek's poison seeping into my mind.

“I know you will.” Leander forced a crooked smile. “Were your mates, you can’t resist us for too long. You—“

He went deadly still for a second, and then whipped around, a growl pouring up his throat far deeper than anything I’d heard before.

There was a level of threat and danger here that I hadn’t heard even from Verne. A shiver shot down my spine and then all the way back up to the base of my neck, and my wolf reacted with a growl of her own. Someone had the nerve to threaten her mate, and she was furious.

This was what scared me, how quickly these instincts could override my thoughts. How easily the wolf could silence the woman.

Because I wasn’t Sadie right now. I was a wild animal whose mate had been threatened, and I was beginning to understand what that word meant. Mate. Not just mating in the base since, but a partnership as Verne said. Because as Leander sprung towards the trees to our right, a never-ending threat rumbling up his throat, I launched after him, fully prepared to rip out the spine of anyone who dared to hurt him.

The illusion of me continuing to live an ordinary, human life was ripped apart with wolf claws as I raced deeper into the trees, eyes fixed on Leander’s back. He didn’t tell me to stay behind him, didn't warn me to hide in a tree while he took care of the problem.

When I caught up to him, his head whipped towards me, nostrils flaring to devour the hint of my scent on the air. It was a grin, not a scowl, that crossed his face, wild and joyous, as if this was a hunt and he was proud to share it with his mate.

For some reason, that scared me, too, because I wanted it so badly. Not a shitty one-sided relationship like I’d had in the past, but a real partnership. I wanted it more than I cared to admit.

Noise reached my ears as we raced faster, my body pushed to limits I hadn’t realised it possessed. The speed was unreal, so fast it plucked tears from my eyes, strands of hair from my head, and strangest of all: a laugh from my chest.

Leander echoed my laugh, still grinning from ear to ear, and I was sure we looked like a pair of psychopaths as we ran through the forest, chasing whatever Leander had sighted.

A small pretty animal I thought, or maybe a deer, until the rustling of leaves and ferns resolved into footsteps pounding the dirt, and rapid, panicked breathing. It was a person.

A wolf who lived in the forest? Or someone from the academy? We were hunting a person, and that realisation only made my wolf giddier.

I got my answer only minutes later, when Leander scaled a tree faster than lightning. He leapt from the tallest branches, falling so quickly that the woman running down the rugged path stood no chance of escape.

I recognised those red brown curls, so wild that when she was knocked to the ground they fanned across the dirt. And when she struggled to free herself, moonlight slanted across her face. A sweet face that you’d never expect from someone with such an ugly personality. A button nose, big eyes, round cheeks, and fucking freckles.

I skidded to a halt, another snarl pouring up my throat, but this time bringing words with it. And something like relief drowned me when those words came from me, not the wolf. So maybe she hadn’t completely erased human Sadie after all, because my personality shone through like a falling star, as I spat, “Hello, Oona. Here to throw me off another cliff?”

CHAPTER 30

SADIE

My words hit Leander as if I’d struck him with a cattle prod. He jolted so hard, blue-tipped strands tumbled across his forehead as he pinned Oona to the ground, perched on her back like a gargoyle. A tremor seemed to run through his whole body, snapping his teeth together. I saw the impact in every muscle of his body, and then I caught sight of those forest-dark eyes. They were almost black, completely consumed by rage.

“You,” he breathed, pressing Oona into the dirt. The word cut deeper for how soft his voice was, pure wrath distilled into a single whisper. “You were the one who killed her?”

“It was a collaborative effort,” I muttered, moving closer with a slow, prowling pace I’d never been able to pull off before this bitch pushed me to my death. “But she enjoyed killing me.” I crouched beside her, grabbed a fistful of ruddy curls, revenge a second heartbeat pounding in my chest. “Didn’t you, Oona?”

“We didn’t kill you,” Oona hissed, struggling. “All we did was push you off a little hill.”

A laugh barked from me, all my bitterness over being betrayed, sold, and abandoned spilling out in a laugh of pure poison. “I might still be here, but you wanted me dead. No one could have survived that fall.”

“It was a tiny fall,” Oona snapped, trying to buck Leander free and failing. “And you survived.”

“She didn’t,” Leander growled, so deep that it shook my ribs where I crouched. “You murdered her. If we hadn’t saved her—” His voice choked off, and pain swelled behind my breastbone. “I would never have met my mate.”

“Mate?” Oona sobered in an instant. “You’re a wolf,” she whispered, her eyes snapping to me. “You traitorous bitch—”

I was looking right into her eyes when Leander snapped her neck.

With a cry, I tore away and stumbled to my feet, catching myself on the nearest tree. My stomach shot so far down my body I half expected to piss myself.

“Leander you—”