Page 105 of Those That Defy the Realm

Expecting Declan to be ripped off me, I brace against the tug I’m going to feel on my neck. But instead, Declan’s eyes flash wide with horror as he registers the male surrounding him before he screams in pain and goes lax a second later, the light leaving his eyes in an instant.

His grip on my throat drops as his body falls to the floor. The scent of blood is the first thing to hit my senses before I take in the view of Henry holding a column of bloody matter, bone, flesh, and skin. Bree falls silent and my stomach nearly retches as my brain processes the view of my mate holding my ex’s spine, that he’s just literally ripped from his body.

Henry tosses the stack of bones and kicks Declan’s mangled body out of the way to reach me. “Are you okay?” he asks, hands gently cupping my neck so he can inspect the marks I have no doubt are forming there.

“I’m better now,” I tell him as I tilt my head up to keep his face in my eyeline.

“You’ve fully turned,” Henry observes, noticing my fangs as I speak.

“I guess so,” I reply, my voice a little hoarse from where it was nearly crushed.

“And that was…” Henry trails off as if the anger overcomes him once more.

“That was my ex, yes. I had no idea he was even in the capital let alone an agent of the authorities. I was trying to use him to get to you.”

“Clever girl,” Henry purrs, kissing my forehead and pulling me into him. “Are you angry I killed him?”

“Not in the slightest,” I reply. It’s the honest truth.

“Good fucking riddance.” Bree’s voice interrupts us from behind.

Henry chuckles before pulling back, not that he goes far or lets me out of his hold. My focus has been diverted in a strong way, however, to the blood pooling in front of us.

“Have you drank any blood yet?” Henry asks when he sees where my attention has gone.

“No,” I say quickly. Anticipation sparks in my veins as I think about drinking from Declan, even if it mixes with a knotting feeling in my stomach.

“Here.” Henry gracefully moves his prosthetic leg in a practiced movement until he’s kneeling on the joint, his other leg bent. He picks up Declan’s arm by the wrist and using his own fangs, pierces the skin until blood seeps slowly out of the veins there. “It’s already coagulating but it’ll taste alright and give you some nourishment.”

“Do I simply suck it into my mouth?”

Bree makes a sound between a snort and a laugh and Henry’s lips twitch at my wording, but he stays focused as my brain tries and fails to compute what I’m about to do. My instincts flair to life and intuitively, I can guess what to do but I don’t want to make any assumptions or screw this up.

“Yes, like it’s a straw. Then simply swallow it down,” he talks me through it gently.

I allow him to guide Declan’s wrist to my mouth. I needn’t have worried about knowing what to do, because as soon as the blood is within centimetres of my nose, my hunger takes over and I latch on to the open veins without a second thought.

The blood tastes sticky on my tongue, and a little sour with the decay already setting in even though he’s only been dead a few minutes. But it’s not bad. In fact, as it hits my stomach, I feel a rush of heat hitting my bloodstream. It’s as if the process of getting drunk has been sped up and I’ve sank half a bottle of wine. Only it doesn’t make me feel tipsy, it makes me feel alive, a sugar and a coffee hit all in one.

By the third mouthful, I’m struggling to pull anymore out of Declan’s wrist. Henry notices and pulls it away. “That’ll do anyway. We’ll get you some fresh stuff soon and that’ll be much better.” He discards the limb without regard and helps me to stand as he gets to his feet. “Are you feeling better?”

Licking my teeth with my tongue, rinsing as much blood off them as I can, I feel my fangs retract now that my hunger has been somewhat satiated. “I think so, that is going to take some getting used to though.”

Before Henry can say more Bree clears her throat in a deliberate way to get our attention.

“Want out of that cell?” he asks my best friend.

“Please,” Bree says. “And out of this facility entirely if you have a way to make that happen.”

Henry looks me over again and takes a breath before truly stepping away this time. He pulls out a card from his jeans pocket and walks over to a panel on the wall. It’s the same one I’d been trying to use to get the guys free in the other block. He inserts the card and punches in some numbers, on the last digit a light on the interface turns green and Bree’s cell door unlocks.

She wastes no time slipping through the gap and into the corridor running along the cell fronts, tiptoeing with the grace of the dancer she is to avoid the blood pool around Declan’s body.

“How did you manage that?” I ask Henry as he rejoins us. “In fact, how did you manage to get out? I saw you all in the cell, saw them aim a gun at Ty. Oh gods, is he okay?”

“Yes, he’s fine. Pissed, and has a graze to his shoulder where the bullet missed his head, but fine. Antares managed to overpower the fae in one huge blast of magic. Once we’d downed them all, except for him as he ran off—” Henry nods to Declan on the floor “—and the other human, whom Ty used his shadows on to open the cell door.”

“Where are they now?” Bree asks