Page 86

Gavyn and the other alpha shift. A moment later, the one who fled out the back returns with four more shifters. They’re all smaller than the kings, but now they’re outnumbered.

Painfully, I start to scoot my way across the floor. I’m breathing hard and trying my best to stay off my belly.

“I will protect you,” I say to the little girl in my belly, because I can already tell that she’s a girl. I say it again, and again—more as a mantra for myself than any real promise she’s going to hear. “I will protect you.”

Behind me, a battle wages on. I can hear snarling, growling, bodies slamming into walls. I don’t look at them. I know Augustus is in the din, fighting. For me? Maybe.

He could be fighting just to show Gavyn that he’s the alpha. Could be fighting to get me back, simply because he thinks of me as his property.

Or he could know.

No. There’s no way he knows about the pregnancy. If he did, he probably would have let Gavyn keep me as the easiest possible option.

“Mylah.”

I snap my head up from where I’m scooting across the floor and see Aurora standing at the back doorway, peering in at me with a panicked look on her face.

Aurora is here.

“Stop moving,” she says urgently, coming in and peering left and right. “There’s glass and needles everywhere—you shouldn’t slide over the ground.”

I must look like shit—my hair wild and standing on end, vomit dribbling down my face, tear tracks evident through it all. But Aurora doesn’t look at me like I’m a disgusting thing. She leans down and starts to untie me, her gaze focused on what she’s doing.

As she works, it dawns on me.

Aurora is here.

“You came for me,” I say.

“I’m sorry for calling you a coward.”

To our left, a wolf flies across the floor and slams into the wall, sending a clock careening off its nail. It crashes to the floor and sends glass flying in every direction.

Aurora yanks me backward, toward the door, calling exasperatedly, “We can make up later! We have to go!”

I let her pull me out of the house, through the back door—or, rather, the back archway, since this door has been broken off its hinges, too. In the snow behind the house is a snowmobile, still idling, white smoke puffing out steadily behind it.

“Get on,” Aurora says, taking my arm and helping me onto the back. I follow her lead, my hand on my stomach, feeling like I’m keeping my promise to the little girl inside me.

Then I lift my head and look through the tiny window of the back door into the house.

There are two dead wolves on the ground, one with its throat torn out, the other with its neck at an odd angle. All other wolves are engaged.

Including Augustus.

There’s a wide gash in his side, bleeding steadily into his brilliant white fur, turning it a muddled pink. He’s fighting with Gavyn, just barely fending off the black wolf from biting into his throat.

“Augustus!” I yell it before I can think, his name jumping from my lips like a prayer.

Several things happen at once.

First, Augustus turns and looks in my direction at the sound of my yell, losing his focus on Gavyn. His eyes meet mine, and in them I see every bit of desire and wanting and…something terrifyingly close to love.

Second, with the distraction, Gavyn shifts back to his human form, slips under Augustus, spins around, and draws out something small and black from his belt, pointing it right at the back of my fated mate’s head.

Finally, the sound of a gun firing sounds loud enough to blow the eardrums right out of my head.

Chapter 38 - Augustus