Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
“Yes, but it’ll remain suppressed. She’s already deadly fast and agile. I assume she is, at any rate, given the state of you lot.”
All three nodded slowly.
Dante said, “I didn’t even have time to react, bro. She was wicked fast.”
“Wicked fast,” Sixten repeated. “She nearly sliced off a tit. I didn’t see it coming and I was the third to get a whack.”
Tanix hurried back in, both hands holding an elixir. He held one up. “Miracle cure or”—he held up the other—“normal cure?”
“Miracle,” I said softly, bowed over the woman with one hand still on the bleeding wound and the other across her neck, two fingers feeling her pulse flutter too rapidly. She was losing too much blood. “Hurry!”
“I’m just going to sit over here and put my feet up for a sec,” Sixten groaned, staggering to a rocking chair facing a smoldering fire. “Damn it, how does this lady not have a foot rest? What is this horrible place?”
Tanix knelt beside me. “Let her go, Alpha. I’ve got it.”
“Bro, that’s his true mate.” Dante wiped his forehead. “How’s he gonna let her go when she’s all fucked up like that. Just give her the stuff.”
Tanix’s head didn’t snap up to look at me as I’d expected. Instead, he nodded like he’d already known and pulled out a syringe. She was unconscious so she couldn’t simply swallow; injecting the elixir was the best way to administer it, and would yield the fastest results.
I forced myself to unlatch my grip and pull back my hands, giving him some space.
“I need a numbing agent or something,” Niven murmured, leaning hard against the wall. “Or that other elixir. She got me good. How the hell can she move like that without access to her animal?”
“She obviously has a shit load of power, fuckwad,” Dante replied. “She’s the Alpha’s true mate. Have you ever met an alpha as powerful as him? No. Even without access to her animal, she’s lethal.” Dante issued a prolonged grunt, forming a ball on the ground. “Fuck this hurts. Like . . . this really fucking hurts. I want a numbing agent too. An axe? This is the first time I’ve been cleaved. Cloven? I don’t even know the right term for it!”
“It sucks—that’s the term for it. I just stood there and watched as it happened, too.” Niven straightened up a little, his expression tight. “I saw her cut into you, then just stupidly watched her prance toward me with the edge dripping blood.”
“She threw that fucking thing perfectly, that’s my excuse,” Sixten said, her head resting on the back of the rocking chair. “Well . . . that and she’s seriously fucking beautiful. I was too busy being jealous—“
“That’s enough,” I barked, issuing a pulse of power within that command. “You four should’ve been watching for any enemy we missed along the perimeter.”
“Yes, Alpha,” Sixten said dutifully, though we were pretty well secured at this point. We’d taken out the sentries with no problem, as well as most of the patrol. They hadn’t known when they were beaten, rising up against my pack only to be efficiently struck down. I’d roped the rest of their patrol into our pack bond, holding them for now. They’d be smuggled out of this kingdom and placed before the dragon king and queen for their part in the atrocities they’d committed. They’d have their day of judgment, and dragons were not so lenient as wolves.
“It felt like she stunned us,” Tanix said, leaning back and looking at the woman. “Confused us might be a better term. It was like a whirlwind, almost. I knew something was happening but couldn’t seem to react as I normally would have.” He shook his head. “If you weren’t sure she was your true mate, I’d wonder if she was even a shifter.”
“She’s a shifter,” I said, doing everything in my power not to lean forward and cup her head. It was still gushing blood, pooling on the ground underneath her head. That elixir would heal her, though. Anything enhanced with the blood of a phoenix, a mythical and incredibly rare type of shifter, could bring people back from the brink of death. All we had to do was wait.
“What are we going to do with her?” Tanix asked me, his expression neutral and his eyes full of pity.
He was asking if I’d go through with this, knowing if they killed her, it would kill a piece of me as well. I’d feel her loss even though I didn’t even know her. That’s what everyone said would happen, at any rate. Given the tight knot in my middle at seeing her bleeding now, it was probably accurate.
I steeled myself. “I’m going to fulfill my duty. I’ll deliver her to the dragon king and queen, as promised. She committed a crime against the people in my care. She will face judgment for her sins.”