by T. A. Grey
“I’m coming with you.” Darien’s head snapped towards his.
“Why?”
“Because she might not want to come back with you,” Vane said simply. Vane was right, and the thought was like taking a knife to the heart. God dammit. He was such a fucked up asshole. He had to apologize. He had to get her back. He...cared for her.
He ran around the back of Vane’s cabin and looked up at the bathroom window.
“Jesus that’s at least a twenty foot drop.” Vane nodded grimly then pointed out to the forest. “Mike said he was on post there when she tackled him, asked him not to tell you that she was leaving.”
“She was trying to get away from me.” He froze. The realization ripped a burning hole in his chest. It was his duty, his honor to protect her, and yet all he’d done was drive her away, possibly into danger.
He took off running. He caught her scent easily—flowery and fresh. Lovely just like her. He opened up his scenes and followed the scent like a tracking hound.
He leaped over a particularly large fallen tree and came to a hard stop. He walked past the spot just behind the tree, but the scent wasn’t there. It lingered only here in this one area. An entirely new fear swept through him.
He took in the area like it was a crime scene. She’d tripped over the tree and skidded along the dirt. The earth was shoved like someone had slid hard against it. Dropping down on his knees, he felt his breath whoosh out of him at the sight of three single drops of blood.
His hand was shaking as he touched them. He brought them to his nose and sniffed. It was hers.
“Do you smell that?”
“She was here,” Darien said. “This is her blood.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Darien looked up at his brother. Vane looked around the perimeter of the forest. “It’s vampire.”
“Of course it smells like her, Vane.” He growled the words, anger suffusing his words. He didn’t have time for this shit. He was losing minutes already. Guilt overwhelmed him, eating away at him.
“God dammit, Darien, get over here and stop thinking. Use your fucking senses.” Darien growled but came over. The scent struck him so fast, it was like a blow to the face. His head snapped to the left.
“Another vampire. It’s got to be him. He took her.” An incredible force filled Darien, so powerful, so tremendous that his beast tightened against his skin, and his eyes glowed in the night. He took my woman, was his only thought.
“I’m going after her.”
“No, you’re not.”
Darien turned to his brother and shoved him. He went flying back against a tree. “Yes, I am.”
“She isn’t yours, Darien. That man has a right to her. If you go and try to steal her off his land, he’ll have justification to kill you.”
“If it’s a challenge he wants, then that’s what I’ll do. I cannot leave her there. I can’t let her go.”
Vane stilled then slowly straightened from his slouch against the tree. He stalked to his brother, grabbed his face in his hands growling, “I know you have it in you. Do this because you love her, Darien. Or you will lose her forever.” He clapped Darien close and hugged him fiercely, then spun around and left.
Darien’s mind was spinning. Love. Did he love her? He didn’t have time to stop and think, to debate such a complicated topic. His beast drove him now, primitive and raw. He knew only a few things in that moment. That Cassie was his woman, and that he was going to tear Daniel’s throat out for touching her.
He didn’t know if he was doing the right thing. He seemed to have spent most of his life making terrible choices; he just hoped this one wasn’t.
He followed the cold male scent that lingered with the beautiful scent of his woman. He would find her, just don’t let him be too late again.
His feet pounding into the ground, his heart a loud beat in his ears, he heard only the harsh sound of his breathing. As one mile turned into two and three, he realized that he would do anything to get Cassie back with him, and he was going to spend the rest of his life with her at his side.
It was as if his beast had been waiting for this moment to speak its mind, to voice its thoughts. How he’d ever, even for a second, thought he could let her be with another man. It was impossible. She was his. He growled into the night and ran harder, faster. She was his.
Chapter 15
Daniel dragged her through the crowd of his clan. They laughed at her, taunted her with cruel names, while some gave her apologetic glances. The faces swam by one another then blended until she didn’t know who was laughing and who was taunting. Her face throbbed and burned where he’d hit her, she no longer knew if it was the alcohol that was making the world spin out of control or if her brain was still shaking from the hit.
She recognized the big open lawn Daniel had brought her to—his house. Daniel’s clan congregated around a huge bonfire that flickered into the night, casted shadows along sharp grinning faces. A wooden post was sticking straight out of the ground near it.
“We have our soon-to-be queen back, ladies and gentlemen!” Daniel announced grandly. The clan applauded and cheered. Cassie knew she was completely sober now. The tears were dried up. She was left now with only resolution. She was done. It was all over now.
Daniel tossed her over to the guards, and they grabbed her roughly, dragged her kicking legs over to that pole. Never had anything so simple terrified her before. They pulled her arms behind her while the crowd cheered on, and then her arms were tied roughly behind the pole. One guard held her up straight so the other one could tie her feet with a thick yellow rope. Humiliation and fear consumed her.
They tied her wrists together with rough, hard movements that bit the rope into her soft skin. Her hands started fighting against the rope anyways until she, felt her skin breaking. Only then did she stop, hanging her head in defeat.
Daniel paced around the fire. “Tonight is a great night for our people. Not only will you have a new queen, but I will finally have my mate.”
Cassie’s stomach lurched and bile rose up her throat. She swallowed it back down.
Daniel stopped in front of her. His smile had her cringing away from him, standing as far against the wooden post as she could get.
He grabbed her face in two hands then slammed his mouth down on hers. Cassie did the first thing she thought to, and opened her mouth and bit him. He pulled back with a hiss then landed a wide, open-palmed slap against her cheek.
The crowd grew quiet around her, watching her and Daniel with weary eyes.
“Take her clothes off,” he ordered to the guards. They didn’t hesitate. They pulled out knifes and started cutting at her shirt and pants. She gritted her teeth and swore to herself not to cry. Be strong.
“As if that would stop me from cutting the dog out of you.” His cruel words were a shock even to her. A reminder just how low he was.
Once again donning a smile for the crowd, he said, “Come on everyone, turn on the music. Tonight is a night for celebration. She has come back to us. To celebrate this fantastic occasion, I shall mate with your queen here for all eyes to see.”
Cassie paled. Her nakedness in front of the crowed was disgusting, humiliating enough. But he was going to...
She shuddered and lifted her chin. He would not best her this night or any others. Free me, her eyes dared, glowing with anger.
“I will kill you,” she said in a quavering, powerful voice. Daniel spun to her and grinned as his eyes trailed down her body.
“Then I will lock you up and ensure that you never have that chance, my darling Cassandra.” Cassie leveled a hard gaze at him. She would not go out without a fight. She would fight for herself, and she would fight for Darien. Because she loved him so much that the thought of never seeing him again was like acid burning over her heart. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t live like that.
“Untie me and let me fight for my freedom.” Daniel held his side as a loud laugh bellowed out of him. He stalked close to her, still ch
uckling. He pushed his body hard against hers. She kept her body still but couldn’t stop from twitching when suddenly his voice was in her ear.
“Your freedom has never been in your hands, Cassandra. It’s been in mine since you were only a wee thing. Do you want to know how startled your father looked when I stabbed him in the heart?”
Cassie jerked and looked at him with disbelieving eyes. His were wild and wide, his expression evil with insanity.
“My father committed suicide, because he missed my mother too much.” Her words were weak and soft even to her own ears.
He gripped her chin in a bruising grip and kissed her hard. When she opened her mouth to bite him again, he pulled back with a delighted chuckle. “Your father never committed suicide, Cassandra. He loved you too much for that, no matter how much he missed your stupid mother. No, I killed him.”
There was no stopping the sudden, horrible pain that stabbed through her heart like a stake. Tears filled her eyes. For so long, she’d thought....
“Why?” she asked hoarsely.
His mouth fell into a flat line. “Besides the fact that I hated him? He always had everything I wanted. The beautiful wife, the good daughter...it should have been mine. Didn’t your father ever tell you that she was with me first?”
Cassie shook her head side to side in his grip, tears falling loosely down her cheeks. Her mother died that night. Pieces started pulling together like a puzzle.
“Did you...kill her too?” He pulled back and looked at her with dead, vacant eyes. He did. He didn’t need to say it. Cassie tore her head away from him and bellowed her grief to the night. Cries shook through her. A part of her realized the clan had quieted, the music stopped, and everyone was looking at her curiously.
In that moment, she wanted to kill them all. She wanted to rip Daniel’s heart out for killing her parents, for destroying the family she should have had, and she wanted to burn his useless clan for standing by and doing nothing.
She thought of her father, of the pictures he’d shown her of her mother. That’s where she’d gotten her red hair from, her father had said. You have my eyes, and your mom’s hair. You’re the most beautiful girl in the world, doll. Those were his last words to her on the night he’d died. He’d tucked her into bed, kissed her on the forehead, and left.
A power filled her. A serene calm that cooled the fire in her blood, and the rage in her heart to a tranquil level. She looked out over the clan, at Daniel, at the guard’s who’d tied her up. She memorized their faces and made sure they’d remember hers.
“My father made one mistake in his life. He trusted this man Daniel. In giving him his trust, his wife was murdered, and then he was in return. As the ultimate payback, he now tries to have his daughter—the worse revenge to a man like my father. I want all of you to know that the will that binds me to Daniel is wrong, and that any of you who stay here tonight will either spend the rest of your lives rotting in a Justicar’s prison, or will die by my own hand.”
Murmurs and whispers broke out among the crowd. She had to speak up to be heard over it. “Leave now and I will not pursue you in any way, but if you stay and support this murderer, then I will not rest until you are dead beside his cold body.”
The crowd grew restless, looking from her to Daniel. Then, slowly, people started to edge away. Daniel roared and grabbed one of them, a woman. He snatched her by the hair and pulled a long knife out.
“Leave and she dies,” he growled. The crowd came back. No longer were there whispers or even smiles.
Good, Cassie thought, his people should be afraid of him. They had no idea just how mad he was.
“That’s it,” Daniel said, turning to her with anger blazing in his eyes. “We finish the mating ceremony now! Guards, if anyone tries to leave, kill them.”
Daniel stalked back to her. The first time he touched her, had her cringing. The next, she clamped her mouth shut and held her body rigid. He will die for this.
His hands found her breasts, her hips, between her legs. She blinked quickly as he started taking off his shirt with quick, jerky movements. The mating ceremony did not require sex, merely the blood exchange to bond the individuals together. Most couples did have sex while mating, to share the experience at the most intense and wonderful of levels.
His cold pale eyes found her. “Will you beg me not to touch your body?” His hands fell to his jeans and he unbuttoned them, then pulled down the zipper. “Will you beg me to stop?” Cassie stared into his eyes and said nothing.
A sudden, heart-pounding howl ripped through the night. Cassie’s heart stuttered in her chest so hard, she gasped. He’s here! Darien. Her body broke out into a sweat and she fought against her ropes, no longer feeling the biting pain of the cuts in her wrists.
Everyone whipped to see what made that sound, but she knew. She held her chin higher and worked at the ropes. Her real mate was here. She could have laughed in that moment. She’d worried before that Daniel could hurt her lykaen. Impossible, her mate was a primitive beast.
She heard another growl, this one so loud it echoed into the forest around them. She almost smiled.
There was a commotion at the back of the clan. Cassie strained to see him, to see anything, but heads blocked her way. Suddenly, there was a grunting sound, and then a guard went soaring impossibly high into the air. He landed across the other side of the clan with a bone-cracking landing.
“Cassie!” The sound of him roaring her name was the beautiful thing she’d ever heard.
“Darien!” The crowd parted as he stormed towards her. When the crowd didn’t move fast enough, he shoved them out of the way. Cassie gasped at what she saw. Darien had gone full beast. His lykaen glowed from his eyes bright amber. His chest was rising and collapsing with great big gulps as he panted. His fists were huge masses of angry meat ready to give a pounding to someone.
His eyes fell straight to hers, and she wanted to cry so badly. She never thought she’d see him again. His eyes, somehow, impossibly grew angrier as they fell over her naked form, then to Daniel’s half-naked body.
Daniel snapped his pants back together, then stepped in front of her. Darien growled a warning that clearly said back away from my woman or lose your throat.
Daniel laughed, the sound genuinely amused. “Well isn’t this turning out to be one of hell of a night. This is quite the bang, I must say. You must be the dog that’s been fucking my woman.”
Darien’s hands curled into fists and Cassie heard bones popping. “She is not your woman. I challenge you to the rights of her.” He pointed straight at her, and Cassie’s heart wept with love. Had she even told him she loved him? Because she did so much. She couldn’t remember now. Too much was happening too fast, she had no time to just stop and think.
Daniel crossed his arms and she could hear the laughter in his voice. “You challenge me, lykaen? This is just too good. I accept. Move out clan, give me space to beat this pup to a pulp.” The clan moved back in a wide circle, leaving the bonfire in the center and her near it.
Cassie watched wide eyed as Darien stalked Daniel like a predator, sidling to the side, his eyes narrowed and focused. Cassie couldn’t help herself, she had to say it, had to just in case....
“I love you, Darien!” His eyes shot up to hers, and then Daniel made his move.
Daniel used his incredible speed to get behind Darien and wrap his arm around his neck in a brutal grip. He landed a dozen hard, bruising punches to Darien’s side in under a second. The moves were so fast, the motions were blurred with his speed.
Cassie gasped and winced as Darien yelled and kicked back his head, hitting Daniel square in the face. Daniel lost his grip on Darien and stumbled back. Darien turned to the side and executed one perfect kick to Daniel’s stomach. Daniel flew to the ground, and the predator jumped on top of him with a ferocious growl, landing two blows to his face before Daniel spun them so fast, Cassie never saw it happen.
One second Darien was on top, and then he was on bottom a
nd Daniel was feasting at his throat.
“No!” she screamed. Darien used his incredibly lykaen strength to flip Daniel off. Before Daniel could even land on the ground, Darien was boxing his face with savage, hammering fists. A sharp crack sounded and Cassie knew something had broken. Whether it was in Darien’s hand or Daniel’s face, she didn’t know.
Hope filled her. Darien would win. But then Daniel disappeared. Cassie looked everywhere for him and suddenly he reappeared behind Darien. He hit Darien in the back and sent Darien sprawling to the ground with a heavy thud. Daniel didn’t hesitate to leap on top of him and pound into that same side he’d hit before.
This time she heard bones crack and snap with a nasty crunching sound. Darien roared in pain but managed to buck Daniel off him.
They both stood then, circling each other. Daniel wore a cocky smile and Darien wore a look of grim determination. He held his side with one arm and Cassie saw blood around his lips. Panic the likes of which she’d never felt came over her then. She no longer struggled at her ties. A horrible sickness filled her stomach.
Daniel exploded after him. He grabbed hold of Darien’s wrist and bent the arm backwards, twisting it until a disgusting crack happened. Darien roared and kicked out of his huge, strong legs into Daniel. He went flying back again. Cassie watched him with wide eyes. He didn’t use his speed. In fact he slowly got up, his smile looking more like a grimace now.
Her eyes flickered back to Darien and saw more blood coming out of his mouth and down the side of his lip. The bite wound at his neck was bleeding messily down to his chest, and his arm hung uselessly at his side.
Still he stalked to Daniel as he stood. That determination never wavered, not even for a second. Using his one free hand, he snatched Daniel by his hair and threw him. Daniel went flying through the air and landed in the bonfire. He roared a hideous sound and rolled out of the fire. His skin was charred black and burnt. He rolled on the ground to subdue the flames.