Page 24 of The Lycans: Vol Four

And I didn’t even focus on the cells on either side of me, which were suddenly extremely quiet, this tension surrounding the male in front of me.

These creatures are terrified of him and sense him for the dangerous and deadly predator that he is.

I felt like I was holding my breath the entire time I followed him. He seemed like he knew his way around, as if he’d been watching, memorizing everything surrounding him.

I should’ve felt nothing but trepidation and fear in following him to the unknown. But I’d risk anything, take any chance, just to see Odhran again.

“Who are you?” I whispered so softly I didn’t even know if I said it out loud, didn’t know if he heard me. And although he glanced over his shoulder, silently confirming he heard me, he didn’t respond otherwise.

We’d only been walking a minute or so before he held his hand out, palm toward me, a silent demand to still. And then a second later, he pressed his forearm to my chest and shoved me back against the wall so suddenly the force had the air rushing out of my lungs.

Revulsion filled me at his touch, and he instantly took his arm away. I wondered if he knew the uncomfortable sensation his touch gave me. He looked down at me and lifted his hand to place his finger to his lips, the universal sign for me to be quiet. A moment later, the sound of low voices came through.

I dug my nails into the cinder block behind me, and the entire time, the vampire stared at me, his composure calm and easy, his eyes flashing red intermittently as if he was ready to kill at the drop of a hat.

We were both still, with me holding my breath, as two human males walked by us, their backs toward us, their conversation low. Humans had such weak senses that they didn’t even know a killer stood a mere meter from them.

I glanced at the vampire again and could see him staring at the humans. I could sense how much he wanted to go to them, to break their necks and drain their bodies of blood. But he was controlled enough to know drawing attention wasn’t in our best interest.

When the humans were gone and we could no longer hear their voices, he gestured for me to follow him again. We went in the opposite direction, taking a left, then a right, and finally the vampire stopped when we arrived at a large metal door, the small, wired window in the center showing a slice of the interior.

From our vantage point, I could see cells on either side of the room and a human stationed at the end of each point of the walkway. I swallowed roughly, because as the vampire glanced at me and grinned, I knew exactly how this would go.

He used the key card to open the door, and faster than I could anticipate, he was inside, snapping the neck of the guard closest to him first, then ripping the throat out of the other. The noise within the cell block grew tenfold as the creatures caged inside went berserk at the violence and bloodshed.

“In here,” called the vampire, and I glanced around the corner before hesitantly stepping inside.

I didn’t pay any attention to the corpses on the ground or the blood splattered across the cement. I just stood there for a second, watching as the vampire went from cell to cell, using the key card to unlock each one.

The doors slid open, and a startled sound left me as I watched huge Otherworld males step free.

“Over here, female.” The vampire walked down the length of the cell block and stopped at the last prison. He used the key card, and a second later, the door slid open.

I held my breath when Odhran stepped out. He had his head tilted to the side as he stared at the vampire, and when the other male tipped his chin in my direction, Odhran slowly turned his head and looked at me.

For a frozen moment, we just stared at each other. Although I’d seen him in the room just days before, heard his cries and roars, his pleas and begging for them to stop hurting me, right now felt different. It felt real. It gave me hope.

He’d changed over the years, aged. There was now this brutal edge to him. He had dark circles under his eyes, his jaw severely square and cut, his cheeks hollowed. There was a jagged scar running down one side of his face that made him appear even more savage.

But gods, he was the most incredible male I’d ever seen.

And then I was running toward him, not caring that we weren’t really free, that at any second we could be captured or killed, or that so many dangerous Otherworld creatures were being released by the vampire and would come after us.

I saw the most amazing expression transform Odhran’s face as I launched myself into his arms. He pulled me in close and hauled me off the ground. I wrapped my legs around his waist, my arms around his broad shoulders, and buried my face in the crook of his neck as I wept.

“Gods… is this real?” He started murmuring in Gaelic, his voice deep and harsh, his whole body trembling. He tightened his arms on me, sliding a hand up the center of my back and tangling his fingers in my hair to keep my face against him. “Are ye really here with me, lass?”

“I don’t know if it’s real,” I said in between my tears. “But I don’t want to wake up if it’s a dream.” He was the one to bury his face at the side of my neck now, and I heard him inhale deeply, a low rumble leaving him.

It felt like we’d been standing here for so long, nothing else around us, nothing else mattering. I imagined it was just Odhran and me back in that field, with the warm sun on us and danger far, far away. But I knew only a second had to have passed, this moment in time a blip in our very dangerous reality.

“I hate to break up the happy reunion, but you two need to get the fuck out of here before the shit hits the fan.”

I lifted my head and looked over at the vampire, seeing him staring at Odhran. I glanced around and could see so many different species of the Otherworld pacing, destroying things, and heading down different corridors as they roared out.

“Go, take your female. Get far away from here.”

“Sebastian, come with us.” Odhran’s voice was firm and strong. My anchor.

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