Page 31 of These Dangerous Fates

A faerie dog is the size of a bull and looks like a rabid wolf. Their red eyes and poisonous fangs are used by parents as bedtime stories to scare their children into behaving. They are incredibly rare, and how Kennedy got his hands on one, is beyond me. The man is insane to let that thing loose in the city.

I don’t waste any time. With the faerie dog distracted, I make a break for it. I use all my supernatural strength and push myself to run faster than I ever have in my life. My muscles strain and my heart pounds behind my ribs as the finish line draws closer, and I’m pretty sure I’m not breathing as I race for it. With an extra burst of speed, I cross the line right before a force barrels into me from behind.

The ground rushes up to meet me, and I put my hands out to catch myself. Thinking it’s the faerie dog, I flip over, dagger at the ready, only to be frozen in place by magic. Not the faerie dog, but Sam.

He presses a dagger to my throat and growls. “It doesn’t matter that you crossed the line first. She. Is. Mine.” Spittle flies from his mouth, and he looks like a rabid dog as he stares down at me.

I shove him hard enough to slide out from under him, and I jump to my feet. No. That can’t be true. My hands shake as I fumble in my pocket for my phone, my breath stuck in my chest. A notification for a missed call and voicemail from Sterling turns my blood to ice in my veins.

Sterling

Kai scaling the building momentarily distracts Ellis from her nerves. If it wasn’t something I was used to seeing, I would probably be distracted, too. She is getting a first-hand glimpse of the badass Malakai is.

I shake myself and push my wolf aside, refocusing on the task at hand. Seeing Ellis kiss Kai raised ugly feelings in my gut. It’s getting harder and harder to control my wolf when I’m around her. He’s tugging on his leash more and more. It’s why I stayed away as much as I could at Kai’s place. He’s itching to claim her, and I can’t let him do that.

Focus, jackass. We need to keep her safe. Keep your dick in your pants. Not that my wolf wears pants. Maybe I should have said fur?

Cade and I are pressed against her as tight as we can get, constantly scanning our surroundings and using our senses and magic to search for any kind of danger. It’s distracting as hell having her touching me as much as she is. Her scent, an intoxicating combination of vanilla and lavender, is driving my wolf crazy.

“Let’s make our way to the finish line,” Cade says once Kai is out of sight.

“We should drive there,” I reply. “Being out in the open like this is making my skin crawl.”

We’ve only taken a few steps when Ellis screams. One second she is pressed against me with Cade’s arm around her shoulders, the next she’s gone. How the fuck that happened, I don’t have time to figure out. Cade and I whirl around to find her held against someone’s front with their arm banded around her chest and a knife pressed to her throat. The terror that courses through me at the sight leaves my legs weak and shaking. I sense Cade tensing next to me as his arms stretch out in front of him. Purple light shimmers around his hands and he takes a step forward.

The knife at Ellis’s throat presses tighter to her skin. She whimpers and looks at us with wide, fear-filled eyes. The sound incites my wolf and it takes all my willpower to keep him from taking over. My fingers extend into claws and my teeth lengthen. As blood wells along the edge of the blade and slides down her slim neck, my control on his leash slips. He pushes against my mind, trying to force the shift on me. The desire to destroy the man hurting his Ellis echoes along with my own.

“Don’t make another move,” the man says in a low, gravelly voice. He steps back, pulling Ellis with him.

I don’t notice the other two men next to him until they break away and head for Cade and me. I grit my teeth, a low growl rumbling up my chest.

“Please,” Ellis whispers, her voice wobbly. “Don’t do this.”

Tears well in her eyes and my skin itches as fur ripples under the surface as my control slips a little more.

“Shut up!” the man holding her yells. He jostles her, causing the blade to bite deeper into her skin.

She cries out and Cade reacts. He hurls a blast of magic at the guy approaching him. Dude avoids it, moving unnaturally fast. If his pale skin hadn’t told me what he was, his inhuman movement sure as hell did.

Cade rushes forward and engages the vampire. Over his shoulder he yells, “I got these guys. You get Ellis!”

Before I can make a lunge for the guy holding Ellis, the second guy charges me. I try to dodge, but he anticipates my movements and grabs me by my throat. Over his shoulder, I see the guy holding Ellis dragging her away, and my wolf loses his mind.

I can’t control him as he takes over, pushing me to the background as he surges forth and forces the change on me. Huge paws replace my hands and feet, and I land on the ground on all fours. A few pops and the tearing of clothing, and we’re standing as a wolf in front of the guy who attempted to strangle us. A low, menacing growl reverberates up our throat and we bare our teeth in a snarl. The guy steps back, then shifts himself, now a sleek, black panther.

Fuck this. We don’t have time to fight this guy. Behind the panther, we see Ellis being dragged around a building, out of sight. We howl and launch forward, snapping for the panther's neck. He dodges our jaws and swipes his paws across our chest, but we don’t feel the pain through our terror. The thought of losing Ellis sends us into a rage.

We hear Cade curse but we can’t spare attention for him. One of us has to get away. We step back to re-evaluate, and Cade takes the opportunity to hit our opponent with a blast of purple light. It sends the panther skidding across the concrete. The distraction must have cost Cade, though, because we hear flesh meeting flesh and another curse from Cade.

We’re torn. Cade is pack, and he’s hurt. Instinct tells us to fight, protect, kill. But Ellis needs us. Our priorities shifted as soon as she came into our lives. We take off in the direction Ellis was dragged. Our sense of smell is heightened in the wolf form and we use it to track Ellis’s scent. We can’t miss the mingled scent of fear and blood with her vanilla and lavender, and it pushes us faster, harder. We wind our way through the buildings of the city, heading farther away from the obstacle course.

A scream echoes in the air. We know immediately it’s Ellis, and we run faster than we ever have. We round a corner, skidding in a slick patch of who the hell knows what. For a moment, pride wells in our chest as we watch her fight her attacker. She throws her elbow back, connecting with the guy's abdomen.

He loses his hold on her, and she reaches to the small of her back and grabs her gun, but the guy is faster than her—and apparently a mage. His magic whips out of him and wraps around Ellis’s wrist and tightens. A scream tears from her throat, and her body contorts as she falls to the ground in pain, the gun falling from her limp hand.

We dart forward, but we’re not fast enough. The mage wraps his magic around Ellis and her body convulses on the ground. The scream that comes from her freezes our blood in our veins and ignites a fire inside of us. Her head is thrown back, her neck stretched, causing the knife wound at her throat to open further. Popping sounds reverberate off the buildings, and we have to fight the bile rising in our throat as we realize he is breaking her bones with his magic.

The mage is distracted by torturing Ellis, and he doesn’t see us coming until it’s too late. We barrel into him, knocking him to the ground. His head hits the concrete with a sickening thunk, and his magic disappears. Wasting no time, we close our jaws around his throat and tear it out with a force that shocks even us. Blood and skin and muscle hits the concrete with a wet slap, and we go back in for seconds, just to make sure.

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