Page 61 of Cursed Wolf

That was as close as he got. I ran at him with speed I didn’t know I was capable of. He let go of Emmaline at the last second, giving me an opening to crash into him like a battering ram. We collided with enough impact to send us rolling, and I closed my jaws on whatever I could reach, making sure to drag him with me and away from her.

We fought like hell, rolling and tumbling, trying to grab, punch, kick, bite, anything to get the upper hand. Bitter blood filled my mouth and fabric ripped.

When Thorne’s weight suddenly lifted away, I rolled to my paws, intent on chasing after him and keeping him away from my mate. The vampire was fast though. He darted to the side when I lunged at him, my teeth snapping on air.

His shirt had ripped from our tussle and he finished the job, ripping it from hem to collar and discarding it on the ground. He was barely breathing hard and grinning like a maniac, red eyes bright with predatory delight.

“I had no desire to hurt your little human, werewolf.” He planted his feet wide, arms out to the sides. “But you should have taken my deal. Now, there’s no going back.”

Thorne’s hands morphed, growing nearly as large as my head, covered in black skin and tipped with long, black claws. The sight tripped me up, making me lose focus for a moment. I had no idea vampires could shift, if even just partially.

But I would deal with that information later. After I killed him.

The vampire drew his arms back and leaned his chest forward. I bared my teeth and growled with all my fury, fur spiking up over my back as all my muscles braced for this fight.

A fight that would surely end with one of us dead.

If that turned out to be me, I just hoped it would buy enough time for Emmaline to get to safety. The pack would look after her, I was sure of that.

A beat of time passed, the two of us tense and ready.

Wanting to catch the vampire off-guard, I lunged first.

But Thorne was ready for me and sliced those claws through the air, ready to shred me to ribbons.

Chapter 21

Emmaline

Ihad never been so disoriented in my life. Dizziness, nausea, and fatigue ruled my senses. Even after something had grabbed my hair and yanked my head up, I didn’t fully comprehend what was going on. I thought I saw Tryn as a wolf, my wolf, but how could that be possible? I had been in a city, not anywhere near Vargmore’s picturesque forests.

Something inside me felt like it was frantically moving, a constant stampede or pacing sensation that wouldn’t stop. It was making the nausea worse, and I found myself coughing into the dirt.

Wait…dirt.

My blurry vision could just make out my hands on a floor of grass, dirt, and leaf litter. I was outside, not in a dark alley in a city. With all my strength, I pushed myself up and tried to get my bearings. Relief and hope sprang in the form of tears filling my eyes.

The waning moon was bright, and the sky glittered with stars. With the help of moonlight, I saw trees and mountains in the distance. I couldn’t be sure but that looked like the same mountain range I saw from Stout & Spirit. Did the red-eyed man really bring me to Vargmore?

I started to turn around as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, finding more of the same. Trees, shrubs, hills, and mountains. Shit, what now?

It was only after I got a sense of where I was that I heard sounds coming from nearby. Growls, snarls, and yelps of pain, like animals fighting.

I held my breath, listening hard over the wild pounding of my heart. That urgent, frantic stamping feeling increased even more. I knew that it wasn’t my heartbeat, but came from that sense of another inside of me. Whatever it was was freaking the fuck out.

A high-pitched cry of pain echoed through the trees and hills. That sound got me to my feet, this strange sense of urgency pushing me toward it, even though I was scared as hell and wanted nothing more than to run in the other direction. Who was I to get in the middle of an animal fight?

On shaky legs I followed the sounds up a gently rolling hill, telling myself all kinds of reasons why I’d be doing this. It was in my nature to help animals. If something was badly injured, I could help it.

But I also knew predators killed prey for food all the time. It was messy, bloody, and painful, but it was how the natural world worked. So who was I to save one animal and deprive another one of a meal?

Still I soldiered on, unable to fight this pull toward those sounds despite not understanding it in the least. The moment I crested the hill, my head remained in the dark. But my heart understood with painful, bleeding clarity.

Tryn was down there in his huge, beautiful wolf form. His teeth and muzzle were drenched in blood. His right foreleg was tucked close to his body and bleeding badly. More blood streaked through his fur, coating him so densely that I couldn’t tell if it was his or his opponent’s.

I almost didn’t recognize the man, or creature, he fought. Tryn’s opponent was shirtless, covered in lean, sinewy muscle and blood covering his torso. His hands were monstrous, at least three times the size of a normal man’s hands, tipped with long, curving black claws like a bird’s, and black skin up to his elbows.

It was only as Tryn and this monster circled each other that I realized it was the man from the dark alley. His red eyes were feral, upper canine teeth so long that they grazed his lower lip.

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