Page 16 of Fated Guardian

I realize what he’s saying. “Do you want me to… ride you?”

“Yes,” he grins. “Let’s go for that.”

“Oh. Okay. Um…”

The thought of him between my thighs makes me blush.

“Well, let’s go outside. I think we can make it there in an hour if I run.”

“Sure,” I nod. “Uh-huh. Yeah. Let’s go.”

I follow Nolan out of my cottage. When we’re outside, my mind is completely preoccupied with thinking about him. I’ve ridden a horse before, because it was kind of common among the fae, since a lot of us can’t do the whole technology thing. Some of my friends growing up were kelpies, who would shift into black demonic-looking horses that could easily tear people apart, but we had fun racing them around.

But all of those were childhood things. This is Nolan, who smells so good and who is a grown ass man, and who carried me back from the ward yesterday, and…

Nolan turns. “Uh. I have to take off my clothes, so…”

“Oh!” I blush and turn immediately. “Oh. I’m so sorry. Yes. You… should change. I’m… I’ll. Um…” I turn the other way.

I’m so preoccupied with what’s going on, with everything that I’m trying to look at (namely Nolan’s naked back), that I miss it.

The ward shivers. Then, it screams.

It’s not the far ward at the north, either. It’s the one around my meadow.

I don’t know what to do. The plants are screaming at me, and it’s so loud, and then all I can do is…

A scream rips out of me.

I’m looking right at the edge of the boundary when the shifter bursts through. Snarling. Huge. He’s a jaguar.

Somewhere in my mind, I produce the stupidest fact imaginable. Jaguars are the largest big cats on the American continent. They’re the only surviving member of their genus,panthera.They…

I duck as he leaps for me. For my neck.

There are so many times in my life where I’ve imagined what happened to my hive. My family. The feeling of sharp teeth and crushing jaws, sinking around my neck, snapping it. There are no plants that could heal me. None that could prevent it.

I shut my eyes. I’ve been imagining it for so long, this moment almost feels… normal. Like something that’s inevitable.

The crush of fangs never happens, though. Instead, I hear snarling. The type of snarling that’s not feline, but canine. Then, there’s the loud sound of two enormous bodies colliding.

When I get the courage to peek at the commotion, I shut my eyes again quickly.

It’s brutal. There’s blood flying everywhere. I feel it splash against me, hot and bright, and I cower under the sensation. It makes me think of how I found them.

Blood everywhere. So much of it.

The snarling and snapping are beyond vicious. Nolan and the jaguar are nothing but a blur of fangs and teeth and fur, and all of it flies in a tornado around me.

I don’t know what to do. I can’t do anything. All I can do is sit and watch it happen and hope I survive.

I don’t know that I’m aware of the moment when the sounds stop. I’m too scared to look. Because what if it’s the jaguar that survived?

What if Nolan died because of me?

“Coral?” A rasping, halting voice is speaking.

I look up.

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