Page 46 of Bound By My Alpha Mate

But not before grabbing any part of Colt I could. I hooked my finger into his pocket, somehow managing to snag a feather of some sort. I held onto it.

The monster clutching me was the same one that had tortured me in the hours before. I had watched David’s body change into an unfamiliar shape. Halfway between human and wolf, he stood on two legs, hunched over, fur rippling down his spine, his gangly arms tipped with long, razor-sharp nails. He hoisted me over his shoulder and ran, alternating between a two-legged sprint and a three-footed gallop, gracelessly clearing the foliage ahead of us. Branches scraped against me, cutting my arms. The sight of the Manor swiftly diminished as we disappeared into the woods, leaving me alone with the grunting, snarling fiend that was David. Even as the sound of the battle faded away, the unnerving silence of the forest was broken by snapping bark and heavy panting.

I clutched a handful of his fur, trying to keep myself from launching off his shoulder. If he dropped me, I knew he would turn right back around to snatch me again—or worse, assail me with his merciless teeth. So, I focused on staying attached to him. “David,” I said, fighting to stay conscious. “Where are we going? Please don’t go into town. Those innocent people have done nothing to deserve this!”

But David ignored me, or maybe he heard me and didn’t register what I was saying. The madness of the Lycan form was overwriting any sense of awareness he had. He was a mindless creature now, operating off of bloodlust and hunger, destroying everything in his path as we ran through the night. I had no idea what direction we were going. Only the full moon passing in and out of the canopy above could guide me, but I couldn’t see it.

Behind us, a voice echoed my name. Colt was calling for me, unseen. My lungs stuttered with fear, but David continued to run.

For thirty minutes, the now Lycan Alpha barreled through the forest until the trees thinned out and we reached sloping mountainsides. The forest fell away, and as the sky opened up and revealed twinkling stars and the distant light pollution of Eastpeak, I realized that we were heading south. The barren hill approaching the edge of the pit told me exactly where we had gone. David had brought me all the way back to the silver mine.

Bloodstains I could see in the moonlight warned me that a fight had taken place earlier, but there were no bodies anywhere. David entered the mine and traversed the tunnels, now empty of their previous inhabitants, carrying me all the way back to the furthest chamber, where I had been held prisoner before. It was empty. David paused, assessing the situation, and I took that opportunity to thrust myself forward in an attempt to get out of his arms.

I landed hard on the ground.

David simply let me fall, staring into the vacant room. A lit lantern implied that somebody had been here earlier.

Rolling onto my hands and knees, I stood up and hid the feather in my pocket. “Why are we here?” I asked David.

The Lycan grunted, sniffing around the room despite his undoubtedly still impaired sense of smell. He didn’t bother giving me another glance while he searched for whatever it was he was looking for—something or someone. While he was distracted, I backed away, hoping that maybe this would be my chance to sneak off—until my foot kicked a rock. David straightened up, pinning me to the spot with his empty, blue eyes. His lips curled in a snarl.

My body tensed, preparing to fight. I grabbed the feather and clutched it tight, not knowing exactly how it might help me. But if Colt had come armed with it, then it had to be useful for something.

David stepped closer, bristling. His clawed fingers flexed with anticipation. Then his eyes lifted past me.

“I thought you’d have brought an audience,” said someone behind me. “Instead, you’ve brought the person most useless to both of us.”

I whipped around, my stomach sinking at the sight of Lothair. The blond man looked ragged and tired, his body battered. I imagined some sort of clash had left him abandoned in this cave. I backed against the wall and looked between him and David. “If you think I’m going to transform for you, you’re kidding yourself. I’m not letting you use my horn for another ritual,” I announced.

“If I intended to use you for a ritual, I wouldn’t have said you were useless,” Lothair replied blandly.

David snarled, ignoring me to stalk closer to Lothair. Immediately conscious of the danger the Lycan posed, Lothair backed away, as well. “Where are the others?”

“It’s pointless,” I said. “He’s out of his mind.”

“No, he isn’t.” Lothair narrowed his eyes. “He knows exactly what he’s doing.”

I found that hard to believe. David hadn’t acknowledged anything I’d said. If he’d known what he was doing, he would have gone straight to the nearest town to cause as much destruction as possible. Or he would have killed me the first chance he’d had. I shook my head and retreated one step further before David roared, leaping past Lothair and me and into the tunnel. He whipped around and faced us, blocking our only escape route with a flash of his teeth.

Cold sweat gathered on my skin. The only way I could see this ending now was with David slaughtering us both.

“You’re waiting for someone to show up, aren’t you?” challenged Lothair.

David’s lips twisted from a snarl into a sick grin. He stood up straighter, shedding his deformed bestial posture for a more human stance. His maw parted, and a strange, animalistic growling erupted into barely coherent words. “I…want them…to see it.”

The very cadence of his monstrous voice filled me with dread. The beast forms of shifters weren’t able to speak. Their physical anatomy didn’t allow for it. But a Lycan was still half human, and David’s voice reflected that, partly primal and partly intelligible. “See what?” I dared to ask.

“He wants witnesses to watch as he kills us. But he’s a fool. There are no dragons following you here. If you’d wanted to prove anything to anyone, you wouldn’t have left me in this mine!” Lothair shouted.

“This…is…the…stage…of…my…conquest!” David roared before erupting in jagged, thunderous laughter.

“You should have chained me up with the hybrid instead of wasting time coming back here, but you’ve always favored melodrama, haven’t you, David? You want to put on a show. You thought it would prove your power to the dragons, leading them back to this mine where I once ruled and where you left me chained up, so you could kill me in my own domain. But look. There’s nobody here to see it,” argued Lothair.

David lumbered closer. “Just…wait…”

“No.” Lothair grabbed my arm, maintaining eye contact with David. “I won’t give you the satisfaction of killing me and proving anything, David.” Then, Lothair quickly whispered to me, “You have balsam resin. I know you do. I can feel it. Use it on me.”

My head spun. I didn’t know what he was talking about until his eyes glanced down at the feather in my hand. That must have been why Colt had it—they’d prepared the feathers as darts, as weapons to use against the dragons! At the exact moment that David realized what Lothair was telling me, Lothair tilted his head and exposed his neck to me, and without thinking, I stabbed the dart into his jugular.

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