Page 30 of Mated in Darkness

We stepped outside, headed towards my car, when she froze, her gaze going on alert.

“By any chance, do you know how to fight?” she whispered, and I stiffened, my hand going to the blade in my bag.

“A little. Riaz wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing with a weapon.”

“Good, because you’re going to need it.”

Chapter 12

Jason

My whole bodystiffened impossibly as men in black garb, their faces hidden and weapons in their hands, prowled towards us.

I blinked. I had been expecting wolves or something else paranormal, and perhaps they were, but they weren’t in wolf form.

No, they had weapons.

And from the look of those tranq guns in their hands, as well as the knives and other instruments strapped to their bodies, they weren’t playing around.

“Damn it,” Kaylee whispered, and then there wasn’t much time to think.

I shuffled to the side, ducking out of the way of one of the men with the knives.

Nobody was shooting. Instead, it looked like they wanted to subdue us, for us to fight back, so they could stab or do something else to us. I wasn’t sure what it was, but nobody was using their guns.

The man with the knife closest to me slashed at my chest, and I ducked out of the way, pulling out my own weapon to fight.

“Jason, watch out!” Kaylee shouted, and I ducked as a man with a lead pipe came at me. Knives, lead pipes, and the guns holstered?

Something was off. Did these men want to hurt us? Kill us? Or take us?

Chills broke out over my body as I thought about it. These were, what, some form of commandos that were coming after us? Did it have to do with the black marks? Or maybe this is something completely different. I didn’t know. Only one guy was coming after me. The other four were going after Kaylee.

Fuck. This team knew Kaylee was a wolf. They knew that she was the aggressive one.

I may know how to fight because Riaz wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing, but I wasn’t the strong one in this situation. I wasn’t going to be the one that could protect her.

I could try, but my brain is what got me through. I wasn’t a wolf. I didn’t have the skills to protect her, but I could do my best not to be a liability. That would be how I protected her. And myself. I wouldn’t force her attention on me while I acted like an idiot trying to protect the woman that could really protect herself and everyone else around her.

“Get her. She’s who the boss wants.”

Kaylee’s gaze met my own, her eyes glowing gold with the wolf as claws slid out of her fingertips.

She was glorious, a fighter, and they wanted her.

I’d be damned if I let them get her.

I pulled up my arm, my blade in my hand, as the other man came down with a knife towards me, his blade hitting mine with a metal clang. I cursed, the sharp sting of metal against flesh, the flesh of my forearm searing.

Kaylee’s nostrils flared as she glared over at us.

“Don’t die, Jason. I’m not done with you yet.”

I would have smiled at that, would have pounded my chest, or at least puffed up a bit, but I didn’t have time.

Riaz may have taught me how to fight with the blade, but the main thing he had taught me was to run. To get out of there so those who knew how to fight could protect me. If I was ever in the den during the attack, my job was to stay near the children and help them. To get them to safety, along with the maternal wolves. I might not be a submissive wolf, but I was a human. And I was a scientist. I had no idea how the hell I had gotten here, but I knew this had to have something to do with whatever was leaving those black bite marks all over people. What was killing people.

With who had killed the Redwood wolf, Kaylee’s friend, Spencer.

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