Page 75 of The Witch and The Blood Oath

The chimera.

Standing in the sunshine, she was even more beautiful. Her dark skin glowed with inner light. Tears stained her face, but they did nothing to damper the loveliness of her full lips and dark eyes. Wearing a blood-stained blue dress and sandals, she thrashed against her attackers to no avail.

The slightest trace of magic—gentle as a lullaby—resonated from her, yet she didn’t whisper even the most basic spell. Compulsion pushed me to help her, and I found myself gliding forward to do just that.

The harsh squeak of her sandals sliding across the ship’s deck brought me back to reality.

Could she really be the chimera?

She tricked you into that mansion and almost got you and your friends killed,I reminded myself.

Though impossibly beautiful, the woman was not what she appeared.

As the wolves dragged her to their escape boat, a man wielding two blades leaped from the mast and blocked their path. Wrath blazed in his angular eyes and muscles bulged under his dark, tattered clothes. Magic coiled like a snake around him, yet his magic didn’t crackle like Walker’s.

“Dad,” the woman—the chimera—whispered.

The wolves descended upon the man, but he fought like it was an art and wielded his blades like paintbrushes. Though he parried, swiped, and struck, he was greatly outnumbered. I didn’t know him, yet I braced myself to watch such a brilliant warrior go down.

A sinister growl grabbed my attention. It wasn’t the warning yip of fighting wolves, but a command.

An Alpha command.

The wolves skittered to a stop, and even the chimera’s attention was stolen.

Her dark stare fixed on Ryder, who gazed at her with such wonder, I didn’t recognize the vulnerable expression on his face. He looked at the chimera as if she had hung the sun in the sky, and no one else mattered. It was a sacred sort of stare.

Primal magic stretched between them.

As Ryder spoke the one word that was going to be the end of us, dread like nothing I had ever faced reared its ugly head.

“Mate.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Walker

“What did he just say?” Cady whispered.

I was too shocked to answer. Ryder stared at thechimerawith adoration so intense, I wondered how he stood the weight of it. She was beautiful, but Ryder looked at her like he saw her soul. His power hung over us like an anvil, and the opposing wolves shook from the force of his will. EvenIhad understood the command in that growl of his.

Stand down.

Ryder strode across the gently swaying yacht and held out his hand to the chimera. Shaking, the behemoth wolves released their hold on the girl, but she stood still as a statue.

“Mate,” Ryder repeated.

His voice still rang with an Alpha’s authority, but it was colored by whatever wealth of emotion drove his actions. For a heartbeat, the chimera stared at him, utterly transfixed.

Swift as an asp, she kneed him in the crotch, and I cringed. As Ryder doubled over, his hold on the other wolves slipped, and fighting broke out anew.

“Cowboy!” Freya called. “We can’t let them take her.”

My gaze caught on the blood coating her stomach, and I saw red. She caught where my attention had gone and shook her head.

“I’m okay,” she said. “Let’s make it worth it.”

I stuffed down every instinct that demanded I stop everything and try to heal her. I couldn’t drag Freya from this fight even if I tried. Instead, I would join her in it. Through the fray, I spotted the chimera kicking and punching wolves with surprising ferocity. As I launched myself into the frenzy of wolves, a shot pierced the air, followed by another and another.

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