Page 105 of Body and Soul

I lunged for the one on the right. My hand clamped over the guard's mouth, muffling his startled cry. In one brutal motion, I wrenched his head to the side, relishing the wet snap of his neck giving way. He went limp in my grasp and I let him drop, already turning toward the next target.

The second man's scream died stillborn as Gavin's knife found his throat, opening it in a crimson smile. Blood sprayed, black in the darkness, and he crumpled without a sound.

Barely a heartbeat had passed. Two more lives snuffed out, two more obstacles removed from my path to Eli. The beast within me growled its approval, relishing the metallic tang of blood on the night air. But I couldn't stop to savor it. My mate was close. I could feel it in my bones.

I wrenched the rusted door of the RV open. The reek of human filth and despair billowed out, but beneath it, faint and tantalizing... the scent of my rabbit. My Eli.

I shouldered my way inside, Gavin a silent shadow at my back. The interior was a warren of shadows and rot, lit only by the guttering flame of a kerosene lamp.

A whimper sounded from the shadows ahead - faint, broken, but achingly familiar. My heart seized, stuttering in my chest. I knew that voice, even twisted by pain and despair. Eli.

I surged forward, shouldering through the door at the end of the hall. There, curled on a stained mattress in the corner...

“There you are, my little rabbit.”

My heart clenched at the sight of him, my fierce protective instincts roaring to life. Eli lay curled on the filthy mattress, his hair matted, his perfect skin marred by bruises. Livid rope burns encircled his delicate wrists and ankles. His once luminous blue eyes were dull and glazed with pain as they fluttered open, struggling to focus on me.

“Keres...” he rasped, his voice a thready whisper. “You came for me.”

In an instant, I was across the room, gathering him into my arms with infinite gentleness. He felt so fragile, like a baby bird, as if one wrong move could shatter him irreparably. But the solid weight of him against my chest anchored me, soothing the howling emptiness that had consumed me in his absence.

“Always, little rabbit,” I rumbled, burying my face in the crook of his neck and breathing in his scent beneath the layers of fear and degradation. “I'll always come for you.”

Eli shuddered and went boneless in my embrace, a choked sob escaping his split swollen lips. I cradled him closer, mindful of his injuries, and the beast within me snarled with pure, possessive rage that anyone had dared to mark what was mine.

I nuzzled deeper into the crook of Eli's neck, unable to resist the primal urge to cover him in my scent, to erase every trace of the cult's violation from his skin. A low, possessive growl rumbled up from my chest as I rubbed my cheek over his throat, his collarbones, marking him as mine once more.

Eli whimpered softly, his pulse fluttering beneath my lips like a frightened rabbit. But he tilted his head back in instinctivesubmission, baring more of his throat for me to claim. Even broken and traumatized, his body recognized its mate, yearned for my touch.

I gentled my movements, mindful of his injuries, but the need to assert my claim, to overwrite their filth with my essence, was a compulsion I couldn't resist. My hands roamed over every inch of exposed skin, stroking, caressing, soothing the tremors that wracked his fragile frame.

I tilted Eli's face up before capturing his mouth in a searing, desperate kiss. The coppery tang of his split lip burst across my tongue as I claimed him with lips, teeth, and tongue. I kissed him like a man starved, like his mouth was my only sustenance and I would devour him whole.

Eli whimpered into the kiss, his hands scrabbling weakly at my shoulders. But there was no fear in the needy sounds he made, only relief and yearning. He opened for me without hesitation, pliant and submissive, letting me take whatever I needed.

I lost myself in the hot silk of his mouth, in the perfect way he yielded to me. The rest of the world fell away until there was only Eli. My mate. My heart. Mine, mine, mine.

“Keres.” Gavin's clipped voice dragged me back to awareness. “We need to move.”

I pulled back from Eli with a shuddering breath. I needed to take Eli somewhere safe where I could lick his wounds in private and remind his body of my claim until the only marks left on his flesh were made by my teeth and nails.

The RV door slammed open. Two men burst in, eyes wild and guns raised. More cult filth come to steal Eli back. Rage exploded through my veins, a red haze washing over my vision. I was moving before conscious thought could form, releasing Eli to lunge at the intruders with a roar.

The first man screamed as I slammed into him, all snapping teeth and slashing nails. I raked gouges down his face, his arms,relishing the hot spill of his blood over my claws. His gun clattered to the floor as he flailed.

Behind me, the bark of Gavin's Glock and a wet gurgle signaled the end of the other man. The scent of fresh blood and cordite saturated the air, driving my bloodlust to a fever pitch. Bones crunched and popped beneath my hands as I wrenched the man's arm from its socket, reveling in his agonized shrieks. I sank my teeth into his throat and tore into his neck, ripping through tender flesh, cartilage and sinew until he stopped shaking.

I released the dead man and straightened slowly, blood dripping from my chin. I turned back to Eli, my chest heaving. His eyes were huge in his too-pale face as he stared at me, at the gore painting my skin. Shock and fear emanated from him, souring his scent. He shrank back, his gaze flicking between my face and the ravaged body.

My heart clenched. I never wanted my little rabbit to look at me with fear. But there was no time to soothe him, to gentle away the horror of what he'd witnessed. Shouts and pounding footsteps echoed from outside. More cultists rousing to stop us. We had to move. Now.

I lunged for Eli, scooping his fragile weight into my arms and cradling him against my chest. He let out a stifled yelp, body rigid and quivering. But he didn't fight me as I sprinted for the RV door, Gavin covering our exit.

We burst out into the night to find a wall of cultists gathering to block our path. They poured from the trees, from the RVs, faces fixed in anger. Men and women both, some barely more than children, all gaunt and filthy, with madness burning in their eyes.

They were armed, all of them. Some with guns, others with knives or clubs.

My lips peeled back from my teeth in a feral snarl as a man stepped forward, pointing a shotgun at my face.

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