Page 17 of The Alpha's Temptation

My pulse raced. “There are way too many. You can’t take them all.”

“Yes, I can.”

Caelan shifted into his huge black wolf, nearly twice the size that Elijah was, his eyes a glowing gold underneath the forest’s canopy. I sucked in a sharp breath and stood up, staying behind him, yet my heart hammered against my bruised ribs.

We were outnumbered.

There was no way he could defeat them all because I wouldn’t be of any help.

I didn’t know how I had used that power earlier. And I wouldn’t know how to do it again.

“Stay on your feet,” he howled.

A loud roar echoed through the forest, and suddenly they were all running at us. I swallowed hard and stared at them, my vision blurring with red. Thunder cracked through the sky again,and the moons above almost pulsed in perfect rhythm with my heartbeat.

Heat washed through my veins, and my knees buckled yet again. Caelan stood in front of me, scanning the forest to make a game plan, deciding how to react. But I couldn’t let him die. No, I needed to do something.

I needed to help.

The air tasted like blood. I pressed a shaky hand to the ground, and the blood from the three dead rogues drifted into my palm, slipping through my wound and into my body. I squeezed my eyes closed, unable to stand upright.

Roars and growls echoed through the forest, rattling my bones. I placed another hand on the ground, and something deep inside me stirred. It was something I’d never felt before, not even during the battle at the arena.

Pressure built underneath my skin, in my blood, in my bones.

Before one of the rogues or wolves could touch Caelan, a shriek left my mouth and echoed through the entire forest. The wolves stopped immediately. The first line of them fell to the ground, their blood splattering everywhere.

The others looked at them, then at me, and then they ran away in the opposite direction.

All the pressure inside of me suddenly exploded, and I fell to the ground, unable to stand. My head was spinning, the blood pulsing inside me. Caelan shifted back into his human form and dropped to his knees, gathering me in his arms.

“Are you okay?” he asked urgently.

“Yes,” I breathed.

“What happened?”

“I… I don’t know. Everything is hot, boiling. My blood…”

I didn’t know how to continue.

None of this made any sense. But I needed to sleep. I needed something.

“Rest, little mate. I’m here to protect you.”

CHAPTER 12

LIVIA

After several hours of walking,we stumbled across a cabin nestled deep in the forest between a web of trees. The forest was so dense around these parts that not even the moonlight could guide us anymore.

“We need a place to sleep,” I said to Caelan.

“What we need is to get home.”

“My eyes are sleepy.”

A low growl left his mouth, and he eyed the cabin lit with candles out front. “Come on.”

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