Page 120 of Savage Blood
What did I do?
The heat from Fane’s fury descended over my back as he closed the distance, his quick breaths blowing across the top of my head. “I didn’t think it was possible to be this fucking mad.”
I shivered from the sheer rage in every syllable he spoke, and I felt the energy it took for him to keep a firm grip on his control.
If he let go, he’d probably shift into his demon wolf and shred Saint apart.
Saint finally released me and jammed a shaky hand through his messy locks. “Don’t be mad at her. Blame this on me.”
I’d just stomped all over his heart and soul, and he still wanted to protect me.
But he didn’t have to protect me from Fane. I could handle him.
“Oh, believe me, I have enough anger for the both of you,” Fane said.
I finally peered behind me at him, his pupils in slits, his irises blazing, and his muscles so tight his clothes threatened to rip off. Shimmers of heat drifted from his form before he could finally cool them.
Just barely.
“I need a minute before you unleash your wrath, Fane.” Saint staggered back, and this time when I reached for him, he shook his head. “Please don’t.”
His words were dull daggers to my chest, but I deserved them.
The demon shifter’s jaw ticked, and his nostrils flared, but some of that relentless rage cracked, and he gave Saint a sharp nod.
“Just run,” Fane said, his voice still a swirl of fire and darkness. “Hard and fast until you can’t feel anything but the ground and the wind at your back.”
Fane knew how it felt to be rejected. He knew every bit of pain coursing through the young alpha.
I bit my lip to restrain a sob. It would only make things worse if Saint knew how much I wanted to take it back.
“It’ll hurt for a long time.” Fane moved to my side, his attention still on Saint. “But it will fade. Eventually. If you let it.”
Saint refused to look at me as he spun and vanished through the trees, the shadows swallowing him whole. As Fane and I stood in silence for a few moments, as if he was waiting for it, a soul-crushing howl erupted through the forest.
My mate finally spun me toward him, his nostrils flaring and teeth gritting. “How could you do this? How could throw away a chance to rid yourself of this poison?”
“It’s not in my nature to use people, Fane,” I snapped, pushing past the anguish tearing me apart. “Enough people have been hurt or worse because of me, and I couldn’t do it to Saint.”
A roar burst out of him, shaking the trees. “When are you going to stop shouldering the blame for everything fucking bad thing that happens?”
“When I’ve paid enough!”
Atoning for all the bad I’d caused was just a ruse, a form of punishing myself. And Fane saw past my lies and half-truths.
He knew I’d do everything in my power to save the shifters, but I would rather die than hurt more people.
His phone buzzed, and he snatched it out of his pocket, a string of curses bursting from his mouth. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What?”
He tilted the phone to show me a video of Roxie strolling through the lab beneath Wrath’s house—where Ruin was imprisoned.
My pulse spiked as my every muscle tensed. “Is she there to break him out or to kill him?”
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
