Page 21 of Love in the Forest
Chapter Six
Braden still hovered above the Graveyard at the Crescent border. Abby was long gone, but instead of returning to Savage Territory, he found he couldn’t move.
He supposed one day he might recover from what felt like a horrible breach in his soul. But it wouldn’t be this moment, this night, maybe not even this year.
He loved Abby. He loved her beyond anything he had known in either his human life or hisalterexperience.
The place where the cord no longer existed was an agonizing wound. He didn’t understand everything about this new world of Five Bridges. He especially didn’t understand why as a wolf among wolves, he would have chosen a vampire as his mate.
Yet even without the cord to attach them, he knew his woman lived in Crescent and he needed to bring her home. She was his to love, to cherish, to protect.
He made the decision.
Though he took his life in his hands, he began to fly and crossed the Crescent border. He could only trust that if he found himself face-to-face with hostile vampires, he could call on his brother Border Patrol officers to help him out.
For now, he’d trust that fate would lend a hand and protect his passage to Abby.
He called to her telepathically,Abby, we have to talk.
Wizard.Came back to him in a single, panicky word.
He understood immediately because he could feel fear riding the airwaves between his mind and hers.Where are you?
She gave simple directions and he flew like the wind.
Within fifteen seconds, he landed in the center of her complex’s courtyard. An alarm went up announcing his breach of her security system, but he was already moving to the meditation room.
Several vampires were on his heels and shouting as he threw open the doors. Their threats at his unwelcome arrival ceased abruptly at the sight before them all.
The wizard held Abby pinned to the altar with a knife to her chest. Abby struggled to keep the blade from piercing her. She shook with the effort.
Magic flooded the room as well. It was only a matter of time before either Conagh’s spell or his physical strength would overpower her.
The wizard thrust a hand toward him, but Braden knew his tricks and shifted into his wolf form.
Running on all fours, he then launched onto the wizard’s back.
The wizard threw him off, an action that removed the threat to Abby’s life. She levitated swiftly then swept to the opposite side of the room.
Braden pivoted, levitated and would have attacked, but the powerful man threw flames from his hands.
Braden barely escaped, but Abby’s vampires had already swarmed over the wizard from behind, attacking him with their fangs on his shoulders, and arms.
Braden saw an opening, launched at the wizard’s knees and bit down hard.
As the wizard screamed, one of the vampires reached his throat and with a bite that would have made a wolf proud, ripped out his throat.
Blood gushed everywhere.
The vampires eased back, and the wizard dropped to the floor. He tried to invoke a new spell, but his magic drifted into the air like a weak cloud, then vanished.
The vampires continued to stare down at him, no doubt to make sure the man finished his journey to the hereafter.
Braden shifted to his human form. He was sweating and had blood on him, but Abby levitated across several pews and threw herself into his arms.How did you get to me so fast?
He held her tight.I was in the Graveyard when I contacted you. I’d stayed there in so much pain I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t let you go.
Braden, I thought I was dead.
