Page 160 of Taming the Beasts
The vampires that had been biting at him had all dispersed, standing in a daze as they looked around at the destroyed wedding ceremony.
The last time I’d seen any of my boyfriends in their werecat form I’d been terrified. But this time all I felt was an ache in my chest as I collapsed on my knees beside him. “Bennett?” I reached out and touched beneath one of the deep gashes in his fur.
“Bennett?” I whispered and tried to nudge his huge shoulder.
But he had no reaction. So much of his coat was matted in blood. There were too many injuries. Bennett was on his side with one of his paws covering the opposite side of his face. Like he’d been trying to protect himself. But it had been no use.
I felt tears spilling down my cheeks. Was he still breathing? I couldn’t tell. It didn’t look like his body was moving at all. How did you check a werecat for a pulse?
A deafening scream of pain made me turn my head.
Titan was changing back! I pushed myself off the ground and ran toward him. I ran past Otto, wholooked as still as Bennett, and tried to focus all my attention on Titan. It was hard not to when he was screaming like that.
I’d never heard a more devastating noise in my life. I expected a grunt from Titan, not this. But I understood it when I got closer.
He was back to being Titan. He was holding his stomach and it looked like part of his insides were trying to fall out.
His whole body was covered in deep cuts. The scar on his face that I loved so much looked like a little wound in comparison to the rest of him.
He gasped for air.
“Someone call an ambulance!” I screamed when I reached him.
Titan lifted his head when he heard me. He gasped for air again and fell forward into my arms.
I didn’t understand. There were so many people that had been attacked by vampires. And no one else seemed injured now. They’d all healed. They were all just standing there perfectly fine!
Why were my boyfriends the only ones dying?!
I tried to hold Titan up, but he was so heavy. So I just grabbed his face so I could see him. My fingers slid on the blood on his cheeks.
“Doll,” he whispered.
“Big boy.”
He chuckled and then grimaced in pain.
I tried to stop my tears. I needed to be strong for him. But seeing Titan battered like this? He was the strongest person I knew. And no matter what I tried, my tears kept spilling.
“Please remember,” he said. “You don’t need to hide behind a mask.”
It felt like a goodbye. “Titan, you’re going to be okay. An ambulance is on its way.” I could already see red and blue flashing lights heading toward the town square.
He coughed and blood splattered onto my chest.
I was choking on my tears now. “I love you,” I said. I wasn’t sure he heard me. Because just like the last time I said it to him, he didn’t reply. “Please hold on.”
His head fell onto my shoulder.
“No, Titan!” I tried to grab his face again, but the blood smearing his cheeks was too slippery.
“Zoey, he needs to go to the hospital,” Callum said. “The ambulance is here.”
I knew he needed to go. I was just worried that this was the last time I’d ever see him. I finally managed to lift his head as the paramedics rushed over.
“I love you,” Titan whispered against my lips, just before Callum and the paramedics lifted him up.
I just sat there, staring as they put him into the back of the ambulance. And then they got back to the front like they were about to drive away.
