Page 92 of Feral Fates
A spear pierces my flank, silver burning into muscle. I snarl, turning to rip the wielder’s head from his shoulders before continuing forward. Another guard manages to bite my foreleg, but the wound only feeds my rage.
I fight with cold, calculated savagery—not the mindlessberserker fury they clearly expected but the practiced lethality of a predator who has survived decades of warfare. Each movement is economical, each kill efficient. I don’t waste energy on displays of dominance or unnecessary violence—I simply eliminate obstacles between me and my mate.
Kitara is my only thought.
Their leader changes tact as I approach.
“Stay back,” she warns, pressing the ritual dagger to Kitara’s throat. “I’ll kill her right now if you come closer. She’ll be lost to you forever.”
I pause, blood dripping from my jaws, bodies of fallen guards littering the floor around me. The threat is real.
But Kitara meets my gaze across the distance, and I see no fear in her eyes—only fierce determination and absolute trust.
Do it, she mouths silently.
In the heartbeat between one moment and the next, I understand. She’s creating an opening, drawing the woman’s attention to the dagger at her throat rather than my approach. It’s a risk—a terrible one—but Kitara believes in me. In us.
I shift my weight slightly, muscles tensing in preparation. The woman misinterprets the movement as hesitation, a momentary victory that makes her smile.
“That’s right,” she says, confidence returning. “You understand what’s at stake. Now back away or?—“
Kitara bites her, her teeth sinking deep into the woman’s arm.
The woman screams, whirling toward Kitara. I strike—jaws closing around her throat. Bones shatter beneath my teeth as I wrench, ripping her throat clean out. The woman’s body falls to lie at my feet, her dagger clattering uselessly to the ground. The wound will kill her, but not before she suffers for her crimes.
The few remaining guards break, running for the exit inblind panic as I tear through Kitara’s silver chains with claws and teeth, ignoring the burning pain as the metal touches my flesh. When the last restraint falls away, I shift back to human form, gathering her into my arms with desperate gentleness.
“Kitara,” I breathe against her hair, her name a prayer and praise all at once.
Her arms wind around my neck, weak but determined, her body sagging into mine as the silver’s suppression fades and her strength begins to return. I feel her through the bond again—blazing back into me like the sun cresting the horizon after endless night.
“I knew you’d come,” she whispers, voice fierce despite its tremble. “Even when I couldn’t feel you—Iknew.”
I crush her closer. Her presence floods my senses, her scent, her heartbeat, the way her breath stutters just before she speaks. Through our rejoined bond, I feel it all—relief, fury, exhaustion... and love. Gods, the love. It hits like lightning in a dry forest, consuming and unstoppable.
“I love you,” I say, my voice hoarse and ragged and truer than anything I’ve ever spoken. “I love you, Kitara. I’ve loved you since the moment I first saw you.”
I kiss her forehead. Her cheeks. Her nose. I kiss every part of her face like I’m putting pieces back together. Like I’m branding myself into her skin.
She tilts her face up to mine, her eyes blazing despite the exhaustion, and cups my jaw. “I love you too,” she says, steady and sure. “I don’t know when it started, but it’s yours. All of me.”
The wolf in me howls, and I nearly give in to the urge to fuck her right here, right now. On a throne of blood and violence.
But her safety comes first, and we aren’t free of this place of horror just yet.
“Lithia,” she says aloud, pulling back to meet my gaze. “They separated us. Thaddeus has her somewhere else—I think they want to use her as additional leverage.”
“We know. Dane is searching for her,” I assure her. “He’ll find her.”
She slumps, clinging to me. “Thank the gods.”
Behind us, Dr. Reed makes a wet, gurgling sound—still alive despite her torn throat, but drowning in her own blood. Good.
I gather my mate in my arms, holding her close as I turn toward the exit.
Elias stands in the doorway with one of the guards, a knife pressed to the guard’s throat.
This isn’t over.
