Page 32 of Fake Fae-Ancée

"Back off,"Bear thundered, fangs bared.

My mind was empty. There was only Bear. And screaming red rage.

Bear had no grand thoughts. Only a mission. Only the prophecy. Only protecting her. Growling, I pushed the enemy to the ground.

"She’s mine!"

Nox laughed. A sickening sound. My ears bristled against it.

"She may be, but not for long."

He squirmed and bucked, and next thing I knew he got hold of his blade and dealt a massive blow from below, catapulting me off of him. I dove away, I rolled and landed on my paws, panting, my talons digging furrows in the wet ground.

Nox came to his feet. And shifted. Melted. Regrouped. Flowed from his human form into a cloud of black feathers, until the huge bird shifter towered in front of me in his true battle form. He clicked his beak.

"You can’t protect her forever, little prince," he croaked, a voice like a creaking door.

Bear roared.

From the back of my consciousness I watched. And thought.

Being Bear slowed my mind, shifted focus on primal things like fighting, eating, mating. Details grew fuzzy. The wound in my arm ached. The lash he’d just dealt me with his sword puckered with fresh pain.

I was in a bad disadvantage. But Nox was wounded, too. The huge bird looming before me stood a little crooked, couldn’t put weight properly on his left leg. Bear squinted. There was a slight limp. A trickle of black blood on the ground.

The only loophole Bear would need.

Nox attacked. Flung his deadly beak forward like a blade. Bear dodged, growling, dived under furiously beating wings, slamming our fangs into the raven's bad leg. An agonized screech tore out of the bird. Nox beat his wings, a storm of feathers and wild blows, but Bear only drove our fangs deeper into the wound.

Find weak spot. Strike.

My mind was narrowed. The leg bending and cracking under the force of my grinding jaws. Nox slammed his beak into my back, tore open fur and skin, stabbing again and again. But there was no give. Bear didn’t care about the pain, jaws and fangs doing their merciless job. Nox cried out as the first bones cracked.

Driven by the pain, he finally managed knocked me away with his wings. Bear stumbled backwards, the hot taste of blood and grime flooding my senses, and growled out, a furious roar echoing among the trees. I straightened up onto my hind legs, rising to my full height.

Nox was limping, hopping on one leg. His injured foot he pulled close to his massive black body.

"The little prince has grown some teeth," he gasped, beak half open.

We circled each other, lurking, watching.

"Who sent you?" Bear growled, my mind slow to form the words. "Black Guild is long destroyed!"

Nox snickered. "As per usual, you know nothing, little prince. That's just like you. You should be well aware how to put one and one together by now."

"Yegor would never hurt family!" The name tasted bitter on my tongue, and was enough to send a fresh flare of fury through me.

Yegor, the usurper. Yegor, the regicide. Yegor Dregowic — King of Bears. Would my cousin really sink so low as to send a killer?

Bear growled as that cold, old rage clenched into painful knots inside me.

Yegor Kingslayer.

Oh, he definitely would.

Nox laughed hollowly, trying to cover his obvious agony. His foot was broken, sticking out at an unhealthy angle. No idea how fast bird shifters healed.

"The Fae bitch is not your family."

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