Page 7 of Sinful Shifters

Iwatch Klaus slaughter my people one by one. Our warriors, already weakened, are thrown to the ground and drained by vampires. The witches strain, arms raise high overhead, throwing spells and chanting with sore voices. Even the gods seem to flag, their wind, fire, water, and nature no match for the powerful shields around us.

Though I don't see Teller in the war camps around me, I can sense him, like a presence between my shoulder blades. He's here, just like he was inside my mind. Maybe he's walking around in someone else's mind right now, trying to get them to do as he bids. Maybe he's showing them their own terrible future.

Tugging on the ropes again, I despair as their tighten around my skin, red welts raising where they touch me. I've tried to reach through the pack bonds a dozen times, but it's all gone dead. Even my new wolf form is out of reach, as is any residual ability to touch magic that I got from my brief connections with the gods.

It seems impossible that we're losing. But we are.

Until. A surge happens. Warriors leap up from the ground. More pour in from either sides. My nose pricks as the wind shifts, and I realize that Morgan must have called in reinforcements from the hunts out in the foothills, the lone wolves nearby, and even the neighboring splinter packs, because I smell all kinds of wolves and see all colors of fur.

And somehow, it happens. They slip through Klaus's lines. I spot a familiar sleek wolf shape move through the warriors. As they reach the shields, I hold my breath, fearing the worst.

Then there's an explosion of color. Magic hits my nose again, and when I'm done sneezing, he's through. Alpha Morgan is here.

He races across the camp grounds, which are now mostly empty, straight to me. I feel my heart race as he grows near. Shifting to human form, he promises me, "I'm going to get you out of here."

I honestly believe him.

And I dare to hope.

With nimble hands, he draws a knife and starts hacking through my bonds. The blade presses against my skin, and I wince, but he's careful not to cut me. I feel my heart race as one of my wrists is freed, my wolf whining as she surges to the surface, desperate to leap from my skin.

"Almost there," Morgan says. "As soon as I get you free, we'll—"

He doesn't finish his sentence.

Klaus appears behind him in a cloud of teleportation magic.

Before I can even finish screaming, he rakes his claws across Morgan's neck and slaughters him in front of me, severing his arteries and revealing the white of his spine.

For a moment, Morgan's bright eyes just stare into me, his gaze shocked and confused. Then all the light goes out of him at once.

His dying blood splatters the front of my face and chest. As his body slumps over, I stare up into Klaus's eyes and see madness in them. Suddenly, I know without a doubt that he'll torture me to death just for the chance that he gets Fern back. Even if it's only for a moment, he'll do anything to have her briefly look out of my body at him.

William Teller appears a moment later, waving his hand towards the shields, which glow brighter and stretch closer together. He looks over at me and frowns at the restraints, a peeved expression on his face.

"Tying her up was meant to be a last resort, only to be used if you had no other option. And did you use the last of your gifted potions?" He sounds like a nanny scolding a young child. "This wasn't meant to go this way."

Klaus lifts a shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. "I got what I wanted. Shewillbe mine."

"That, we agree on." Teller doesn't even look at me as he says, "I assume you've had difficulties with her, given the ropes."

"She isn't Fern," Klaus says, a whine in her voice. "I want you to fix her. But her in therecorrectly, so it's really her."

Teller glances over at me, his face expressionless. Cold chills my bones and settles in my stomach. I wonder if he's going to go inside my head again and show me the future. Maybe he thinks that if he shows me enough omegas being tortured to death, I'll row over and submit to them both.

"A change in soul and personality is... difficult to perform, to say the least," Teller says, relieving me for a moment. Only for a moment, as he follows it up with, "But once she goes into heat, it should be far easier to mold her. Something that'll be easier with the small inconvenience of her alpha out of the way—congratulations to that."

With the toe of his boot, he nudges Morgan's body to the side. Bile rises in my throat at the way he lifelessly flops over, blood pouring out of his severed neck, his head holding on at the wrong angle.

Teller approaches me and kneels. With a bored expression, he draws a handkerchief out of his suit jacket and cleans the blood from me.I search his face for some sign he's going to bring up what he said to me in my dreams, glancing over at Klaus, wondering if he plans on "neutering" him the way he said he neutered Eli and offered to neuter the gods.

He seems to be wholly on the madman's side, given his words. But maybe it's all an act so Klaus doesn't know that he's going to be neutered. Maybe he'll save me from him, maybe he won't let me be taken—

But he just approaches Klaus, hands him another potion, and tells him, "You have no reason to tie her up when my magic will keep her here." With a flick of his wrist, he puts shields all around us and Klaus's tent. "Prepare her for me properly if you want to earn your keep. Get the job done right, or you'll wind up neutered like your brother."

Klaus lifts a lip. "You would never."

"Wouldn't I?" Teller challenges him, a warning note in his tone. "You're useful for now, but that ends if you don't get the job done. This potion will help."

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