Chapter 40

Caleb

“So, Arthur, what do you make of it? The daily report?”

“Do you want my honest opinion, your highness?” Arthur stood at attention as I gestured for him to sit.

“No, I want your dishonest opinion.” I smiled, but he kept his serious expression. It could be exhausting, having to factor in the lack of normal human interactions, as someone who was not a normal human, much as I tried.

“I don’t detect any deception.” He shifted in his seat, and I could sense his discomfort.

Arthur shifted his monitor screen toward me, with a highlight reel of Luka the past week. “She follows the same pattern, keeps to herself.”

“And the other one?” I asked, more a growl than a query.

“Under secure monitoring. He’s pursued her, but she has rebuffed at all junctures.”

“Could I see…? You know, on second thought…Not necessary.”

Arthur bowed. “Anything else, my lord?”

“No, thank you, Arthur. I commend you, and you’ll be rewarded for this exemplary work.”

I strode across the office with a keen sense of urgency, not knowing why. I needed to see Luka, to confirm this report with my own eyes.

“Actually, Arthur…”

“Yes?”

“Where is she now?” I had her whereabouts on my own device, but I knew Arthur would have tabs on her more readily at his fingertips.

Arthur’s demeanor got serious as he looked at his screen, still open. “At the edge of the forest.”

We exchanged pointed glances. “Do you think…?”

“There have been escape attempts in the past. And with this particular woman…”

“Luka.”

“With Luka…She has attempted it before.”

I nodded solemnly. “Then I’d better move.”

If she wanted to escape, I didn’t want to stop her. On the other hand, if she was loyal to this Declan, it was a matter of pack security.

But these were just excuses. I needed to see for myself.

I walked briskly at first leaving the house, but quickly broke into a stride.

“Sir!” Arthur yelled from the house once I bounded off the porch. “Do you need backup?”

“No, Arthur! Thank you.”

I broke into a steady jog, enjoying the feeling of the sun on my skin, but driven by something more fierce, more primal. I needed to see what she was doing. The faster I ran, the more restless I got, and I could feel Logan stirring.

She is ours, no matter what. She is still ours, even if you send her away, she’s ours.

The closer I got to the edge of the forest, the more anxiety I felt, afraid of what I would find, afraid I would have to keep her under control, afraid my emotions would get the better of me, afraid I would do something to her in her anger if indeed she was trying to escape, or, worse, with that wretched alpha she was still bound to.

Roars and grunts emanated from the entry into the woods, and I could feel every hair throughout my body stand on end.

This is not good, Logan growled. My blood coursed through my veins, and I could feel myself changing, growing stronger, my skin turning to fur, my teeth to fangs, my human strength into something supernatural.

My inner demon was unleashed, the inside come out, my primal soul my only self.

I heard her voice, a scream, a moan. My mate. My Luka.

Where is she, and what is she doing? And who is doing it to her?

I howled as I vaulted forward, skittering off of the ground like gravity was an illusion.

“GET…OFF OF HER, YOU FUCKER!”

The dark wolf, enormous with black and red fur, was on top of her. I couldn’t tell where his russet fur and her blood began and ended. She looked so small lying there, like a doll, not as weak as she had been when I first met her, but losing her life force.

I leapt onto him and grabbed him by the throat with all of my power, my jaws bolted to the arteries of his sinewy neck. I threw him from her using my paws and teeth, standing, flinging him into the trees.

I licked her wounds, hoping the healing properties of my saliva could stanch the bleeding and lead to faster recovery, especially since her wolf hadn’t yet come awake.

I wanted to hold her, kiss her, take her away, and I started to lift her, thinking I could just run to save her, and I could take care of this rogue monster later.

That’s when I felt him on my back, sinking his fangs into the back of my neck, growling, and slicing my underbelly deeply. I could feel the pierce of his sharpened claws in my internal organs.

I spun around with all my force, throwing him using my front paws and kicking him with my hind legs, pummeling him with my thighs while in mid-air.

I will not release my fangs from his neck, I told myself. We were one organism, and every attack I leveled at him, I did it with my fangs draining his life blood.

With a flip of his head, he untethered me from him, and I fell to the ground. He was poised over me, hovering, and I could smell his foul green breath, the breath of a half-wild scoundrel, who lives on corpses and makes his living by theft and cheating.

He did not deserve to share this earth, and he certainly did not deserve to be near someone like Luka. If he had hurt her, so help me, it wouldn’t just be him who paid, it would be his entire family, his entire tribe, his entire line. They would be wiped off the face of the earth.

I kept trying to steal glances at Luka, making sure she was still alive. I needed to get away from this fight for only one reason, to make sure she was well. I didn’t care at that moment if I lived, just her. I had lived a better life than any shifter could imagine, but her life had only just begun.

My only regret was that things had not gone differently with her. I would do everything in my power to give her that opportunity.

I played dead, using my otherworldly physical control to slow my pulse and breath, to give every indication that I had died. I could count on this rogue to check, stopping for a moment to sense whether the air had died from my lungs.

I waited until I felt the twitch of his ear on my lips, and he was stock still. I held him with my front and hind legs.

But I misjudged. He grabbed my throat with his jaws at the exact same time I grabbed his, and I could feel myself dying, getting weaker. I couldn’t tell if he was fatally injured, but I knew without help, I would be.

A flash of white burst forth from the heavens, like a being from an ancient myth, rising from the depths of the forests, and she pummeled into him with a ferocious roar, tossing the rogue off of me.

Is this my guardian angel, or a messenger sent from the afterworld, taking me to my final destination? She was a vision in white, snowy and innocent, pure and terrifyingly strong, and she was here for me.

The shape of the white otherworldly being was all I could see as the world left me. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I would follow this entity there.