Page 26 of Ash
She was screaming, my mate, my world and my heart was screaming with fear. Over me. My giant head turned to her in shock. Beseeching her with my eyes to stop screaming only made it worse. She turned in the man's arms, hiding her face in his chest in much the same way she had done with mine.
Was I really that repellent, that much a thing of nightmares that my own heart couldn't bear to look at me? Pain ripped through me, and left my lips in another roar. I wanted to explain, to make her understand but she couldn't understand a word I was saying in this form. We might be mates but she wasn't claimed. And only other shifters and our claimed mates could understand me.
It was killing me, having her clutch to another out of fear of me. And I poured all of that self-loathing into whipping my tail behind me, my roars echoing around us and bending the trees where they stood.
The barbs on my tails caught at least two dire wolves who had tried to creep up behind me. I heard the satisfying thunk of their bodies as they hit the tree trunks and stayed there motionless in the snow.
It served them all right. I had warned them not to make me do this. They’d had a choice and they should have chosen the one where they got to live out the rest of their miserable lives in peace. By forcing me to shift to protect Lainey, they had signed their own death warrants.
I didn't enjoy taking any creature's life but for her I would, my eyes found hers and found her staring back. A mixture of fear and awe on her face, I would rip them all to pieces and burn them to ash.
I had warned them.
“Stop.” The leader of the motley band of dire wolves stepped in front of me. His dark hair pushed from his face and in his arms, Lainey sagged. It was only him that kept her upright and for a second I couldn't see what was making her so afraid.
And that's when I saw it. At first, I thought it was a knife but on closer inspection, i realised it wasn't a knife at all but a claw. A wickedly sharp claw that had already pierced her skin so a tiny trail of blood found its way from her throat and disappeared under her clothes.
I stilled. My eyes never left the man's face. I wouldn't take my eyes off of him even though I wanted to look at her. To somehow tell her with my eyes that it was all going to be ok.
I wanted to promise her that even when I knew deep down it wasn't.
“Enough dragon. “
I roared into his face. Flaming hot hair lifting the hair back from his shoulders. Lainey gave a muffled scream as she saw inside me, to the burning embers that made up my body. I had wanted him to see the fiery death that awaited him. Not her. Because I would never hurt her.
And the dire wolf knew it. That's why he had pulled her close. He was using her as protection. A pretty curvy human shield.
I couldn't burn him to a crisp when he had her in front of him, not without hurting her. And I would never do that. It's what he had been counting on.
“Shift back. So your mate can reject you and…”
I swung my head back and forth, a firm no. In my human form, I was fast but they would overpower me by pure numbers alone. Better that Lainey was afraid than taken.
“Shift back, or I'll slit her throat before your eyes”
He wanted me to shift, then he didn't. The man was crazy or just plain not very bright. Maybe a little of both.
Stupid people could be reasoned with but crazy people? Crazy people were dangerous just because they were unpredictable. Still, I knew I could take them out. And I would start with him. All I had to do was somehow get Lainey out of his grasp. As soon as she was somewhere safe then I would rain such hell on them, such fire that the dire wolves would finally be extinct.
“Get off me, get -” Lainey began to struggle and the claw slipped further along her throat, leaving a red bloody line in its wake. I froze.
She was strong and brave and beautiful but she was going to get herself killed by fighting. Doubt and regret niggled at me. I should have marked her when I had given her the tiniest amount of my blood to help her heal. I should have sunk my teeth into her and made her mine. If I had done that, then none of this would be happening.
At the very least she would be able to hear the directions I desperately needed to give her if this was going to end well.
“Don't push me on this dragon, I will cut her throat.” As if to prove his point he dug his jagged claw in a little deeper. Her blood bubbled up, hot and darkly red. Like the richest of fine wines. Her eyes bulged in her head. Her mouth opened and shut, soundlessly.
There was too much blood, it flowed downward. Too much blood. He had done it. He had killed my mate in front of me. Roaring, I tore through the dire wolves in front of me. Claws and teeth ripping into them. He would die. They would all die. If Lainey-
“Stop.''A new voice spoke from behind me, and the power of an alpha washed over me but had no real effect, my dragon did not want to bow down to the newcomer. Whatever or whoever this alpha was he held no power over me
The wolf holding my mate's bleeding body, stiffened in shock, his eyes wild behind his equally wild hair. Like a scared rabbit, he looked every which way.
“I said stop, let the dragon's mate go.”
The man swallowed hard, and his grip on her loosened. Lainey crumbled into a heap. And I shifted instantly to catch her before she could hit the ground. One hand holding her under the shoulders and the other clamped over her bleeding throat.
I was a dragon, I had lived a long time. I had seen many people die. People I cared for and loved. But nothing could prepare me for this. For having my mate die in my hands.
“Help me.” I pleaded as my team stalked their way out of the trees. “Please help me.”
