Thirty Four

Her attention dropped to the silver restraints still around my wrists. I felt her register the burn of them — not with a scream, not with desperation, but with a cold flat irritation. Like someone disturbed from a very long sleep by a noise that had absolutely no business being that loud. She groaned low in my throat.

Then she pulled.

CLANK. CLANK.

The silver chain snapped clean in two, fell to the ground, and she kicked it away from her with open disgust. It didn't strain. It didn't bend. It simply ceased to be a problem, and she treated it accordingly.

"Shit—" Marcus started. "How did she just—"

Her blue eyes snapped to him immediately.

"Be quiet," she said, and my voice in her hands came out nothing like my voice — lower, older, carrying a weight that had nothing to do with me. "Stop being noisy. Better still — while I remain here — do. Not. Breathe."

Wait — did she just— did I just tell him not to breathe? That's not — I didn't say that, I would never — WOLF WHAT ARE YOU DOING—

She ignored me completely.

It sounded almost simple. Almost casual. Like she had said pass the salt or sit down.

But my eyes blazed without my permission and Marcus's eyes flared golden yellow in immediate involuntary response — his whole body answering the command before his mind could process what was happening.

Take it back. Take it back right now, he's going to die—

She still didn't acknowledge me.

Are you serious?! I don't even know this man and you're killing him with MY mouth—

And then Marcus couldn't breathe..

It started slowly enough that for one second it looked like a coincidence, or a joke, or something that would pass. But it didn't pass.

Marcus's hands flew to his throat, his face changing, his huge frame folding as he dropped to one knee with the specific heaviness of someone whose body had just been told to stop doing something it needed to survive.

"Marcus—" Nathan spun immediately, dropping beside him. "*Marcus, breathe—*"

"I — I can't—" Marcus forced the words out between attempts at air, his voice strained and barely audible. "I *can't*—"

Nathan looked up at her — at my face, at the blue eyes that weren't mine — and for the first time since I'd met him, I saw something in Nathan's expression that looked genuinely uncertain about what to do next.

She watched Marcus struggle for exactly as long as she felt like watching.

Then she looked away, apparently satisfied, and her attention moved across the room like she was searching for something more worthy of it.

And she found Aiden.

Out of everyone present in this room, he was the only one that made her pause. The only one that had something in him she recognized.

Something that made her go very still the way a wolf goes still when it has found exactly what it was looking for and wants a moment before it decides what to do about it.

"Hmmm" She made a sound and met his gaze fiercely.

Aiden didn't back down too he met her gaze in return. He wasn't one to back down.

"April??" He asked like he was trying to confirm something.

”April? Nah the little girl is gone. I’m Zara” My wolf spoke through in voice.

Marcus was weak and worthless in her eyes. So was Nathan.

The moment her gaze locked onto his, something passed between them that I felt all the way through my chest like an electric current running through water. She didn't lower her eyes.

And she definitely didn't bow her head down