Chapter 37

Elouera

Julian’s back slammed into the brick wall with a loud crack, like a dry branch breaking under someone’s foot.

The man in the black glove hadn’t simply thrown him aside. He had struck him with such force that Julian’s body fell into the cold mud and lay completely still. His head rested at a terrible, unnatural angle.

Slowly, the tall figure stepped out of the dark shadows between the thorny hedges.

Crown Prince Callan.

He no longer looked like the clean, well-dressed prince who always seemed to have everything under control. The storm had soaked his dark hair and plastered it against his forehead. His black military uniform was drenched, and Stirling Vance’s blood had smeared the silver medals on his chest.

But it was his eyes that truly terrified me.

The cold, calm blue I knew was gone. In its place was a frightening, glowing red. His eyes looked like those of a predator ready to attack, even as the heavy rain poured around him.

Any sensible person would have seen the Crown Prince, a deadly Alpha trained to kill and run for their life.

But the three noblemen left standing behind Julian had lost all sense of reason.

My scent had filled the entire clearing. The strong smell of wild honey and lightning seemed to have taken control of their minds. The Omega pheromones coming from my body were making their instincts even worse. They no longer felt simple attraction. They were overwhelmed by a dangerous need to possess me, no matter the cost.

With a deep, animal-like roar, all three men charged at Callan at the same time, leaving me behind as they rushed to attack him.

I didn’t stay to watch what happened next.

My survival instincts took over. I knew I had to use the distraction to crawl away and hide among the dark hedges.

I planted my raw, bleeding hands against the freezing gravel and tried desperately to lift myself off the ground.

But my arms gave way immediately.

My face fell back into the mud, and a weak, broken gasp escaped my throat.

Holden’s poison had finally reached its most dangerous stage. This was no longer an ordinary fever. My body was beginning to shut down completely.

My blood felt thick and heavy, as though wet concrete were flowing through my veins instead of blood. The unnatural heat burning inside me had become so intense that my muscles could no longer move properly.

It felt as though the heat were burning through my nerves, destroying my body’s ability to respond.

I tried to move. I begged my arms and legs to obey me, but they wouldn’t listen.

Every command my brain sent to my body disappeared beneath an overwhelming wave of weakness.

I couldn’t fight.

I couldn’t run.

I could barely even lift my head.

And with three furious Alphas attacking Callan just a few feet away, I lay helpless in the mud, unable to do anything but struggle to stay conscious.

Get up, I begged myself, biting my tongue until warm blood flooded my mouth. Get up, you coward.

I managed to drag myself exactly two feet toward the yew bushes when a heavy, mud-caked boot slammed down directly onto the hem of my military coat.

"Not so fast, little prince," a thick, slurred voice panted.

It was the third lord. He had slipped past Callan’s flashing broadsword while the Crown Prince was busy butchering his two companions.

Before I could even turn my head, a massive hand twisted into the collar of my coat. I was violently yanked backward, my spine scraping brutally across the jagged gravel. I kicked out instinctively, my heavy boot connecting with the man’s kneecap, but the strike was sluggish, completely devoid of the sharp precision I had spent ten years perfecting.

He didn't even flinch. He dropped his entire body weight over me, pinning my hips to the frozen earth.

The stench of him was nauseating stale wine, sour sweat, and the sharp, rotten-meat scent of an undisciplined Alpha driven into a mindless frenzy. It made my stomach violently heave, a repulsive contrast to the clean, intoxicating frost of Callan or the deep earth of Stirling.

"Let go of me!"

I screamed, twisting my torso frantically. I brought my hand up, burying my cracked fingernails deep into the side of his neck. I felt skin peel away under my grip.

He howled, but the pain only seemed to enrage him. He backhanded me across the jaw.

The strike snapped my head to the side, my ear ringing with a high, piercing whine.

And then, the true horror began.

My body stopped fighting him. The Omega biology that I had suppressed for a decade violently rebelled against my own mind. As the lord’s massive hands pinned my shoulders down, a sick, heavy wave of submission crashed through my nervous system. The heat inside me was boiling my organs alive, and my traitorous biology knew exactly what it needed to survive: an Alpha’s bite.

It didn't care that this man was a monster. It didn't care that he was going to tear me apart. It only cared about the mating bond that would finally break the blistering fever.

No, my mind shrieked, a desperate, weeping voice trapped inside a failing vessel.

No, don't stop. Keep fighting!

But my muscles went slack. A pathetic, agonizingly sweet whimper vibrated in my chest.

The lord heard it. His crimson eyes dilated until they were almost pitch black. A sickening, victorious sneer twisted his blood-smeared face.

"There it is," he rasped, his hot, sour breath ghosting over my chin. "There’s the little bitch hiding underneath."

He grabbed the heavy lapels of my dark blue military coat. The garment tailored to project the unyielding, masculine authority of the Imperial House was nothing but a cage. With a violent, two handed jerk, he ripped the fabric apart.

Thick wool and silk tore with a loud, vicious shriek. The heavy brass buttons snapped off, flying into the mud. He didn't stop there. He dug his thick fingers into the remnants of my ruined linen bindings and the soaked cotton of my undershirt, tearing them down the center.

The freezing rain slammed directly against my bare chest and collarbones, but the cold didn't register. All I could feel was the agonizing, phantom burn of his gaze completely devouring my exposed skin. He pinned both of my wrists above my head with one massive, crushing hand.

"Hold still," he groaned, his jaw physically unhinging. His canines lengthened, sliding down past his bottom lip, sharp and gleaming in the dim light of the storm. He lowered his face, aiming directly for the frantic, beating pulse at the crook of my neck.

I closed my eyes. A single, scalding tear leaked through my lashes, mixing with the freezing rain.

I waited for the tearing of flesh. I waited for the venom to hit my bloodstream.

Squelch.

The sickening sound of a blade burying itself into wet meat echoed right next to my ear.

The lord’s entire body went rigid. The crushing pressure on my wrists vanished instantly. Hot, thick blood sprayed across my cheek, violently contrasting with the cold rain.

Without a single sound, the massive man was violently jerked backward, lifted entirely off my body as if he weighed absolutely nothing, and tossed into the center of the fountain like a piece of discarded garbage.

I lay in the mud, my chest heaving, my ripped coat hanging off my shoulders, exposing my skin to the storm. My lungs pulled in desperate, ragged gasps of air.

Callan.

I forced my heavy eyelids open, looking up through the torrential downpour, expecting to see the Crown Prince extending a hand, expecting to see the disciplined, aristocratic heir who had sworn to protect his little brother but the man standing over me was not my savior.

Callan stood perfectly still, his broadsword dripping thick, dark blood onto the gravel. The other two lords were dead, their bodies torn apart in the shadows behind him. He had butchered them but as Callan looked down at me, he didn't sheathe his weapon. He didn't offer me his cloak.

He dropped the sword. It clattered uselessly against the stone.

Slowly, the Crown Prince fell to his knees directly between my legs. His massive hands reached down, but not to help me up. His fingers wrapped around my bare thighs, gripping my skin so tight it bruised, pulling my hips flush against his knees.

"Callan..." I whispered, my voice trembling with a brand new, completely suffocating terror.

He didn't hear me. His chest heaved with violent, ragged breaths. His eyes were entirely consumed by the glowing, feral crimson of an Alpha pushed completely over the edge. The heavy scent of my heat, combined with the blood of the men he had just killed to keep me, had shattered the very last chain holding his sanity together.

He leaned over my paralyzed body, his own canines fully extended, staring down at my exposed, bared throat with the exact same starving, predatory hunger as the monsters he had just slaughtered.