Chapter 38

Elouera

He was going to bite me.

The thought hit me, and I knew there was no escaping it. I felt sick just thinking about what was about to happen. The freezing rain kept falling on us, washing the blood off Callan’s silver medals. But the Crown Prince didn’t even blink. He stood there in the rain as if the cold didn’t bother him at all.

His strong legs trapped my hips, pinning me to the wet gravel. His black-gloved hands held my bare legs tightly, and his thumbs dug painfully into the skin near my knees.

There was no love or kindness in his touch. He held me like I belonged to him. He had just killed several men, and now it was clear he wasn't going to let me go.

The fever burning through my body grew worse. My blood felt like it was on fire, and I couldn't control myself. My back lifted off the mud as my body reacted to the pain. My torn coat slipped farther down my shoulders, leaving the ripped cloth wrapped around my chest exposed to the freezing air.

Callan shook and let out a rough breath.

"Callan, please," I begged, my voice breaking as tears ran down my face. I hated how weak I sounded, but I didn't know what else to do. "Please, it's me. It's Elouera. Look at me.”

He lowered his head until his sharp teeth touched the side of my throat. I trembled as his warm breath brushed against my wet skin.

"Mine," he growled.

His voice sounded strange, more like an animal than a human. The deep sound sent fear through my whole body.

He wasn't acting like my brother anymore. He wasn't the cold, well-behaved prince who had spent twenty-five years learning how to control himself. Whatever control he had was gone. The scent coming from my body was driving him mad, and in less than ten minutes, it had broken through everything he had been taught to control his instincts.

My body just gave up. That sickening instinct took over, and my head dropped back into the freezing mud, leaving my neck completely exposed.

​I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the pain waiting for his teeth to tear into my skin and trap me with a man I could never love.

​Then, a massive crack cut through the storm.

​It wasn’t thunder. It sounded like stone walls snapping under heavy pressure.

​Callan froze, his teeth hovering a hair’s breadth from my skin. A harsh growl tore out of him, his red eyes darting up toward the high walls of the East Wing overlooking the maze.

​I forced my eyes open.

Through the heavy rain, I saw a huge shadow move away from the stone railing high above us.

The man didn't jump. He simply dropped.

He fell through the darkness, his long coat whipping in the wind. Then he crashed into the middle of the fountain courtyard with a loud bang.

The ground shook beneath my back. The stone floor broke apart under him, sending pieces of stone, mud, and water flying in every direction.

Callan let go of my legs at once. It was as if the crash had brought him back to his senses. He grabbed his sword from the mud and stood up to his full height. Then he moved in front of me, keeping his body between me and the deep hole in the broken stone.

Slowly, the dust and rain began to clear.

A man stood up from the middle of the broken ground.

My heart stopped.

Commander Jace Corowa.

He was the undisputed apex predator of the Vanguard. The man who had spent the last three years turning my military academy training into a living, breathing hell. He was a ruthless, unforgiving bastard from the outer colonies, a man who possessed no royal blood but commanded the absolute terror of the entire imperial army. He had always been cold. Untouchable. A wall of solid, bruised iron that I had thrown myself against time and time again just to prove I belonged in the academy.

He stood up, rolling his broad, massive shoulders. He didn't carry a sword. He didn't wear the ornate armor of the royal guard. He wore entirely pitch-black tactical gear, strapped with leather and steel, completely soaked through by the storm.

And then, he looked up.

Callan’s eyes were glowing crimson, the universal biological marker of an Alpha driven completely mad by heat.

But Jace’s eyes...

They weren't red. They were pitch, suffocating black. The entire iris and sclera had been swallowed by a dark, terrifying void. It wasn't the mindless frenzy of a rabid dog. It was the absolute, lethal rage of a fully conscious executioner.

Callan roared, a deafening sound that shook the high hedges, and lunged.

The Crown Prince swung his broadsword in a lethal, horizontal arc meant to cleave a man entirely in half. It was a strike that had killed three lords not five minutes ago.

Jace didn't even draw a weapon.

He stepped inside the arc of the blade with terrifying, unnatural speed. His massive hand shot out, his thick, calloused fingers wrapping violently around Callan’s wrist. I heard the sickening pop of a dislocated joint over the crash of the rain.

Callan didn't even have time to scream.

Jace turned his body and used Callan’s own strength against him. He drove his elbow straight into the middle of Callan’s chest armor. The metal caved in from the force of the blow.

Callan’s feet left the ground. He flew backward, crashed through a thick wall of blackthorn bushes, and disappeared into the dark maze.

He didn't get up again.

The courtyard fell silent, except for the heavy rain pouring down.

I lay helpless in the mud, unable to move because of the poison in my body. My chest rose and fell as I struggled to breathe. My torn clothes barely covered me, and my bruised skin shook in the cold.

The scent of my heat still filled the air. It was so strong that it could drive any man who caught it out of his mind.

Jace didn't even look toward the place where he had thrown the Crown Prince.

He slowly turned his head and looked straight at me with his cold, black eyes.

My breath caught in my throat.

This was it. Callan had lost control of himself, but Jace was far worse. He hated me. For three years, he had beaten me during training, called me weak, and told me I was a useless excuse for a prince.

Now he knew the truth.

He could see my torn clothes. He could see the bindings around my chest. And he could smell the Omega scent coming from my body.

He took a slow step toward me. His heavy boots crushed the broken pieces of stone beneath his feet.

"Don't," I begged, crawling backward until my back hit the brick wall of the fountain. "Please, Commander. Please don't touch me."

He kept coming. When he reached me, he lowered himself onto one knee in the cold mud.

He was so big that he blocked the rain from reaching me. His shadow covered my body. A strong scent came from him, something like burnt wood, cedar, and wet earth. It filled my nose and made my head spin. I had never smelled anything so powerful or frightening before.

Once again, my body refused to obey me. My hips moved slightly toward him, drawn to the heat coming from his chest, even though I didn't want them to.

Jace stared down at me. His jaw tightened so hard that I thought he might break his teeth.

His black eyes moved over the dark bruises Callan had left on my legs. Then his gaze moved up my pale, trembling stomach before stopping at the wet, torn cloth covering my breasts.

He reached for me.

I flinched and closed my eyes, waiting for him to grab me roughly. Jace had always hated me, and I was sure he was about to hurt me.

But he didn't.

Instead, I felt something warm and heavy settle over my shoulders.

I opened my eyes in shock. Jace had taken off his coat and wrapped it around me, covering my chest and protecting me from the cold rain. He pulled it tightly around my neck, making sure I was covered.

His large hands stayed on the collar of the coat for a moment. His knuckles brushed against my cold skin, but he didn't hurt me.

His touch was so gentle that I could hardly believe it was the same man who had spent years treating me so harshly.

He leaned closer, stopping just inches from my face. The frightening darkness in his eyes slowly faded, and his familiar hazel eyes looked back at me.

"I told you this on the day you joined my unit, Elouera," Jace whispered. His voice was rough, and his words sent a shiver through me.

He didn't call me Elian. He called me by my real name. The name I had kept hidden for ten years.

He gently moved a wet strand of hair away from my cold face. His thumb rested near the corner of my mouth.

"I told you I would kill any man who laid a hand on you. Did you really think I didn't know who you were?”