He is mine

I couldn't look up, but I felt it. The whole feeling of the training yard disappeared. The air emptied out, replaced by a heavy, scary force that made every single Alpha in the yard fall to their knees without meaning to.

Every Alpha except Torin. He was too busy wanting to hurt someone.

"Lick my boots clean, Silvermoon trash," Torin said, lifting the heavy wooden sword high above his head, pointing it right at my head. "Or I'll crack your head open."

I looked up at him. My eyes couldn't focus, the fever burning so hot my skin felt like it was melting. I was going to die here, in the mud, a nobody.

As I watched the sword coming down, nineteen years of hidden anger finally broke open. They had taken my home. They had chained me in the dark. They had treated me like garbage every single day of my life.

"No," I whispered, my voice rough and without a single drop of fear. I lifted my chin and looked straight into Torin's wide, shocked eyes.

Torin let out a roar of pure anger and swung the heavy wooden blade down as hard as he could.

I closed my eyes.

A sound like a giant monster tore through the yard.

The sword never hit me.

A rush of wind hit my face, smelling of dark pine, rain, and a terrifyingly strong power.

Crack. Torin let out a high, painful scream so loud it hurt my ears.

I opened my eyes, blinking through the blur of my fever.

Cillian Vane was standing over me.

He had jumped straight down from the very tall balcony. His chest was heaving, his eyes burning with a bright, scary gold. One of his big hands was wrapped around Torin's throat, holding the Alpha up off the ground.

In Cillian's other hand was Torin's arm. It bent all the way the wrong way, the bone broken and poking out through the skin.

"He is mine," Cillian's voice rumbled, a low whisper that reached every corner of the yard. "If any of you so much as look at him again, I will peel the skin from your bodies while you are still breathing."

Cillian threw Torin halfway across the yard like a broken toy. Torin hit the dirt and didn't move.

The yard went so quiet you could hear a pin drop. A hundred mean, tough fighters pushed their faces into the mud, too scared to even breathe.

Cillian turned to me.

I shook hard, my rough shirt soaked in freezing water and mud. I tried to crawl away, scared of the burning anger in his golden eyes, but my body finally gave up. The fever, the pain, the sickness from no pills — it all hit me at once.

My arms gave out and I fell forward into the dirt.

Before I hit the ground, Cillian caught me.

His big arms wrapped around my waist and shoulders, pulling me right against his broad, burning-hot chest. The moment my skin touched his, a bolt like lightning shot straight through my whole body.

I gasped, my weak hands grabbing the front of his dark shirt.

Cillian went completely still. His face was buried in my neck, right where the freezing water had washed away the soap. His chest rose on a huge, shaking breath.

He breathed in deeply.

The smell of pure vanilla and crushed flowers filled the air between us, too strong to ignore. My body had finally given itself away.

Cillian held me tighter until my back curved. A dark, claiming growl came from deep in his chest, shaking right into my heart.

He knew. He finally, truly knew what I was. And as he lifted me up easily into his arms, I had no idea if he was saving me, or carrying me to my death.