LIGHT BENEATH MY PALMS

Tyra's POV

My whole body was still shaking from the sight of Alaric's blood when a blade suddenly came whistling out of the dark toward his back.

“Alaric!” I yelled in horror. There was no way he would be able to dodge the weapon in time. 

Before any of us could react, Osric was there to meet it. He deflected the strike meant for his brother's spine.

He shoved the opponent back so hard the man stumbled into the brush. Then he grabbed the man by the throat and slammed him into a tree so hard that the bark split down the middle.

"Still slow, Ricky," he teased over his shoulder breathlessly. “What would you do without me?”

"Shut up," Alaric fired back, then drove his fist into the next man's chest hard enough to send him sprawling across the clearing.

I crawled backward until my spine hit the rough bark of a tree, pressing one trembling hand flat against the cold earth just to remind myself it was still there. 

My heart was pounding so hard it hurt, and the thick, metallic scent of blood filled my nose until I could taste it at the back of my throat.

I could barely follow what was happening. The fight was nothing but flashes of moonlight and snarls and the sickening thud of bodies hitting the ground, and through all of it, one stupid question kept circling in my head.

Why weren't they shifting?

Their wolves were right there. I could see them burning in the gold of their eyes, their shifted claws, and rippling beneath their skin with every blow. Yet both of them held themselves at the very edge of the change, fighting with fists and claws in their human forms like something was stopping them from going any further. 

Whatever the reason, they were frighteningly good at it, far better than I ever would have imagined two pampered Alpha heirs could be.

Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the masked figures broke apart and fled, scattering into the trees like smoke.

Osric lunged and caught one of them before he could get away, locking an arm around his throat and dragging him back into the clearing. With his free hand, he ripped the mask from the man's face.

I don't know what I had expected to see underneath, but it wasn't this. 

He was young, barely older than a teenager, with an ordinary face, a split lip and blood streaming down his temple. He looked like any boy I might have walked past on a street in the city.

He gasped for air, his wide eyes darting between the twins. Then, right in front of us, his whole body convulsed. His eyes rolled back in his head, black veins spread up his throat like ink bleeding through paper, and he went completely limp in Osric's arms.

I stared at him, horrified. "Is he dead?" I whispered.

Osric lowered him to the ground and crouched to press two fingers against his neck. After a long moment, he looked up, his face grim.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "He's gone."

Alaric's eyes narrowed on the body. "It's a binding curse," he said in a flat, cold voice. "They're spelled to die before they can be made to talk."

Osric rose and crossed to me in three long strides. He dropped to his knees in the dirt and cradled my face in both hands, his thumbs sweeping across my cheeks while his eyes searched every inch of me for injuries.

"Are you okay?" he asked urgently, his voice rough with fear. "Tyra, look at me. Are you hurt?"

"Y-yeah, I'm fine," I stammered, though my teeth were chattering so hard I could barely get the words out. "Who the hell were they?"

"I don't know," Alaric ground out.

He said it a little too quickly, and he didn't look at me when he said it. I thought of the note in his pocket, of the way his nostrils had flared when he smelled it and of the flicker of recognition I had seen in his eyes, and a cold knot formed in my stomach.

"They're definitely not pack," he went on, scanning the dark trees around us, "and they're trained. Whoever sent them doesn't want any answers left behind."

His gaze dropped to my hands, and he went very still. "You're bleeding," he said sharply.

Dazed, I looked down at my palms. They were stained red all the way to the wrists, and I stared at them for a long moment before I understood.

"It's not mine," I whispered, and then I looked up at the dark, wet stain soaking his sleeve. "It's yours."

"It's a scratch," he muttered dismissively.

Osric lifted his head suddenly, his nostrils flaring. "There's more blood," he said, turning toward the woods behind us. "Someone else was here, someone from the pack."

We followed the scent deeper into the trees, walking with Osric in front and Alaric behind me, until we found him.

He was one of the estate guards, lying on his back in a tangle of roots with his uniform torn open and blood pooling beneath him from a long, jagged wound across his abdomen. He couldn't have been older than twenty.

I dropped to my knees beside him before either of the twins could stop me and pressed both hands hard against the wound, the way I had been trained to in every first aid course I had ever taken.

"Don't move," I told him quickly, my voice shaking. "You'll only make it worse."

His eyes fluttered open, glassy and unfocused. "They came out of nowhere," he groaned weakly. "They kept saying… erase her…"

Alaric knelt on the other side of him, his jaw tight as he studied the wound. 

"He's lost too much blood," he said grimly, "Those blades were most likely poisoned because he isn’t healing." 

He looked up at me, and his voice dropped. "He won't make it, Tyra."

I shook my head furiously, pressing harder even as the warm blood seeped up between my fingers.

"He looks so young," I whispered, and the tears I had been holding back finally spilled down my cheeks. "He's dying because of me. They were here for me, and he got in their way."

"This is not your fault," Osric said firmly, his hand closing over my shoulder. "Do you hear me? None of this is your fault."

Before I could answer, a twig snapped somewhere in the darkness behind us, followed by the heavy crunch of footsteps.

The twins were on their feet instantly, their bodies tensed for another fight and their glowing eyes sweeping the trees.

I didn't move. I couldn't. I knelt there in the dirt with my hands pressed against a dying boy's stomach, whimpering and begging silently to anyone who might be listening to please, please let him live.

I jostled when a faint warmth pulsed in my palms, and right beneath my collarbone, that strange second heartbeat thudded once, hard and deep, like something waking up. 

Suddenly, a soft, silvery glow spread from my fingers across the guard's torn flesh, so faint that at first I thought I had imagined it.

My breath caught in my throat, and I jerked back so fast I nearly fell.

As quickly as it had come, the glow vanished.

The guard went still, and for one horrible second, I thought I had killed him. 

Then  his chest started rising and falling, slow and steady and even, and beneath the blood, the edges of the wound began to close, little by little, right in front of my eyes.

My head snapped to the twins, alarming blaring through me. But they had not seen. 

I stared down at my shaking, bloodstained hands. What the fuck just happened??