Page 105 of Ava: Part Three

Jared held him up as he struggled to breathe. He didn’t know anything about the Fae, but he’d assumed Mr Patrick would have been healing faster than he was.

“Iulia enhances his other magic, but his element is the air, and he’s stronger than me in this state,” Mr Patrick wheezed. “But I believe in you two. Go and save Roland.”

“Why didn’t you tell us you have a Fae in your corner?”

Zeke released Ava and shot to his feet, blocking her from the growling Alpha Diego.

“Why the hell was I going to do that?” he growled.

“You’ve doomed us all,” Diego said.

Movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye. He sensed the soldiers approaching them, following their leader’s orders.

Ava stood and wiped the tears on her face before she stood toe to toe with the councillor. He could feel her anger growing again as she snarled at the Alpha. Though Ava only reached his chest and she was stark naked, there was no denying what she was.

“We don’t have time for this bullshit, Diego. Pick your side,” Ava growled.

Ava didn’t flinch from his gaze or step back from the strength of the older wolf, even when Diego growled at her.

“Pick. A. Side. It’s now or never,” Ava growled again. “Are you going to fight me, or are you going to let me go and save my father?”

Diego looked back at Iulia and Andrei and then at Mr Patrick as he rose to his feet, still clutching his chest.

“Take them out of here,” he said to Mr Patrick.

Diego had chosen his side. He still wasn’t sure he could trust them, but Diego wasn’t faking his pain over Andrei.

“I need to regain some strength for that. The most I can do is a protective shield, but I don’t know how long that will last.”

“We don’t need long,” he growled, turning his attention to the Council soldiers.

Mr Patrick whispered something to Jared, who ran to pick up the bags that had dropped on the stage and took them over to Iulia and Diego’s body. Ava shifted first, not willing to waste another second. Diego shifted next. He had never seen the councillor in his wolf form, but he was surprised that Ava was now the same size as that beast and just as intimidating. He shifted and stood on the other side of Ava.

The guards were not even a little bit apprehensive. He knew it was their training. Any show of weakness was a death sentence, so they would still attack even if they were scared.

Shadow’s rage had morphed into something else entirely. There was nothing but bloodlust on his beast mind, yet it was more controlled. More focused.

Nyx lifted her head and howled; it was a call he felt to his core. The sound washed over him and made Shadow join in. Two howls in symphony. A call for war.

The three of them launched into the soldiers. He had never moved so fast and had never been more in sync with Shadow. He knew he was in a rage; he could feel it coursing through his body, but Shadow wasn’t attacking indiscriminately. It was only the soldiers he ripped through. Only the soldiers that screamed, the ones that forgot their training the moment they were faced with their death.

He could see Nyx doing the same. She was impressive. It was true what they said about war and sex because, amid all the bloodshed, he felt a rush at seeing his mate move like that. If they survived, he knew what he would be doing straight after.

As they got further down the road, dodging magic, wolf bites, and the vampires’ blink-of-an-eye attacks, he realised the guards had started fighting with the other students. So many guards blocked them from the sides and the top of the road that it looked inevitable that there would be a significant loss of life among the students.

There was a scream that he recognised that made him drop a lifeless soldier from his jaws to look in that direction.

Samantha. Ava’s Omega.

Ava was already moving in that direction, knocking guards out of the way with her massive body until she reached the wolf guard who had been about to clamp his jaws down on Samantha’s neck. The guard didn’t stand a chance; it was over very quickly.

Ava shifted to pull Samantha up, but he remained in his wolf form, guarding them against the chaos around them. There were just too many of them. They had already wasted so much time and energy fighting them that he feared they wouldn’t get to Hansson in time.

“We’re taking too long,” Ava said in frustration as she looked around her.

The academy had become a battlefield. He was no stranger to battles but had never fought such a formidable enemy. Ava’s first battle was a baptism of fire.

He was about to tell Ava to shift back and push forward when he saw Myles fighting a wolf guard not too far from them and a vampire guard lifting his silver sword to attack him from behind. He knew he wasn’t going to make it in time, and in the time it would take Myles to react, it would be too late, but he mind linked him anyway and started to run.

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