Page 106 of Ava: Part Three

It felt like everything was in slow motion. Myles shoved the wolf away and started to turn. The vampire began to push himself forward. He was going to lose his brother. The despair was crushing as he desperately tried to pull off the impossible, shoving people out of the way to get to Myles.

And then, the next thing he knew, the vampire’s head was clamped in the jaws of an Alpha wolf. Jared. The sword dropped from the guard’s hand as Myles turned around to look at his unlikely saviour. But Jared dropped the vampire and carried on fighting.

He hadn’t even realised that the coward had joined the fight. And as he looked around, he saw the students and teachers weren’t just waiting to die. They were fighting. Miss Donovan and Penelope were protecting a group of Omegas. Coach Baxter had shifted and was fighting. Henderson was calling out instructions and fighting with his students.

They were working together.

Mr Patrick had been right. They weren’t alone.

‘Protect the Omegas,’ he told Myles.

When he looked back at Ava, she had shifted, and her frustration was evident. Then she lowered her head, raised her hackles and growled.

He knew that growl. The call of darkness. It made people tremble and fall to their knees. The call of an Alpha who had no equal.

He went to stand beside his mate and added his strength to hers. And the air shifted once again as the darkness descended on all of them.

Chapter 62

Ava’sfrustrationboiledover,and she told Samantha to get Julie and stay close to Myles and Derek. Then she shifted and lowered her head. All she wanted was to get to her father, but the guards were in her way.

Nyx growled. She hadn’t known Nyx long enough to know if it was a standard growl, but it felt different. It felt right. She could feel it in her whole body as Nyx took over again. And when Shadow came to stand beside her, and the growl came from deep within him, she felt the strength of their bond.

One by one, the people in front of them stopped and lowered their gazes, soldiers and students alike. It was not something she usually liked, but she understood her wolf now, and this was the only way they would get to her father. They had to show their dominance.

She felt something else. It was more than the darkness she felt in Nyx’s soul; it was all around them. She felt it the same way she felt the evil in the forest both times that she had gone in. It was the same darkness she felt when Mr Hansson was close. The same darkness she had felt in Claire and her friends. But it didn’t scare her as it had back then.

Because it was hers.

It was Zeke’s.

The sense of fear increased in the air. Not fear, terror. Icy, gut-twisting terror that filled her with dread. There was some commotion behind her and an increased tempo of heartbeats. Little whimpers and the sound of people sucking in their breaths. She turned around the same time Zeke did and saw them.

The forest creatures.

The purple-eyed monsters.

Monstrous beasts that were neither wolf nor man. In the broad daylight, she could see that her imagination had never done them any justice. They were terrifying. Patchy grey fur, scars all over their bodies, huge fangs dripping blood. They were different sizes but were all bigger than the wolves around them. The biggest were almost the same size as her. And at their feet, slowly slithering forward, were the giant snakes she had assumed were tree roots, discoloured and their black tongues flicking out.

Everyone moved out of their way as they slowly walked out of the forest, their heads lowered and growling as they assessed the situation.

Was this Hansson’s doing? These were his creatures; had he called them to finish her off? She could feel her anxiousness rise, but Nyx pushed it down and remained calm. They came out of the woods all up the road, pushing everyone back towards the residences almost as if they were herding them. She couldn’t fight against these things and the guards at the same time. Hansson was winning.

The road ahead started to clear.

‘What do we do?”

She heard Derek’s question and looked to see her group of friends holding steady while everyone else around them was retreating. Even Jared stood next to Alpha Diego, waiting for the next move.

‘I don’t think they’re going to hurt us,’ Zeke answered.

Ava looked back at the creatures and saw some of them start to sit on the edges of the road, lining up as the guards had done. The larger ones kept coming towards them, fearsome like an army from the depths of hell. How could Zeke think they wouldn’t hurt them? She’d had nightmares about them. They had tried to hurt her in the forest while she’d writhed in pain on the ground from the mental attacks. She still saw their gnarly limbs reaching for her when she closed her eyes.

But as they got closer, they lowered their gazes, and their body language changed. Almost as if they were submissive! They stopped right in front of them and didn’t make a move—just stopped.

‘What the hell is going on?’ she asked Zeke.

‘I think they cleared the obstacles in our way,’ he answered.

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