Page 70 of Forbidden Wolf

Dean nodded once. “I’ll bypass the system to erase all the computers. Castus has a system in place to destroy everything within minutes.”

“Do it. All my pilots are already heading to their units. My wolves know to move to them after the first wave. We’ve lost enough lives.”

Levi didn’t wait for a reply. He gripped my arm and propelled us from the room.

“Do you need to get anything before we go?” He stared down at me in the corridor.

“I only have a few items in my room.”

“Let’s go.”

The fighting echoed in the distance as we ran down the corridor. I had few possessions, but what I had was precious to me. I shoved them into a backpack as Levi watched from the door, his arms folded across his wide chest. I lost myself in collecting my items and jumped when his hand covered mine. In it was the crystal he gave me all those years ago, a simple keepsake that I carried with me everywhere.

“You kept it.” His breath fanned the side of my face, his body heat radiating into me.

“Our memories are all that kept me going some days,” I confessed.

His thumb caressed the side of my hand. “I know, baby, believe me, I know.”

He released my hand and returned to his sentinel position at the door.

One moment it felt like he would scorch me with the look in his eyes, the next he was so remote that I didn’t think I would be able to reach him. Everything that remained in my room was nothing more than military issued uniforms. One tiny bag carried my entire life’s memories in it.

“Ready?” Levi asked from the doorway, his attention on whatever was happening outside.

“Yeah, all good.” There was no explanation for the butterflies beating against my stomach wall. This was Levi, the same man I shared all my hope and dreams with, the same wolf who found me when I was critically injured. However, the dynamics had changed. He was a leader, an alpha to his people, and I was nothing more than a vampire without a home.

“My pilots are in position and the hellspawn numbers are thinning out. We’re going right now.” He grabbed my hand, his stride longer than mine as we weaved our way through the corridors of the castle toward the transport area.

Hellspawn crawled down the wall as we arrived at an archway that took us toward the entrance hall. Their red and black bodies contorted and twisted to face us, crimson eyes boring into us. Neither of us possessed a weapon, unless we counted Levi’s wolf.

We turned into a corridor and halted. Our escape route had been sealed off by hellspawn. Their double rows of sharp, broken teeth opened and closed in a grotesque display of aggression. My stomach churned. Every helicopter had been told to leave and not wait for anyone. I frantically looked behind and in front of us in a desperate search of a way out. Panic seized my chest in a tight grip that made it difficult to breathe.

Levi pushed me behind him, taking a defensive pose in front of me. His fingers extended into claws and his canines lengthened as I sensed his wolf transformation starting. A noise behind us made him turn, his eyes glowing amber. Levi was terrifyingly striking, a mixture of man and beast in one perfect combination. His ferocious growl rumbled through the air, dust dislodging from the architraves. Black fur began to emerge through his skin as he prepared to attack.

Howls sounded in the distance, and the clatter of claws scrabbling on the stone floors heralded the arrival of wolves. Their hackles rose on their necks, their amber gazes moving between Levi and the hellspawn. They prowled forward together with their heads lowered and their muzzles pulled back in a sneer.

Levi pounced and brought a hellspawn down from the wall onto the floor, his claws digging into its flesh and his powerful jaw tearing at its throat. He grasped the head and rapidly turned it, the crack telling me bones had been broken. With a roar, Levi tore the head from the torso with his bare hands.

Blood dripped down Levi’s jaw as he stood to face a humanoid hellspawn. He wiped away the blood with the back of his hand. Every eye in the room cut in his direction.

“Let us pass and no more of you have to die,” he said. “I will rip you apart limb from limb.”

Their attention moved to me, their red eyes boring deep into my soul. My heart stumbled over its beat.

They were here for me.

One hellspawn crawled across the floor. Its long spindly fingers reached toward me. Levi stamped on the hand, pinning it to the floor.

“Tasha is mine,” Levi hissed. “No one touches her but me.”

The hellspawn started gnawing at its arm, as if it could chew through it to escape.

My nose wrinkled in disgust and I grabbed Levi’s hand because the room was beginning to close in around me. The heat from the hellspawn’s auras were making me nauseous, the room moving in and out of focus.

More wolves arrived, this time on two legs and holding blasters. One threw a weapon to Levi, who caught it mid-air. Another hellspawn jumped toward us. The wolves lost no time in shooting everything that moved until nothing remained.

“Everyone to the transport,” Levi commanded, dragging me along beside him.

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