Page 130 of The Night Prince

His essence overpowers me. It fills my hollow chest. It’s dark and cold and inhuman, and puts out the fire that burns within. I thought I had felt his emotions before, but they were nothing compared to this. I cannot breathe. I cannot move. I can feel nothing but him. I’m reminded of that well that he told me about, and I wonder now if there is a bottom to the darkness.

The wolf blazes, amber, in his eyes as he holds Alexander in his steely glare. “Get your hands off my mate.”

Chapter Fifty-Nine

My eyes meet Blake’s.

Something erupts inside me. The wild and dangerous thought I’ve been trying to cull spreads through my body and sets my soul aflame. My breaths come out fast and shallow.He came. He came. He came.I feel the whisper of his attention brush over me, even when he moves his gaze back to Alexander.

Alexander releases his grip on my chin. My head is a ballast. I can’t support it. It rolls onto my neck. My back is shredded. My shirt blood-drenched. It sticks to the welts that mar my skin, and every breath I take is excruciating.

A slow grin spreads across Alexander’s face. “I wondered if you would try and take her from me. Too bad you’re alone.”

Blake’s lips curve into a cold smile. “What makes you think I’m alone?”

“Hello, Alex.” A low, smooth voice comes from the entrance corridor to my left. Jack leans against the stand andwaves, a guard dead at his feet. His dark skin is wet from the rain, and it glints in the torchlight. He holds a bloody sword in one hand. “How have you been?”

“Long time no see.” A gruff voice, thick with the Northlands accent. Arran blocks the exit to my right, big arms folded across his chest, his one good eye focused on Alexander. Two guards are sprawled before him, hoods askew and necks twisted at unnatural angles.

A murmur fills the tiered seating. The cloaked people rise to their feet all around me.

“How nice. A family reunion.” Alexander turns on the spot, spreading his arms. “If we had Fenrir and Fara here, we’d have the whole pack back together.”

Jack shrugs. “They were otherwise engaged.”

“Get Fara’s name out of your filthy mouth,” growls Arran.

Alexander laughs. “Still pining for that bitch, I see. Too bad she rejected you.”

Whatever Arran growls in response fades into the background as Blake bends down and plucks something from the pocket of the guard at his feet. It glints in the torchlight as he tosses it to James a few feet away from him—it’s a key.

“No one you don’t trust leaves here alive,” says Blake quietly. “Wolf or man.”

They’re enemies, they despise one another, and I think James is going to say something unsavory to Blake. He nods. “Except for you, presumably,” he says under his breath.

Blake smiles coolly. “Except for me.”

James raises his shackled wrists and sticks the key into the lock of his collar as Alexander turns back to Blake. “You want her, Brother? Come and get—”

There’s a flicker of steel, a swish of blades, and something slices the darkness.

One of Blake’s daggers plunges into Alexander’s torso, the other in his inner thigh. He staggers back. He grips one of the knives and pulls it out, then slumps to his knees. Blood pumps quickly out of his wound and mixes with mine on the floor. He clamps the gash with one hand, while moving his other to the second dagger’s hilt and sliding it out with a feral groan.

He laughs. “You’re a fool, Brother. You can’t kill me.” His voice is hoarse as he glares at the stands. “Kill them all. Except the Princess. She is... mine.”

Chaos erupts in the amphitheater. The cloaked humans flood down the stands. James has passed the key around, and the Wolves are already freeing themselves and tossing their shackles aside. James is on his feet, roaring, as he strangles a blond man with his chain. He charges toward Claire.

Jack blocks the blade of one of the acolytes as it slices down toward one of the prisoners, before he pulls Ryan to his feet and sticks another sword in his hand.

The ground trembles, and I’m not sure if it’s because of the thunder of feet, or the beast that lurks beneath us.

Blake moves through the tide of blood and destruction toward me. He barely blinks as he unsheathes his sword and decapitates a man who gets in his way. He stabs a man who is helping Alexander in the face, and then smashes the Borderlands lord’s head with the base of the hilt. Alexander crumples into his own blood. Blake steps over him.

“Blake!” Arran tosses another set of keys toward his alpha. The guard who shackled me to the post is dead at his feet. Blake snatches them from the air and his scent of dark pine and poison engulfs me.

“Keep an eye on Alex. He can’t die or we’re fucked,” says Blake.

“Aye.” Arran powers toward the unconscious lord, slicing down a human in his path.

---