Page 64 of All's Fair in Lion and War
He shoved with all four feet and rolled, managing to get to his feet. His growl rattled loudly in his chest.
They circled like scavengers, looking for the weakness they could exploit.
His breath was coming in and out raggedly. He had scores of claw marks torn through his hide. They’d bitten and ripped out hunks of his mane, but hadn’t gotten a true grip on his neck anywhere. His legs burned like Col had breathed fire on them, but they still worked. They hadn’t managed to slice any tendons yet.
One moved forward and Saul swiped out a claw, slicing the idiot in the shoulder. The male went back to circling through the shadowed trees with his buddy. By now there were several other males also stalking through the darkness.
Saul’s time was melting away like a chunk of ice on the sidewalk in the summer.
Didn’t mean he wouldn’t take a few of them down with him.
He would.
And they knew it.
That’s why they were still circling. Still looking for that opening. But Saul had been fighting years longer than most of these warriors. His beast knew how to watch a group. Knew how to rotate his focus and watch as many of them as possible. Knew how—
“So you’re the Saul she called for? I thought you were taken care of at the bar, but dying here is even better. Now she gets to watch a second time.”
Saul swung his big head toward the voice and the hope he’d been fanning in his chest went out like a baby campfire in a rainstorm.
Whoosh.Gone.
Four warriors flanked him, each with a blazing torch in hand.
Rivian had Lorelei by the hair. Her arms were wrenched backward and out of place again, tightly secured to prevent her from shifting into her beast. But she wasn’t dead.
She was covered in enough blood she should’ve died twice over, but she wasn’t. She had color in her face. She had fight in her legs and was kicking at the snow every forced step toward him. She was angry and pissed and very much alive, but when he met her gaze he saw she was fucking scared to death.
“Shift and surrender to my warriors, or I take out my annoyance on her.” The male sliced Lorelei’s cheek with a clawed finger. Only the tips of his fingers had shifted and he was holding the partial shift with ease.
“Don’t you dare. You kill them all!” She shouted and writhed against the male holding her. He squeezed the arm he had around her neck a little tighter, stopping only when her body ceased fighting. She wasn’t unconscious, but she was struggling to stay upright.
He dragged her forward. “Where should I cut her next, Saul?”
Saul’s chest heaved. The sound of Lorelei’s heartbeat and ragged breaths were as loud as eruptions from the mountain on Exodus Day.
Rivian drew his claws over Lorelei’s stomach in a quick motion, ripping through the clothes all the way to her flesh. The movement sent blood spattering from his claws to the white snow.
Years of anger rode his shoulders. The vengeance he’d never been able to claim for his lost wife. It was all happening again, except this time he was going to be forced to watch it happen, not just find the aftermath.
None of the circling lions moved.
Saul took the moment of carelessness and charged.
But Rivian responded by driving his claws into Lorelei’s stomach. Her face went ashen and blood dripped from her mouth.
Saul tripped to a stop, shifted from his beast and threw himself at Rivian’s feet. “Please.” His tone was desperate, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t watch her die.
“Please,” Rivian repeated. He smiled a smile that said I’m-so-glad-her-pain-was-motivating. “I like that word.” He flexed his arm again, the one attached to the claws still inside Lorelei’s stomach.
She coughed and sputtered and cried.
Her pain ricocheted inside Saul’s heart like a stray bullet.
More blood flowed from her mouth and the wounds in her abdomen. Her clothes were already soaked with blood, but the snow around her feet darkened, ominously spreading like a black shroud.
He yanked his hand from her body and tossed her to the snow, right next to Saul.
