Page 39 of Veradel
She pulls back and blinks, mouthing words I can’t make out. A gasp shoots from her lungs, and before I can register what’s happening, she’s throwing her dress back on and running off.
“Saskia!” I yell. In the blink of an eye, she’s fifty yards down the mountain.
“That’s it! Lucan, you’re a genius!” Her voice carries back, high-pitched, excited, and I know she isn’t going to stop.
Shifting, I bound after her. My body screams in protest, still stiff and aching.How the fuck am I a genius? What did I say?
Saskia’s reply is only a giddy,Yes, yes, yes,like she’s not even aware of me at the present moment.
Care to fill me in?
I thought you could read my mind,she teases.
It’s going a mile a minute, I complain,just like the speed of your legs.
And maybe the venom is going to my head, making me a little rusty. I can make out blood and needles. Some term I’ve never heard that must behealthcare related. She’s thinking about being a healer—or thinkinglikea healer. There’s nothing I can grasp onto.
I need to talk to Taika, Saskia says hurriedly before she’s back to chanting,Yes—yes—yes,with every enthusiastic footstep all the way back to the ghost town.
Taika’s there when we turn onto the dirt road—along with the entire pack, their anger pressing like lead against my mental block. Most of them stand as werewolves, a few rows deep, like a wall of resistance. As if they were preparing for an attack.
Saskia skids to a halt, her thrill quickly replaced with uneasiness.
Maybe I didn’t think this through,she tells me, and I hate the way her excitement—whatever the hell caused it—is so easily stifled.
I stalk around her until I’m standing in front of her, shielding her from the fury of the pack. Only Taika, Vivian, Soren, and Merrick, in the back, remain in their human forms. The rest are poised, lips curled, canines bared.
No. One. Will. Touch. You,I assure Saskia, lowering my mental block long enough for each of my words to land heavily into the minds of every single werewolf facing us. It’s not a suggestion. It’s an order from their alpha, which means they’ll have to fight me to try to overpower me before they lay a single paw on her.
Reluctantly, they shift one by one until I can’t hear the cacophony of their angry thoughts anymore.
Fucking Gabriel elbows his way to the front. I glance at Taika, who gives me a sorrowful grimace and raises his palms. “I didn’t tell them. The children saw you carrying Saskia into my clinic, and when the rest of the pack came to me for answers, they smelled the change.”
“Is it true then?” Gabriel’s chest heaves as he sets his sights on Saskia. “She’s really a vampire?”
I cross my arms. “She is, but it isn’t what you think.”
“She’s atraitor,” Gabriel snarls. “I knew it!”
Merrick and Soren grab him by the arms as soon as he takes a step forward. He thrashes to no avail, but his outburst gives others the courage to speak.
“Lucan trusts her, so we should too,” Ashe says from the back.
“If Lucan’s trusting monsters,” Kyra argues, shooting a glare at me, “then maybe he shouldn’t be our alpha anymore.”
My anger spikes when she shifts that glare to Saskia. I step forward, my muscles aching with restraint, and roll up my sleeves. “Go ahead and fight me for the position, then, Kyra. When you’re defeated, I’ll just remind you who therealenemy is.”
I point toward the Wall, and a few eyes flicker in that direction, warring expressions on all their faces. I get it. I really do. If I wasn’t so head over fucking heels for the woman behind me, I’d probably have reservations, too.
But no one hates the Guardians more than I do—no one’stried harder to break down that Wall than me—so they should know I don’t take her presence lightly.
In fact, I take her presence heavily. Like it’s the entirety of the world.
But Gabriel won’t let up. “Lookat her,” he snarls, still fighting to break free. “She’s their spawn.”
“And she’soursalvation!” I roar, so loudly that a flock of birds takes flight from the tree beside us.
Gabriel stops struggling and snorts. “You’re right, Kyra. He’s lost his touch as alpha.” He glances at Merrick and Soren, still holding him back. “If you value the rules of our pack, you’ll let me fucking challenge him. Right now.”
