Chapter 81 HUNTED

Chapter 81 HUNTED
The world bled red and burned with something heavy.
It pressed in from all sides, dragged across stone, clung to movement so nothing stayed clean or still. His vision was warping at the edges, the night straining under the weight of the moon.
Only one thing mattered.
Her.
He hit the barrier at full force.
Magic flared, pressed back, coiled around him.
It shattered.
He moved through it.
Inside, chaos erupted as men rushed directly at him, attacking with desperation.
They stank of fear, and bodies hit stone, blood sprayed. The red thickened, fed him, drove him on to her.
The battlements opened before him. She stood still amid chaos. His nostrils flared as he breathed her earthy sweetness. Her scent wrapped around him, finally settling something deep in his chest since the moon had risen.
The rage that had filled him, that had clawed at his insides and demanded destruction, faltered for the first time.
His steps slowed.
“You are mine.”
She turned to face him.
“Do I know you?” she asked, her voice steady despite everything.
He moved closer and the red light caught along the edges of her skin, painting her in the same colour that filled his sight. Up close, he could see the small details, the way her hands had not quite relaxed, the way her body leaned forward instead of back, as though she refused to retreat from him.
He reached for her, the need rising fast, to take, to lift, to keep, and her hand caught his wrist.
Heat shot through him, and everything stopped.
“I can walk,” she said, her gaze holding his. “I’m not leaving without Faye and Maren.”
Without thought, his body yielded to her demand.
Her scent shifted, sharp with urgency. He followed her gaze to the two females far below, bound and kneeling.
Something in him locked onto them, already known.
His head turned slightly, the red haze flickering at the edges as his attention now dragged toward a tower. The smell inside hit hard, sour, thick, wrong. His body angled toward it without thought, drawn to it, pulled by something older, something that wanted to end what hid inside.
“Come,” she ordered, and through the blood-lit haze, he was already moving, following her. The tower forgotten.
He followed her through the castle, constantly scanning for threats. Everything that moved toward them slowed; everything that came too close fell.
She soon stood where the two women kneeled.
The executioner had fled. The scent of him scattered uselessly as she cut through the space,her claws flashing as chains gave way.
“Move,” she told them.
They rose trembling and clung to her, unsteady but alive. He stepped closer, placing himself between them and the rest of the world without needing to be told.
"He won't hurt you," she said, her words cutting through the haze and registering in his brain.
The tower loomed again nearby, built of stacked stone and arrogance. The moon flared brighter. His body pulsed with power and rage as a harsh, sour smell from inside the tower filled his senses. Instinctively, he turned toward it, ready to confront whatever hid within.
He slashed at the tower door with his claws, punching and splintering the wood apart. His growls echoed against the stone walls.
The man's fear spiked as the smell of urine inside clung to his nostrils.
His instincts urged him to end the man and destroy the tower.
Movement around him then. Soldiers appeared with weapons raised, fear buried beneath forced discipline.
And behind him, her.
The scent of the two women grew sharper as their panic rose. Their fear awakened something protective in him, stronger than his urge for violence.
And her. “Help me get them to safety.”
His beast relented, attention once again shifting away from the tower.
He lashed out, his claws slashing bone and blood at anyone who dared threaten them. The soldiers fell away under his assault.
He turned back, guiding them towards the safety of the outside.
Magic flickered through the air, thin now and strained, but the barrier that sealed the castle still stood. He could feel it, the way it tangled with his own power, the way it tried to hold and failed when he cut through it.
He advanced first, clearing obstacles from their path. His body cut down anything that stood between the group and the barrier. He stood inside the barrier's magic, letting it break and dissolve around him, as she and her friends slipped through quickly but carefully, never losing track of their route.
They broke through.
Outside, the night had not changed, but it felt different, the open space stretching wide, filled with the scent of men and horses and war.
And another scent, him.
He saw the way the man's eyes sought out his mate.
The brief pause. The flicker of something that did not belong to the night, something that cut deeper than anything physical.
Tension and rage coursed through his body.
He took a brief step towards him.
MINE, he growled in fury.
The man hesitated, knowing flooded through them both. Valen, the name came to him now.
His eyes shifted to another female who stood beside him, close enough to be seen as part of him.
His fury abated, but his body moved without thought, stepping closer to her, placing himself just slightly in front of her as though to block that line of sight.
Valen moved, then shifted. His intent was clear as every muscle exploded into a silver beast that roared in challenge to him.
The moon surged, and so did he.
A growl ripped from his chest, deeper now, answering, matching, ready...
He stepped forward.
One more step and he would tear into him.
Then she stopped them both in their tracks.
“No,” she said, her voice carrying across the distance, firm in a way that did not shake. “You’re with your betrothed now. I am getting my girls to safety.”
Her attention shifted back to him, to the two at her side, to the immediate, to survival.
“Horses,” she said, placing her hand on his arm, calming him.
He turned away from Valen, forgotten now, and found what they needed. The animals were restless but manageable, the urgency of the moment pushing everything forward. Her friends mounted, unsteadily, still shaken, still alive.
He belonged to the ground, to the run, to the hunt.
A dark shadow moved to her then, a presence that pressed against his awareness, not a threat, not something to fight, but something that existed alongside her in a way he understood without knowing how.
He circled them once, then twice.
Marking and claiming the space around them as theirs for this moment.
The red light still washed over everything, still pulsed at the edges of his sight, still fed the thing inside him that had not fully settled, but it no longer consumed him the way it had.
Not with her scent cutting through everything else.
He stopped in front of them.
“Leave, now,” he said, the words rough, dragged through a throat that was not built for speech in this form, but forced through anyway.
She nodded once, sharp, decisive, and then they were moving.
The horses surged forward, hooves striking hard against the ground as they broke away from the castle, from the battle, from everything that had led to this moment.
He ran beside them, protectively, constantly scanning the night for threats. Soldiers stepped aside as they passed, giving way.
The red world stretched out in front of them, the moon high and watching, its pull still there, still present, but no longer in control, not while she was within reach.
She was beside him, the girls ahead.
“We need to get the girls to safety,” I heard her say. “Let me lead.”
He could only grunt in reply, yet she seemed to understand.
The moon's light was waning, and the full red seemed to dim.
He could feel her eyes on him, her lack of fear.
“You seem so familiar, like I already know you. Is that why you helped us?”
I felt it then, tremors in the ground. I turned in the direction of the incoming threat.
She followed my line of sight, and I felt the shift in her.
“Are we being followed?”
Something moved in the dark behind them, they were being hunted.