Chapter 35

CYRUS

I took one look at her terrified eyes, at the way she wasn't even struggling to break out of the mans arms when she should have been, at the way she couldn't seem to look away from me even at a situation like this, and knew that it was done.

She was seeing who I truly was. The beast. And she was finding it hard to believe her own eyes.

The leader, who had his hand over her mouth, whistled long and low as his eyes roved over her. "A human. Who would have thought?"

The assholes raining blows on me had already ceased at this point, watching the whole scene with fascination. They hauled me onto my feet and kept a firm hold on me to ensure I couldn't break free. Each of them held my hands, positioned on both sides of me and they couldn't have been merciful enough to give my back to Avery and the asshole. They held me so that I was facing them.

Her eyes tracked the new changes on my body. The elongated limbs, claws, hairs that weren't present before, and the fangs that protruded out of my mouth. The hair that ran down the sides of my face, some parts of my back, and my legs. There was no mistaking the terror in her eyes.

I had seen a lot of movies on how they portrayed werewolves. How when they changed, they shed their human form completely and turned into the actual beast itself-the wolf. But it wasn't actually like that. We were still human, at least in shape, the only difference was that the image of the beast flickered over us when we turned, giving us heightened features, and was enough to enable a person identify the species that we were.

That image of the beast was what Avery was seeing right now. And she was terrified of it.

But I had expected this to be her reaction, hadn't I?

I smelled her fear and her surprise along with a huge dose of disbelief that what she was seeing couldn't be real. She was in shock.

And another surprising thing? I had never been able to read her like this before. Fear, surprise, happiness, doubt, they were very obvious feelings and they were quite easy to pick up with my naturally heightened senses. Right now, however, I could tell what she was feeling and why she was feeling it. Not completely, but a good percentage of why she was feeling what she was feeling.

What the fuck was happening?

"Care to tell me what a human is doing in your house, Cyrus?"

"Let her go." I grated. I didnt talk much when I was in this form. It was hard to speak when all the beast did in this state was to fight.

My beastly voice had Avery taking a little step back into the person restraining her. I couldnt explain what it did to me to know that she would rather seek the person restraining her for protection, than me.

"Thats not what I asked, Cyrus." The idiot-I wondered why he hadnt changed into his lykae form yet-turned to her, "Or maybe I'll ask her instead."

He removed his hand from her mouth, sliding it down to her shoulder to hold her firmly against him. The difference between them had my blood boiling over again. She was small where he was big. Fragile and pale where he was big and full of evil intentions. I hated his hand on her skin, hated his presence anywhere near her.

"What are you doing with this lykae, sweet thing?"

I didnt expect Avery to speak, but she did. I should have known better. She was stronger than I gave her credit for. After all, she had been attacked before and didnt even act it.

"L-l-lykae?" She stammered.

"Yes." The man took one look at the genuine confusion on her face, the anger and wariness on mine, and did the math. "Oh. You dont know what he is."

I hated how he said 'what' and not 'who'. Like I was a thing.

"I'll tell you what he is." He grinned evilly, all too happy to telll her. "He's a wolf. Well, the actual word is lykae, but what's the difference really? They have the same the same character traits. Cunning, calculative, tricky to a fault and you, my dear, have just seen the tricky side."

My heart was slamming against my ribcage, watching the whole thing happen in front of me like it was an out of body experience. I couldnt believe that I was watching my relationship with Avery-a relationship that we hadnt even had the luxury of starting because of everything we had been going through-die right in front of my eyes, and there was nothing I could do about it.

"He tricked you into believing he was human, right? The look on your face confirms this." He threw his head back and laughed, absolutely delighted. When he turned to me, he shook his head. "A human, Cyrus? This is a new low, even for you."

I was pissed. My body was slack, my expression neutral as I took everything in. There was no willing the beast back in now that it was already out. I couldnt because the fight wasnt over, and it knew that too. So even if I forced it to retreat, it wouldn't go down without a fight.

Anger ate at my insides. Avery was hating me more with every second that passed and it showed on her face. She wasnt even trying to run away from the man for fucks sake.

A small voice inside my head chided me. Why would she?

To be honest, everything he had said was the truth. I was a lykae and I guess we were tricky. Even if I hadnt flat out lied to her that I was a human, I hadnt said anything about the topic and I hadnt expected her to think anything else. There was absolutely no way she would have suspected when she didnt know that a whole other world existed outside the world she knew. Humans didnt. And the ones that had found out one way or another, always had their memories wiped out by witches.

"What are we going to do with her now?" The leader mused. "We're taking you with us, but we can't take her. She's just going to be an extra baggage. An inconvenience we can't afford. Most importantly, the Alpha didnt make any requirements for her."

A growl almost ripped out of my chest when he slowly produced the knife he had been holding from his pocket and lifted it to her neck. It was only then that she started to struggle against him, and I was suddenly sick with fear for her. If she struggled too much, the knife could cut into her skin.

Blood loss would slowly kill an immortal in a day. A human could die within minutes.

My body was slack, my muscles languid. My expression was almost one of boredom as I watched everything happening. They were probably wondering why I wasnt reacting. Probably thinking that she didnt mean much to me after all, seeing as I wasnt showing any reaction. They expected me to have sprung into action already. Because that was the exact thing the leader would have done. Little did they know that I was actually preparing for attack.

The two assholes holding me definitely hadnt been expecting me to break out of their hold, which was why it shocked them when I did and the three seconds it took them to react was more than enough for me to kick their legs out from under them.

One of them was pretty quick and he flew to his feet in record time, but I was already prepared and aimed a blow to his stomach, targeting some vital organs. The other man took a cheap shot at my chest and the one that I returned to him, did more damage.

Avery screamed and I turned around immediately, forgetting about the assholes I was fighting. The leader had positioned the knife against her throat and judging from the little drop of scarlet I saw sliding down her neck, I knew that the knife had dug in.

Taking advantage of the distraction, the men restrained me again. They dragged me backwards, but I didnt even care.

My heart was hammering itself into a heart attack. My instincts came to life.

The words were loud and clear in my head.

-Yours-

My vision turned black.

-He plans to harm your mate. Punish him.-

The words couldnt be clearer.

Avery was my mate.