Chapter thirty-four

“Excuse me?” I asked him, my face was hot with anger and I forced to hold back the wave of tears.

“I carved that handle for the sword. When I met Lucian’s mother, I was head over heels for her. There was nothing against two very important people to see each other. So, our relationship bloomed and one night, on the moon goddesses red moon, we made love without protection. And nine weeks later, our little boy came onto this planet,” He said in a low voice.

I turned around and opened the glass case.

“Don’t—”

I grabbed the sword and turned around, pointing it to his throat.

“You have damaged my baby’s natural birth rate. You’ve broken the man I love. And now, you want to damage not only my past, my future?”

The hot tears streamed down my cheeks and I nudged it against his air pipe.

“I caused that poor boy hell during the times I took care of him. After his mother left me and decided to go her way and never look back, this place changed. I changed. She was the only woman I ever loved.” He said dryly.

“Doesn’t change the fact that you broke him,” I whispered. The snarling of a wolf and roars of dragons broke through the silence.

He looked around him and smiled.

“Looks like the boy grew a pair of balls.”

And with that, I drew the sword back and sliced in a matter of seconds, catching him off guard.

Blood ran like rivers from the corpse and I looked at my shaky hand as the massive wolf broke through the doorway.

Bits of stone flew everywhere, and the wolf looked at me with wild eyes then at the corpse.

I expected him to rip to shreds because I knew how he wanted to kill his father himself.

But he just stood there like a lost pup.

He wined and I ran to him as he knelt lower. I placed my forehead on his and cried into his fur.

“I’m so sorry,” I cried.

“Don’t be sorry mate. You did the right thing. He can’t hurt us no more,” It was the voice of his dragon and I gripped his fur tighter.

I showed him the sword.

“He made it for your mother,” I whispered, and he muzzled me.

“We’re going to keep it. As a memory of what once was,” I said softly.

“We must go, Tessa,” he said, and I looked up at him.

“Climb on.”

I jumped on and he shook himself until I was comfortable and tightly on.

He ran through more walls and shards of stone and doors flew past me. I shut my eyes tightly until we’d stopped running.

The back of Lucian’s hair stood up and a loud, deep growl erupted from his chest. I looked up and over a hundred dragons had circled us overhead.

“We’re trapped,” I mumbled, and Lucian shook me off him.

“Not on my watch. Tessa, I need you to run. Take the sword for protection and go run home,” he said, and I shook my head viciously.

“No. I don’t want to go without you, Lucian. Don’t make me do this,” I begged. But the sad look in his eyes told me he was going to do this.

“Tessa, please. You are carrying our child. Please go home. I’ll be right behind you,” he assured me.

I swallowed and looked into the forest.

I turned back to him and our foreheads touched, my hand stroking his neck gently.

“Come back to me, Lucian. Come back to us.”

I turned into the forest and sprinted as a screech sliced through the skies.

I heard the stomach-turning sounds of flesh ripping and held my stomach.

The sounds began to fade away until I was left running in silence, the only sounds were my bare feet sprinting on the grass and crunching leaves.

I don’t know how long I had been running for, but my legs screamed in pain. I needed to rest.

“No, we can’t. Let me take control, we’ll make it to pack lands without stopping if we’re sprinting in wolf form. Please, Tessa,” My wolf begged. I leaned onto a tree and sunk down. I was too exhausted to fight and just nodded.

I felt my skin shifting and soon my wolf, Arcadia, lay on her side. She pushed up onto all fours and picked up the sword in her teeth.

She began at a steady pace, running swiftly through the trees and I decided to sink back into her mind.

Once I was far enough into her mind, I dozed off silently into unconsciousness.

“Tessa!”

I woke with a jolt and saw we’d slowed down, and the sun was rising over the trees above.

“What’s the matter?”

“There's a pack surrounding Mcgraw lands,” my wolf said, and I could smell the odd whiff in the air.

“Anyone we know?”

“No. But I bet it has something to do with the wolves Maxwell was talking about.”

“Can we find an opening? We have to warn them. If they don’t know already.”

“They’ve surrounded the place tightly. We have to wait it out,” she said.

“Let me take control. We need to take rest breaks and be a team.”

My wolf put the sword down and flexed her jaw from the ache. I slowly was given control and I felt as the bones shrunk, the hair sink back into skin.

When I opened my eyes, I saw the folded clothing from the castle on the grass.

Thank you for the clothes.

I slipped it on and as I turned a deep growl came from behind me.

A rogue.

“Tessa, run!”

I ran as fast as I could. Arcadia tried to take control, but she was too weak to do this run.

Loud, rough barks came from behind me and I felt like crying all over again.

I looked behind me and no one was there.

I suddenly became very aware of the thrumming of my heart during the quiet silence around me.

I closed my eyes and started counting slowly in my head, holding my hand to my heart.

One...

Two...

Three...

Fo—

A snapping of a branch had me shooting my eyes open and wildly looking around the black forest surrounding me. Branches rustled to my far left and I jumped, yelping in a high-pitched note.

A big arm wrapped protectively around my waist and a familiar scent enveloped me. I was instantly relieved, and the sense of security made its way around me.

I felt safe. My breathing was still uneven, and my heart still tried to regulate its beats.

“I’m here now. No need to feel unsafe. I’ll protect you; nothing will happen to you while I’m around. I promise”

His voice was deep and rough, sending warmth rushing through me and butterflies exploded in the pit of my stomach.

A noise in the distance made me snap back into reality and the arm around me tightened, bringing me further back against a hard chest.

My lip quivered and I turned around burying myself into the chest, fisting my hands in the soft cotton fabric. I yelped as a series of loud movements played out behind me. I squeezed my eyes shut, a stray tear trailing down my cheek.

Noticing my discomfort, the person holding me shifted before pressing my right ear against his heart and the arm that once held my waist came up and he held my ear closed.

The sound of metal made me realize what was about to happen and the ugly sounds became louder. I tightened my fists and squeezed my eyes as tight as they could go, trying my best to listen to the rhythm of the heart that beat loudly against my ear.

A few more seconds past and the sound of a gun went off made my ears ring, besides the fact that they were closed. The hand which was on my ear went to my waist rubbing small circles to soothe the fact that I’d soaked the fabric of the shirt and wrinkled it under my tight grip.

“Shhh…Everything will be okay sweetheart,” his voice seemed to calm the rapid beating against my ribcage and the fact that there were more than a dozen bodies lying behind me.

I looked up, avoiding the scene behind me, and gazed into the black orbs of the beast that everybody feared. The beast who’d saved me.

The beast who loved me.