Chapter 34

CYRUS

I watched Avery run out of the kitchen, waited until she was successfully upstairs and out of the way of any possible danger before I stormed out into the living room.

At firsts when I heard the explosions, I knew that they had come from here. I had just tried to convince Avery that they weren't and I hadn't done a stellar job of that anyway, because she was no fool. She had been attacked before, and that was why she had been extra jumpy after hearing the explosions.

The fear in her eyes when she looked at me…

I didn't care how I was going to do it, or how long it would take me, but I was going to do everything within my power to make sure that I never saw it again. To make sure that she never felt fear like that again.

It was the fear in her eyes, the anger that some assholes had decided to ruin my progress, destroy what would have been a promising night with Avery, that had me storming out into the living room without fear of being attacked or killed.

I was prepared for a fight.

Four unfamiliar faces greeted me. They all had similar scents so it didn't take a genius to figure out that they were all lykae. And that pissed me off all over again.

One of them was sitting casually on my couch like I had invited him over for tea, while three stood few inches away from each other, regarding me silently. From the looks on their faces, they were expecting me. They had done that to get my attention and they had succeeded.

Now what? Fight?

I was more than ready. It had been too long since I went a good bout anyway.

"Going to cut to the chase and ask you what the fuck your plan is, because we both know the Alpha sent you."

They all looked surprised by my outburst. What? Had they expected me to pretend like I didn't know who they were?

"Since you already know who sent us, then you should know what the plan is." The audacious one sitting on my couch said, and I just now noticed that he had a knife in his hand. "And I'm assuming you know it's not to have dinner."

I didn't even grace his ass with a reply. Instead, I said, "Get the fuck out."

The idiot, not getting the memo that he was pissing me off-or maybe he did know and he was doing it on purpose-spoke again, "It seems like you're confused, so I'm going to tell you how this will go." He stood up slowly and I hated to admit it, but the fucker was quite tall and built as hell. "Theres two options. Its either you go with us, save us both from any unnecessary drama-because we all know that you're leaving here with us. Or you put up a fight and we beat you up and end up taking you with us anyway."

"What if I go with none?" I cocked a brow, mocking a look of concentration like I was actually thinking about it.

One of the three men laughed, but I didn't look at them. I kept my eyes on the one who, apparently, was the leader of the gang. I could see the other guys out the corner of my eye so I didn't have to give them my main attention. This guy-the asshole-looked like he was going to be a problem. And I was going to have to handle him with care.

"Cut the bullshit, Cyrus." He used my name and I wasn't even surprised. "The Alpha didn't specify if we needed to bring you dead or alive. Im sure your head would be a compensation if he wanted you alive anyway."

My beast stirred inside me, awakened at the smell of danger and the promise of blood. I let it simmer, let it pound against the cages. The build up on anticipation always made it come out stronger.

"Heads are going to be rolling, alright. But mine isn't going to be one of them. " I smirked, knowing that my next words were going to goad them into action, "Tell me, how does it feel running errands for the Alpha? And knowing that you're always going to run errands for him every single day of your miserable, worthless lives?" I cocked my head, "Come on, tell me. How does it feel knowing that you're always going to be the errand boy?"

As predicted, he flew at me and I dodged before the knife, which he had carefully positioned to dig into my stomach, could make contact with its target. He wasn't as discreet as he thought he was.

"Bringing a knife to a hand fight?" I tsked, "You're even more of a pussy than I assumed you were."

With a roar, he lunged at me again. And again, I dodged. My earlier assumptions of him were right. He was easily challenged, easily goaded into acting. Men like him weren't known for their restraint. Their temper had a strong control over them. Which was what made them extremely dangerous.

He was rash and fast and didn't seem to make a full decision to act before he did. Without meaning to, he would kill a person and then realise only when it was too late, that he had taken someones life. Just as easily, that knife he was holding could do serious damage. Even if it wouldn't kill me, blood loss would slow me down and I needed my wits about me seeing as I was going to be fighting not just him, but four of them.

I launched a blow at his face and his head flew back as he gripped his bloodied nose, yelping. The satisfying crunch told me that I had broken his nose. Good. The other assholes, when they saw that their leader had been hit, flew at me and finally, I let my beast out.

My claws sprang out and I slashed at the one unlucky idiot that had already been airborne, his plan to grip my head in a headlock. I raked my claws down his throat, relishing the blood that gushed out of the now three lines present on his neck.

He fell to his knees as he gripped his throat before finally slumping to the ground. One down. But my victory was short lived. The two others attacked me at the same time so I had to multitask, fighting them off at the same time. Usually, this wouldn't be hard for me. I had fought against numerous people countless times, but they hadn't been lykaes and weren't as strong as I was-but that wasn't the case now. What distracted me was the fact that the leader of the gang was walking towards my staircase.

And I would rather die than let him go up there.

I tried to disentangle from the men, but they had me pretty occupied and there was no way they were leaving me, but there was also no way I was going to let that man go upstairs.

Why was he even going there anyway?

Then it made sense.

Avery. Her scent. He was scenting her right now. Humans and lykae had a very distinct scent and he was probably scenting her right now. If it had been just five of us in the house, he wouldn't have perceived anyone else.

But Avery was up there. And he was going to investigate.

If he knew what was up there, if he saw her, then he was going to use her as my weakness. And from the puzzled expression on his face, he didn't know that I had been seeing a human. Which meant that this wasn't the set of guys that knew about Avery.

Fuck.

The men took advantage of the fact that I was distracted to launch blows on my face and stomach that had me doubling over, trying to protect myself. Distraction. It was the worst thing that could happen to a man in battle, and if one wasn't careful, they paid with their life.

The assholes didn't stop raining blows on me, and as I struggled to protect myself, crumple to the ground and thinking of how I would reach the leader, the worst possible thing happened.

Avery appeared, running out from the corner that led to the stairs, her eyes frantic as she searched for me. She took in the two guys dealing blows on me, the dead man on the floor, and then our eyes finally met.

My blood ran cold. Avery was here. In the living room. When I had specifically told her to remain upstairs.

Her eyes seemed to widen even more and her mouth fell open, probably to let out a scream, but before she could, the leader, who she hadn't noticed because he had been standing behind her, lunged at her and covered her mouth with his hand.