BELLE
My thoughts were cut short by the sounds of growling and hissing coming from somewhere behind me. It sounded like people were fighting a lot of people. Vampires and werewolves, if I had to
guess.
My stomach took a dramatic dive when I realized I recognized the owner of the growls. I would know that sound anywhere. It was Grayson’s wolf.
I sprinted in the direction of the noises, my heart racing as the sound of my mate’s distress only seemed to grow louder and more intense.
Even in the dark, what I found was worse than I could have ever imagined. There were two men, one with silver–gray hair and the other with pitch–black hair, both looking out into a clearing of trees, their backs to me.
The bigger one was standing, dressed in all black to match his hair, arms crossed over his chest in a casual manner. The other man was crouched down low, his long, brown, hooded trench coat. skimming the ground.
His arms were held out in front of him, and his fingers were splayed out. It took me a moment to realize exactly what they were looking at.
There was a mountain of people piled on top of a fighting, snarling wolf. They were biting the wolf, tearing into him with claws while he howled and attempted to fight against them.
Grayson. The wolf was Grayson.
And the longer I looked, the sooner I started to realize that all of the people on top of him were the
same person.
They were all carbon copies of one of the men standing in front of me–same clothes, same black. hair…and red eyes.
It was Azazel Mortar. Azazel Mortar was trying to kill my mate.
There was a lot about the situation that I didn’t understand.
I didn’t know how it was possible that there were so many versions of Azazel. Or what the older man crouched down on the ground with his arms out was doing.
But none of that mattered. All I knew was that I needed to help.
I acted on pure instinct. I ran forward with the knife from my kitchen still gripped tightly in my
hand.
Azazel turned, probably able to hear me coming, and looked at me with a wide, familiar gaze.
I
knew those eyes. I had seen them back at Grayson’s pack house, staring down at me with an almost gleeful hatred.
I don’t know how I had ever thought Grayson was capable of the evil things that this man in front of me had done to me all of those months ago. And now he was trying to kill the love of my life.
So I was going to kill him.
Azazel didn’t have a chance to act on the shock I caused him when he saw me coming because my
knife was plunged into his stomach a second later.
He gasped, his arms falling to his sides, his mouth going slack.
I didn’t want to take any chances, so I pulled the knife out of his stomach and then drove it back in as hard as I could. Then, just for good measure, I did it once more.
Gotta make sure you hit those vital organs, right?
Blood poured from him and onto my hand. He coughed and the blood from his mouth splattered onto my white shirt and jeans.
He grabbed my wrist, claws digging in. The fury was evident in his eyes. “You bitch,” he spat.
His body began to slouch forward, and I was forced to release my hold, unable to hold up his massive form against my much smaller one.
He hit the forest floor on his stomach with a loud thump and took my knife down with him, still lodged deep in his stomach.
I watched as his blood began to form a puddle around his down–turned figure. His back rose and fell unevenly with his final raspy breaths. And then he was still.
My pulse could be felt in my throat. Behind my eyes. Like a racehorse, pounding away rapidly in my chest. It dawned on me exactly what I had just done.
I had killed someone.
Evil vampire or not–a man was dead… because of me.
His blood was all over me. On my hands. Splattered across my face. It was pooling under my shoes.
Chapter 57 of co- Abastar 27
No one tells you about how much blood there is after stabbing someone to death.
So. Much. Blood.
I was so engrossed by the horrors of what I had just done that I didn’t even take into consideration that there was another man until it was too late.
The much older man, who had obviously been trying to help Azazel take down my mate, was still crouched on the floor–but he was looking back at me now.
He had shoulder–length white hair streaked with gray and the strangest bone structure I had ever
seen.
It made me pause–somehow both alarmed and captivated by his odd features all at the same time.
He had an intense square jaw which was accentuated by his short, blunt haircut, and his sharp checkbones protruded from beneath his flesh, hollowing out his cheeks in a way that could only be described as morbid.
His skin, although most was covered by his clothing, what little I could see was wrinkled to the point of disturbance.
Tattoos covered nearly every inch of his body.
They were faded and dilapidated with old age, peeking out from beneath the sleeves of his brown leather coat and snaking up his bony fingers, climbing his neck and circling his face, and even disappearing into his hairline.
The dark ink was moving too, dark swirls dancing along his skin almost as if it were floating–alive, a part of him. It reeked of magic. But not the type I was used to..
The magic that I could sense this man was capable of was dark and powerful.
But that wasn’t the most disconcerting part of his appearance. No, that title belonged to his eyes.
They were purely white, his irises barely even visible, his pupils taken over by the snowstorm that was his gaze. And they glowed, bright and jarring in the darkness surrounding us.
The whole visual was like something out of a horror movie–a creature crouching, staring at me in the night, only his white eyes visible.
And the way he was looking at me–it made my blood run cold. His attention swung down to Azazel’s body, still lying at my feet, and then back up to me. And I instantly knew–this man meant to kill me.
I barely managed to shriek out my mate’s name before his bony fingers were wrapped around my neck and my body was pinned against a tree with enough force to make the world around me spin.
Shit, I just had to drop my knife, didn’t I?