Chapter 335 335
Sabine POV
Gilles pulls me away from the nightmare, guiding me out of the carnage that surrounds us. My vision refuses to settle, blurring as I stumble over what’s left behind body parts scattered across the quarry floor like discarded debris.
His arm is locked around my lower back, the only thing keeping me upright as nausea claws its way up my throat again.
“It’s okay… ssh, you’re okay,” he murmurs against my ear, steering me back toward the diner.
I need him need his arms, need the way he’s holding me together. Without his grip, I’d crumple to the ground. I can’t even feel my legs anymore.
And yet… I don’t want him here.
What did he just do?
In seconds mere seconds he had taken them down.
“What just happened?” I ask as we move toward the rear of the diner, the car park already within reach. How did we cross so much distance so fast? When I’d been running, it had felt endless every step dragged out into eternity.
“Those men… who were they?” I try to turn back, my body swaying as disorientation fogs my thoughts. Were they all dead?
“No this way, Sab,” Gilles says firmly, redirecting me and nudging me forward. The truck is already running in the car park, our friends waiting. They look irritated angry at being kept waiting.
They won’t be when they find out what just happened.
“There you are,” Caroline calls out sharply, annoyance lacing her voice until our faces come into full view. Horror replaces it instantly.
I try one last time to turn back, not even sure what I’m hoping to see, before Gilles lifts me effortlessly into the back of the truck. He mutters something to Didier, who pulls me fully inside and immediately grabs a bottle of water from his bag.
Didier strips off his T-shirt, revealing his broad, muscular torso, soaks the fabric with water, then gently wipes my face.
The white cotton turns red in his hands.
“What happened to her?” Didier growls at Gilles as he climbs into the truck and sits opposite me.
“She’s fine. Don’t draw attention,” Gilles snaps, even as gasps rise from people spilling out of the diner behind us.
“Fine?” Didier shoots back. “Look at her she’s covered in blood and shaking. What did you do to her?” He grips my hands, trying to pull me out of the fog consuming me.
“Nothing,” Gilles snarls. “I just fucking saved her life.”
“What do you mean”
“I’m so cold,” I manage, my teeth chattering uncontrollably.
Didier immediately pulls me closer, his warmth cutting through the icy tremors that have seized my body. Survival mode. Shock.
The truck engine roars, and I twist around as we pull out of the diner complex. My eyes catch the car the men arrived in, still parked there.
How long before someone notices it hasn’t moved?
How long before they realise its owner isn’t coming back?
That his body what’s left of it is scattered across a quarry floor.
Oh God. What if children find it?
The memory slams back into me and I start to retch, dry heaving over the side of the truck.
“She better not puke on my truck!” the driver yells, slamming his knuckles violently against the rear window.
Didier presses the bottle to my lips and I sip carefully, forcing myself to swallow the sickness back down.
The truck accelerates. I slump against Didier’s shoulder, resting my head there, trying not to think.
But it already happened.
The question is what exactly happened?
One moment I was bracing myself to fight to the death. The next, a severed hand was clamped around my throat.
Gilles.
Why was Gilles there?
And what did he do?
He’d moved at an inhuman speed.
He wasn’t a werewolf I would know. Surely. We’d spent every hour of the last six months together.
But then… I’d only discovered Didier and Caroline’s truth because I’d stumbled across them in the woods that day my tablets dulling my senses.
Shit. My tablets.
When was the last time I took one?
I reach for my backpack near Gilles’s feet. His hand moves toward me and I flinch away before he can touch me.
“Sab,” he says softly. “I would never hurt you.”
His voice wraps around me, hypnotic. My eyes lock onto his, and I struggle to look away, caught in something unseen—something Caroline and Didier don’t notice at all.
I’m not afraid.
But the sheer power he holds chills me.
Gilles had always been different. I’d known that. But this—this was something else entirely.
He’d been one of my closest friends. I’d trusted him completely.
And now I’m starting to realise… I don’t know him at all.
The strange pull he has on me shatters as the truck’s brakes slam hard. My body is thrown forward, and Didier barely manages to catch both Caroline and me before we hit the driver’s rear window.
“What the fuck!” Didier roars at the driver.
My gaze snaps to Gilles.
He hasn’t moved.
The violent stop hasn’t affected him in the slightest.
His eyes remain fixed on me until he finally looks up to see what’s happening ahead.
I slowly push myself to my feet, pulling Caroline up with me. Three SUVs block the road ahead, positioned deliberately an unmistakable roadblock.
Fear floods me instantly.
More men.
More hunters.
They’ll kill my friends to get to me.
If they can get past Gilles.
But as the doors open and the men step out, my dread twists into something else entirely.
These aren’t the men who chased me.
I’ve seen these faces before.
Werewolf warriors.
Not just any warriors.
Bloodnight Royal Pack guards.