When I came to there was a period of confusion. I smelled burning meat, and that bitter yet sweet taste was still in my mouth. Pain wasn’t even a word I could use to describe how I felt. Torture was more apt.
Everything hurt.
My skin, my muscles, my eyeballs, maybe even my eyelashes, I wasn’t sure if there was a part of my body that didn’t hurt.
That’s when everything came back to me in hazy flashes.
I fell.
Bad.
The Paladin man had tried to help me and … I choked on a sob as I remembered his head coming off like that.
Light flickered behind my eyelids and I realized I hadn’t opened them yet. Springing them open, I tuned into the voices in the room.
A man was standing over a woman who sat in the corner of the room. I was in some type of hut with bamboo slat floors and bamboo slat walls, crudely tied together with twine.
“The skin is too damaged from the accident, I will have to sell her in pieces,” the woman was saying as bile crept up my throat.
The man growled. “Then we will heal her first and we can get a better price.”
The woman was silent. “You’re lucky the demon has been bound by the cuffs, or she’d have ripped you limb from limb.”
The man snarled. “Can you heal her or not? I’ll give you ten percent of what she fetches at market.”
The woman sighed. “Fine, but I want twenty percent. Fully healed, her skin alone will fetch enough for both of us to retire on.”
I bit down on my tongue to keep from crying out. Yanking my wrists, a tear slid from my eye as I realized they were bound in front of me.
No. No. No.
“I heard the witches like the bones more than the skin,” the man said.
The woman scoffed. “I’ve been doing this over fifty years. Trust me, a freshly-skinned demon fetches no greater price.”
Freshly. Skinned. Demon.
Demon?
I screamed then. I mean, if I was going to be skinned alive, I might as well fucking put up a fight, and if I didn’t scream I was going to lose my mind.
The man crossed the room quickly and held up a steel mallet.
Oh God.
“Wait!” the witch cried from the corner. “Don’t bash her brain in, I need it whole.”
Oh. My. Leaning over, I vomited onto the man’s bare feet.
He sighed, looking over at the woman. “Can I wash this off? Or is vomit worth something too?”
The woman scowled at him, stepping out from the shadows. “Everything on this little demon is worth something. You don’t pluck a hair from her head without my say so.”
He pulled a knife from his belt and nodded. “What should I start with?”
The woman had stepped into the firelight and I could see her more fully now. She was younger than I thought. I mean, she said she’d been doing this for fifty years, but she looked early thirties. Stocky, with thick wavy hair and a harsh face, she wore dirty clothes that looked like they’d been pieced together. Life had not been kind to this woman, I could see that. But on top of that she was … what was she? I inhaled, confused by her pointy fey ears and yet vampire smell.
She looked right down at me, took in my confused appearance and laughed. The sound made my skin crawl. “You trying to figure it out, love?”
I nodded. Anything to keep her talking and not skinning me alive. Where was Walsh? Was he dead? My memories were fuzzy. The nice Paladin man had tried to help me and then they killed him. Walsh would have seen the dozen hunters and surely turned back for help … right? He’d tell Sawyer and Sawyer would come for me … he wouldn’t leave me here.
The woman reached out and grasped me by the hair, pulling me up into a sitting position. I hissed as pain shot up my skull, my wolf coming to the surface; pelts of fur rolled down my arms and I growled.
She grinned. “There you are, little demon.” Then she pointed to herself, and the dude standing next to her. “We are Ith-a-cki.” She spoke slowly like I was stupid. “Part fey, part other magical creature. It’s rare, but sometimes interbreeding with a fey results in pregnancy, and when it does…” She clicked her tongue: “You better flee to the forest, or the fey will kill that baby before it’s born.” She grinned, showing a missing front tooth. “We’re bad luck. Just. Like. You.”
My heart pounded in my ears as I processed what she said. The breeds couldn’t intermix, or at least that’s what I was always told. If a vampire and a werewolf had sex, a child would never result. Just like a dog and a lion couldn’t have a baby. But maybe … the fey DNA was closer … like a lion and a tiger.
The Ithaki were … ligers.
Before I could respond, anything to keep her talking, and not cutting, there was a shout of alarm outside.
That’s when I heard it.
A pack of wolves.
Thank God.
The woman hissed, her vampire fangs distending onto her bottom lip as the man went to the front of the tent.
“Paladins?” the woman asked.
He shook his head. “They aren’t stupid enough to come on our land for a little demon girl. It’s a pack of Wolf City wolves.”
She cursed. “Get Butcher.”
Butcher. Was that a name or a profession? Because I really needed it to be a name…
The man leapt out of the tent as the woman grabbed a pair of pliers from her desk and stalked over to where I sat, hands and ankles bound, leaning up against the wall.
I watched the pliers in her hand as she gripped them in her fist and then reached out lightning-quick and grabbed me by the back of the head.
“Hold still, I just need one eye.”
Oh fuck that.
Fear surged up inside of me as my wolf shook my skin like a cage, begging to be freed.
If I died, or lost an eye, these cuffs would be to blame. Sawyer would be to blame. I couldn’t let that happen, I liked living too much.
I let her get close to me, leaning in to try to take my eye, and that’s when I came up with my zip-tied hands, holding both fists balled together, and cracked her so hard under her chin that I heard her teeth break.
She stumbled backward, screaming in pain as I leapt from the fireplace wall and hopped like a bunny across the room. I almost lost my balance as dizziness washed over me, but knew staying upright was my only shot at living. When I reached the door, I threw my shoulder into it and leapt out of the house.
Oh shit.
Many things hit me all at once.
One: this was a tree house. Two: I was falling very rapidly to the ground. And three: Sawyer had just shown up with over thirty wolves, armed to the teeth.
By some trick of fate, the tree house was only about six feet off the ground, maybe to help with flooding or ground insects. There was a pile of freshly raked leaves that I crashed into, softening the blow, and I sent up a quick prayer of thanks to whomever raked them. Still, it hurt. Everything hurt so damn much from my first fall that when I slammed into the leaves a howl ripped from my throat, followed by a whimper.
“Demi!” Sawyer’s voice was panicked and raw. As I’d been falling, I’d seen him in human form, coming up the ridge with the others. He must have seen me fall out. I rolled over the bed of leaves and popped back to my feet, jumping again like a bunny, just wanting to get to Sawyer and his men so I could be safe.
He came for me. I knew he’d come for me.
“Look out!” Sawyer yelled, and everything in me tensed as someone grabbed me from behind, their strong hand coming around the back of my throat and a sleek steel knife going to the front.
This person holding me radiated power I could sense and smell. When he pulled me to his chest, I knew it was a different man from the one who had originally kidnapped me.
I was panting, out of breath and out of hope as Sawyer and his wolf pack finally reached us.
Doors slammed and ropes descended from the trees, and suddenly over a hundred Ithaki were gliding down from the tree houses and meeting their leader, who I was one-hundred-percent sure was the man holding a knife to my throat.
Sawyer was wearing a full black camouflage jumpsuit, knives and guns at his waist, and another held loosely in his hand.
The Ithaki held bows and arrows and spears, all aimed at him.
“Let. Her. Go.” Sawyer’s voice was barely human. Fur kept trying to erupt from his skin as his wolf tried to take control.
The man behind me laughed. “Finders keepers. You’re trespassing, and so was she when we found her. It was all legal, by the book.”
Sawyer clenched his jaw. “She fell. She didn’t wander. You will release her to me right now and I will pay you for the trouble.” Sawyer snapped his fingers and a young male wolf stepped forward with a suitcase, but the knife dug harder into my skin and I yelped.
“You think we want your money? Poisonous Werewolf City money?” The man spat behind me.
My eyes flicked to the female vampire-fey; she’d just joined us, holding her hopefully broken jaw and glaring at me.
Sawyer’s eyes flashed yellow. “I’m not leaving without her. Alive. The alpha has dispatched helicopters, and they will come shortly, laying waste to your entire encampment if you don’t release her to me. Now.”
The knife cut into my throat and I felt the trickle of blood rush down my chest as I gasped. “Not before I kill her.”
Sawyer put his hands up. “Okay, okay! I’ll call off the ‘copters, just tell me what you want.”
I suddenly felt ashamed. It was so stupid of me to fall. Now a Paladin man was killed and Sawyer had dispatched helicopters? What a mess. But I was grateful he was here, fighting for me. He seemed to always show up when I needed him, and that was something I’d grown to love. He was dependable.
“I want you, the alpha’s son,” the man behind me spat, and I flinched.
No.
“I want to fight, like the good old days. Wolf to wolf. Winner gets the money and the girl.”
So he did want the money, but he also wanted to kill Sawyer.
“No!” I growled at the same time that Sawyer started to unbutton his shirt.
“Agreed. Winner takes all.” Sawyer didn’t look at me, he just took off his shirt and leaned into Walsh, whispering something.
“Sawyer, no!” I shouted. “He’s not just a wolf!”
The man behind me laughed. Within a second he’d removed the blade from my throat and tossed me to the vampire-fey, who caught me, and then another blade was pressing against my jugular.
“I know what he is,” Sawyer responded, half man, half wolf.
Sawyer was jacked, like he looked like a prison convict minus the tattoos, but I seriously doubted his ability to fight for some reason. He was … too pretty to be a dirty fighter. He was the kind of guy who had bodyguards and could probably shoot someone, but rip their throat out? I just didn’t know and I didn’t want him getting killed.
“Don—” I tried to warn him off again and Vampire Bitch wrestled her hand around my mouth. All I could do was watch helplessly as the crowd surrounding us began to form a circle.
Eugene slowly broke away from the Wolf City pack and weaved his way over to where I was standing with a blade to my throat.
“That’s far enough, giant,” the woman said to Eugene without looking at him. He was about five feet away now and simply nodded, holding his hands behind his back. My gaze flicked to Eugene and I tried to read if he was worried for Sawyer or not, but he just stood stock still, glaring at the fight about to unfold before us.
The man in the middle of the fight ring had a giant tattoo across his back.
Butcher, it read.
A name … a name after a profession? I prayed I would never find out.
“Do you want to be able to end this fight by forfeit or death only?” Butcher asked Sawyer, sweat gleaming off of his back tattoo.
I tried to glean information from that. Maybe they would be allowed to forfeit and keep their life? That was a nice option and I was glad he was giving Sawyer—
“Death is the only way out of this fight, you sick motherfucker,” Sawyer growled and then beat his chest twice like a maniac, before shifting instantly.
Holy fuck.
The nice rich boy with polite manners that I’d met was gone. In his place was some bloodthirsty maniac who I was extremely attracted to right now. I probably needed therapy for these thoughts, but seeing Sawyer turn into a bloodthirsty wolf, lips curled back in a snarl, it … pulled my heart back in his direction. Any anger I’d had at him for locking these cuffs on me was gone. I could see now that he was just being protective of me, that in his mind these cuffs at the time made me safe, even if now they would get me killed. He would do anything to protect me, that was clear now.
Butcher shifted as well, and I was pleased to see his wolf was much smaller than Sawyer’s, but I had no idea what fey powers he might have in his wolf form. Hybrids were not talked about. The two wolves stalked each other in a slow circle, hackles of each wolf rising as they bared their teeth at each other, saliva glistening off of the white sharp points.
Butcher’s wolf dove and I sucked in a breath, but Sawyer rolled out of the way.
He was fast.
Really fast.
Sawyer popped up onto his feet and shook the dirt from his fur as Butcher lunged again. Sawyer’s wolf kicked off the ground and soared over Butcher’s head, landing on the other side and avoiding being bitten.
I internally cheered, afraid that if I spoke, the Ithaki with the knife to my throat would kill me.
Butcher just looked pissed now that he realized he was unable to catch his prey. He lunged three more times in rapid succession and Sawyer dodged every single one.
He was so damn fast, vampire-fast, and I could see his strategy now was a strong evasive defense rather than offensively attacking. Sawyer looked barely winded while Butcher was panting like an out-of-shape dog. Butcher was doing all the hard work and heavy lifting and he hadn’t even grazed Sawyer yet.
Maybe I’d misjudged Sawyer’s fighting ability; he was clearly trained.
The air charged then, something that was hard to explain, but it felt thick and full of static electricity. For a second I wondered if I was the only one who felt it, but Sawyer’s fur stood up on end and he lowered his ears as if he was in pain.
Butcher’s wolf grinned, a slight blue mist lifting off of his skin.
Fey magic?
I wanted to move, to rush forward and help, but the knife at my throat tightened, and I was helpless with these stupid cuffs on. Sawyer whined, ears flat to his head as an ultrasonic noise picked up throughout the space. Every wolf in attendance winced, covering their ears with their hands, or flattening their ears if in wolf form. It felt like my brain was going to explode; my ears would start bleeding any moment. I wanted to reach up and cover them, but with a knife to my throat I just gritted my teeth and bore it.
Butcher lunged then and Eugene stepped forward to the very edge of the fight ring, “Tokyo!” he screamed at Sawyer, who shook himself before rearing up on his hind legs and catching Butcher’s wolf mid-attack.
Tokyo?
Did I hear that right?
Butcher slammed into Sawyer, who wrapped his front paws over the Ithaki’s shoulders and they snapped jaws at each other’s faces viciously.
The ultrasonic sound magic had stopped and I wondered if Butcher wasn’t able to do that and attack at the same time. Maybe the fey magic took too much concentration. Either way, it didn’t matter, because he was able to finally catch Sawyer, and now they were locked in one of the worst fights I’d ever seen. The only wolf fight I’d ever seen, but still. Sawyer grazed Butcher’s muzzle, raking his teeth along the skin and tearing it open as fresh purple blood oozed from the cut.
Purple?
Whoa.
Fey blood was blue, my mom told me, and wolf blood was red. Purple Ithaki hybrid blood.
I was so enthralled in what I was seeing that I’d lost sight of the fight. Only when the sound of crunching bone cut through the space and the Ithaki present started to roar in triumph did I drag my gaze to Sawyer.
“No!” I screamed as Butcher tore into Sawyer’s flank, ripping away a piece of flesh and exposing his ribs. Sawyer howled, long and hauntingly deep.
“Morocco!” Eugene yelled and Sawyer collapsed to the ground, panting as fresh crimson blood oozed from the wound. He tried to stand, but fell back down.
Morocco?
They must have had a secret playbook of fights or something. I felt more and more like I was watching a college football game with a coach on the sidelines.
Oh God no. I couldn’t even focus on the fact that Eugene was shouting random countries and cities at Sawyer, I could only focus on the fact that it looked like Sawyer was down and couldn’t get up.
“Get up, Sawyer!” I yelled and the vampire-fey yanked my hair back painfully, causing me to wince. Butcher circled Sawyer like a shark stalking his victim. Sawyer snapped out at him a few times, but every time he tried to get up, he slipped and fell back down.
I couldn’t … couldn’t look, but I also couldn’t look away. Sawyer came here for me, he’d agreed to fight for me, and now he was going to die for me and I was going to watch.
Butcher leapt, going for the throat, the kill, and everything inside of me seized up.
No. No. No.
My first thought was that I didn’t get to kiss this guy enough, I never got to love him, I really wanted to have more time with him, I wasn’t done.
Sawyer watched Butcher lunge, almost with an expression of resigned fate, but as Butcher grew nearer, I saw Sawyer’s muscles tighten. When he was nearly on top of him, Sawyer rolled, letting Butcher have the upper hand and pin him underneath his body.
This was it.
I steeled myself, ready to watch Butcher rip Sawyer’s throat out, but … it never came. The moment Butcher landed on Sawyer, he kicked up with all four paws and bucked him off, sending him flying through the air. Then Sawyer clambered to his feet with surprising agility and strength and stalked across the space like a cheetah.
“Paris!” Eugene yelled, and one of the Ithaki nearest Eugene kicked the back of his knee out, sending him crashing to the ground, the word dying in this throat. It had now become very clear to everyone here that Eugene and Sawyer were a team. Sawyer had clearly trained for these types of fights and Eugene was directing the show.
Butcher had landed hard when Sawyer kicked him off, and he was still struggling to get up. He probably had some broken ribs too. Sawyer tore across the space so fast, even with a slight limp he was on Butcher in seconds. That electric charge filtered through the air again and that ultrasonic painful sound ripped through the space, but it was lesser this time, frantic and uncoordinated. Sawyer’s wolf flinched, but dove for the kill anyway. The entire crowd that had assembled held their collective breath as Sawyer wrapped his teeth around Butcher’s jugular and clamped down with a sickening crunch. He jerked his head to the side and came away with a chunk of flesh. Butcher’s body jerked, spraying purple blood in a high arc, and then he went still.
Holy shifter.
The knife at my throat tightened, began to cut into my skin, and then a gunshot cut through the space and the knife fell away as the vampire-fey dropped to the ground behind me. Eugene stood five paces away, sleek black gun raised.
My legs were suddenly too weak to hold me. The fall down the mountain and the fall out of the tree had injured me so badly I wasn’t sure how I’d stayed standing this entire time.
“We’ve met the requirements of your demands and we will be taking the girl,” Eugene called out to the people, who looked shocked at their dead leader on the ground. “We will leave the money for any inconvenience we’ve caused you.”
A helicopter whirred overhead and people started to back up, holding their spears to the sky as if they’d never seen a helicopter before.
Maybe they hadn’t.
Eugene reached me, cutting my hand and leg bindings, and everything spun as the last drop of adrenaline left me.
I was saved. I wasn’t going to be skinned alive. Sawyer won his fight.
I started to fall forward when a blur of dark hair flashed before me and Sawyer caught me right before I hit the ground. His strong arms scooped under my knees and behind my back, hauling me against his chest. Warm, tight, safe arms cradled me so hard it actually hurt. My cuts and bruises weren’t healing like a shifter’s should, and I winced as Sawyer loosened his hold.
“Oh God, Demi. I’m so fucking sorry,” he murmured against me, the warmth of his breath feathering over my face as my chest tightened.
Eugene approached him. “Sawyer, you’re badly hurt. I can carry her.”
His response was a guttural growl and Eugene dropped his head in response, giving Sawyer the top of his head in a submissive gesture.
Sawyer walked me to the helicopter and called out over his shoulder, screaming over the whirring blades. “Get me a witch to get these fucking cuffs off of her!”
When he looked down at me, his blue eyes held so much anguish, so much regret, it broke my heart. “Can you ever forgive me?” His voice cracked and he looked genuinely panicked that I would say no.
I’d never met a guy like Sawyer, one who was so intense and protective, and one that asked forgiveness for his mistakes. I had to be honest with myself here, this was an all or nothing moment in our budding relationship. I either said yes and we moved forward in the direction of where we were going, or I said no and probably cause irreversible harm to any future we might have had.
Honestly? I’d never had a man fight for me like Sawyer did. From day one he’d been in my corner. And people made mistakes.
“Yes.”
I forgave him. I forgave him for thinking that hiding what I was would protect me. It obviously wouldn’t. We were going to have to come up with a plan B, together. With a deep sigh, he rested his forehead against mine and everything inside of me opened to him. I realized I’d been keeping a wall up, something to protect me in case he chose another girl, but now I was all in. I wanted to win his heart and in order to do that, I needed to lower all of my defenses.
“I’m going to make this up to you,” he whispered as we climbed into the chopper. Everything hurt, my skin, my bones, my muscles, everything.
“Thanks for coming to save me,” I told him.
He shook his head and swallowed hard. “It’s the least I could do after you saved me.”
I frowned. A medic started to look at a gash on my elbow and his words pinged around in my head.
How did I save him? Maybe this had to do with the brokenness I saw inside of him the day we met, the heaviness in his deep blue eyes that sometimes came to the surface to signal that he was dealing with too much.
“You’re going to need surgery,” the medic said to Sawyer. “A skin graft, and then your healing should take over from there.”
He shook his head. “No. I’ll be fine.”
The medic, a blond female about thirty, frowned. “It will scar, it will take days to heal.”
He looked at her with hard eyes. “I’m not leaving her side.” The wolf threaded into his voice and the woman lowered her gaze.
“Sawyer—” another medic said, but his wolf was out, there would be no reasoning with him and that was obvious. Eugene jumped into the helicopter and we took flight.
“Witch is on the way. Will meet us at your place. I thought you might like to be discreet,” Eugene told Sawyer.
He nodded. “And call Doctor Berns to look over Demi. He can meet us at my apartment too.”
Eugene’s eyes widened. “Your father’s private doctor is for the alpha family only. I don’t think—”
“I wasn’t asking, Eugene.” Sawyer’s voice was short and clipped.
With a nod, Eugene dialed another number and I reached out to stroke Sawyer’s face, pulling him down to look at me. His eyes were blazing yellow. I was guessing his wolf didn’t like being in such a small space with other people and a bad injury, but I knew his wolf was also protective over me. More than human Sawyer was.
“I’m okay. You did good, and I’m okay now,” I purred into his ear, trying to soothe his wolf.
He held up my arm, putting the cuff in full view of my face. “Nothing about this is okay.” His voice cracked with emotion. “I basically left you human, you could have been—”
“But I’m not.” I ran my thumb over his bottom lip and he shuddered, eyes flashing yellow to blue and then back to yellow.
“I fucked up. Demi, I’m so sorry I fucked up.” His grip around me tightened and I winced because it hurt my injuries a little, but at the same time I needed it. I needed him, I wanted to be closer. I couldn’t get enough of this feeling that he provided when he held me.
I felt safe.
I felt adored.
I felt like I was falling in love.
All of it scared the shit out of me and filled the holes inside of me at the same time.
“Shhh,” I soothed in his ear. “I forgive you.”
He nodded, his dark hair splashing across his forehead. “Never again.” He tapped the cuff. “Never again.”
And I believed him.
