I was about to launch myself at them when there was a fast blur of motion to my right, a flash of color, a body, a form of a male moving faster than any human could. And then Adryan was standing behind one of the men, towering over his body, looking at me over his head with a sadistic grin spread across his face and his red, glowing eyes flashing with excitement and menace. His fangs grew long right before me, now passing his bottom lip.
And the human didn’t even know he was about to die.
Adryan gripped the hair of the human and wrenched his head to the side. The man struggled for only a millisecond before Adryan opened his mouth wide and sank his fangs into the human’s throat. He growled so deep I heard it across the distance. Adryan tore his mouth away, ripping away a chunk of spongy flesh so the human had a gaping—blood-squirting—wound.
Blood pulsed out of the man’s throat in a brilliant display of red, an arc of his life literally moving through the air.
Adryan spit out the chunk of flesh with a grin.
I heard a female cry and snapped my head to see another man behind Evie, a gun raised to her head, the barrel pressed to her temple. Her eyes were wide, tears streaming down her cheeks. I held very still even though I was howling in rage and fear for my female.
I crouched low, analyzing how to take the fucker down in the safest, fastest way possible, when she rammed her head backward until her skull cracked against his nose. He howled, blood rushing out of his face instantly. His arms loosened around her, and she was smart as she dropped her body to the ground. God, my female was magnificent.
I was on him in the next second, jumping over Evie as she got flat on the ground and rolled away. I slammed my paws down on his chest so hard I heard his ribs break under the force. His head cracked back on the asphalt, his arms splaying out, the gun skittering across the road. I didn’t wait, couldn’t even think rationally or decide what I was going to do.
My wolf took over as I clamped my jaw around his trachea and ripped it out, letting that part of his body fly through the air to land in the distance. It was a gory, brutal display of my strength, my prowess.
It was who I was as a Lycan.
It was how I protected my mate.
26
Evelyn
He was huge. Cian’s wolf body was massive, bigger than a Shire horse, as if he were plucked from a fantasy novel, a fairy tale. And all I could do was stare at the man who was my mate, a man who wasn’t human and who stood in front of me in his goliath wolf’s body, blood dripping off his fur, his eyes glowing blue as he stared at me.
And although I knew logically I should be afraid, that I’d seen him tear apart human bodies—threats to me, to us, and everyone else—all I could think about was how I wasn’t afraid at all. I was in awe, this magnificent creature in front of me slaughtering anyone who thought to get near me. And when I wasn’t as strong as I wanted to be, he was there by my side, giving me support and strength.
My body ached, and I knew I had cuts littering my body, but I still pushed myself up and ignored the pain, standing for only a second before I started to hobble over to my mate. I’d sprained my ankle, had scrapes and cuts all over me from falling, from the crash, but the closer I got to Cian, the more I felt energized.
The mating mark on my neck tingled and warmed, and when I stopped a few feet from him, inhaling his scent that—although tinged with the coppery scent of the blood from the people he killed—I could pick up, the spicy dark aroma that made Cian… Cian.
I tipped my head back so I could stare into his eyes, and he just stood there, letting me look my fill, to take in every impossible yet incredible inch of him. His fur was dark, black like onyx, so thick and soft looking that my fingers twitched to tunnel through it.
He lowered his head slightly as if he read my thoughts, and I found myself reaching out and smoothing my fingers along the side of his huge head, over one of his pointed, thickly tufted ears, the air whooshing out of me at the feeling of his coarse yet soft fur under my fingers.
I should’ve focused on my surroundings, paid attention to the fight breaking out far too close to the van still on fire yet not having exploded yet. But as I let myself sink back into reality and glance around, I could see that the only ones left standing were the vampires and Odhran as he took down the last of the human men from the Assembly.