Page 59 of Forever My Siren Luna (The Hidden Cove #2)

Adorable. She is fiery but adorable. I stared, hoping for her to turn so I could see more of the possessiveness that I caught a glimpse of on her adorable face.

Beretta smiled, following my line of sight while looking truly happy for me. She lifts her shoulders, letting all the weight of what's to come bear down on her body again, then shrugged her shoulders with a deep breath before pulling away.

“Okay, ladies. I have a mate back home to claim, and Cecilia now has one here that I'm sure she'd like to claim soon too. Let’s head out to-”

“Beretta,” another woman from outside in the hall interrupted her. “There is one more prisoner in this hall."

"One of our men?" She asked, looking at me before turning to look back at the woman. I didn't want to deny it was one of our warriors, but I don't think it is.

"I don't think so. She....She looks hurt. Badly. When you found your friend, we checked the other rooms and found her. We can’t get her chains off, though.”

Beretta quickly leaves the room, running to help The elvish girl following after her. That one is quiet, but she has an iron will.

I lingered behind for a moment, waiting beside Ceclia. She looked worried, but was hesitating to follow after the other women.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

She looked up at me from the corner of her eyes, then quickly looked away. The pain and fear was still on her face, making me anxious. “You won’t want me.” She whispered, her voice breaking as she spoke.

“What?” I asked, momentarily stunned, and my beast growled in my head with worried agitation.

“What I did. What I was here. You won’t want me. I-I did-”

“Hey,” I turned her body towards mine, shivering from the sparks that danced on my skin from touching her.

No wonder Lachlan changed so much after meeting his mate.

After touching her.... no, after just staring into her eyes for the first time, I knew I would do anything to be with this woman. No matter what.

I angled her chin with my fingers, smiling as I watched the tingles affect her too. “You’re perfect. I couldn’t have ever envisioned a better mate. Whatever you faced, you survived, and now I’m going to take you home and prove to you how much I want you.”

She bit her lip, her green eyes overflowing with tears. I wanted to kiss them away, but just then that pantiless pirate had to go and start yelling my name.

“NILO! WE NEED MORE MUSCLE!”

I sighed, running my thumb along her full bottom lip, then grabbed her hand and dragged her with me out into the hallway to follow the sound of Beretta’s call. I don't want Ceclia out of my sight until I know she is safe. Even then, I feel like I will still have a hard time leaving her alone.

In the other room, one very similar to the one I was kept in, a charred body is lying in a crumpled heap on the ground. I think it’s a burned body, dead and unmoving at first, but then the elvish woman pushes a mass of hair to the side and I see a woman’s face underneath.

She’s breathing, her breath coming in puffs of smoke. It looked like soot or debris being expelled from her mouth at first, but by the third or fourth breath, I realized that it was actual smoke. The woman is expelling smoke from her lungs.

There is a collar, thicker and made of black glass around the woman’s throat, and a net made from similar material holding her to the ground. She didn't have any room to move. The collar had to be so heavy. I doubted she could even lift her head.

“Obsidian,” I whispered. “The collar and the net. They’re obsidian. It’s unbreakable with human hands, even if you use all your strength and the strength of your beast,” I tell them. "Not in human form."

“Then what the hell are we supposed to do?” Beretta asked. “Look at her. What have these devils been doing? Lighting her skin on fire? Torching her? Why is she tied down like this?”

The woman’s eyes opened, and my suspicions about why she was tied up alone like this became a certainty. No one has reptilian eyes like this but one race, and it’s a race that was suspected to be extinct.

“Move,” I told the women hovering over the charred girl. I gave Cecilia’s hand a gentle squeeze, then let her go, stepping away to give myself plenty of room.

My Lycan takes over, pushing forward to take his form. I know nothing better than a Lycan’s strength to break through the hard stone of obsidian.

The woman’s eyes flew open the moment my Lycan leaned over her form, face just inches from hers. The swift shifting in her slit pupils takes all of me in, looking for a sign of hostility as the smoke continues to puff out of her nostrils.

Slowly, showing her that I mean no harm, my beast opens his mouth and takes the collar on her neck between his teeth, biting down with all his force.

The stone’s energy pulsing against his teeth, hurting his jaw, but after several seconds, it finally shatters, falling in large jagged pieces onto the floor around her.

She lifted her head, but then it fell back to the floor, a high cry tearing through her when the netting sank further into her skin with her movement. The black stone is not only restraining her, it's tearing into her skin when she fights against it. That's why she was so unmoving.

We need to get her out. Next is the netting. Even the bolts holding it in the ground are obsidian. Beretta is in Lycan form beside me now, using her strength to pry one side free while I work on the others. It takes longer than I would like, but we soon have the woman free.

“Poor thing,” the woman who had called for Beretta says, pulling the freed woman to her lap as the elvish girl looks over her wounds, using her magic to heal what she can.

Her entire body is covered in soot and char, but she doesn’t have a burn on her. She has very few wounds besides bruising on her body, from the net and probably from being kicked while pinned down.

If she is what I think she is, it’s no wonder. Any attempt to harm her in any way where she would be less restrained would not bode well for the attacker. It takes this level of restraint to contain their power. I'm surprised they captured her at all.

The woman is panting, the smoke growing thicker and thicker with each of her breaths.

Then, her eyes blaze with fire, her pupils startling the women, making them shrink back against the wall.

I shielded Cecilia with my Lycan body, anxious as the woman slinks off the lap of the woman who was trying to soothe her, and slowly crawls towards the door.

Her eyes move over every face, every body, searching for a threat.

She seemed satisfied not finding one, then quickly stood and raced out the door without looking back.

Soot falls from her body with each step, and I’m left wondering what she would look like clean.

Those eyes. I could never mistake those burning eyes if I ever saw them again. I hope she finds her freedom and I never see those eyes again. Those creatures caused our pack a lot of grief in the past, but women of the breed are so rare, it’s entirely unheard of. I didn’t think they existed.

“Not even a damn thank you,” Beretta muttered, shaking her head.

I followed her lead and changed back into human form. My spirits sail when Cecilia reaches out to grab my hand on her own once I’m done. It’s a very possessive hold, and I love it. I hope she grows more and more possessive. I want her to be confident in her ownership of me.

"Do you want to go chase her down and force some gratitude from her?" I lifted my brows at Beretta.

"No," she sighed. "Poor thing was scared out of her mind. Can't blame her for that."

I don't think she was scared of us. I think her breed just doesn't do well in crowds like this, and she left before she accidently hurt us.

Beretta and many of the others might not even suspect what that girl was, but I can tell that the elvish girl had caught on.

She gives me a wise, knowing look, and we both just keep quiet, keeping the girl's secret.

“Let’s go,” Beretta, ushered everyone out of the room.

I take the lead, Cecilia tucked behind me and the Elvish girl I soon learn is named Irrita. Irrita used her magic to cast a mirror at every approaching corner, helping us to see what's around them before we turn. Beretta took the rear, back in her Lycan form, since I was able to take command again.

If my men could see me now, commanding and leading a group of women after they fought for their freedom and saved me from my doom. They would all be more than impressed. I bet they would have cheered and made a big fuss seeing me find my mate in this hell too.

My men. They’re all dead. I knew it before I was even defeated that I was the lone survivor.

Even with Beretta, I expected her to be taken from this world during that attack.

She didn’t make it to warn the pack. I saw that and her scream distracted me during the fight. It was a losing fight no matter what.

I wonder if Ned made it back to the pack.

He was my fastest rider, the smallest of all of us.

I pray he did make it back in time to warn Alpha.

He can defeat this. It will be a strain since we can’t rely on Alpha Wayne as we once believed, but with the pirates who have been vigorously training with us, we will prevail.

The Hidden Cove pack will be victorious. I'm sure.

“This is strange,” Irrita stated as we rounded another hallway and started making our way through a large cold stone room. “Why is no one here? It’s empty.”

The hive-like building is like a downward spiral of halls, and we were at the center of it. We’ve been weaving our way to the bottom, and she is right. We haven’t encountered one demon or any other dark beings in this place.

“They looked like they were building an army,” Cecilia said in her sweet soft voice. “Remember all of them lining up outside just this morning?”

An army to invade Hidden Cove, no doubt.

It’s time. Just as Luna and Alpha said, there is going to be a war between the northern clans and us.

He didn’t mention demons, and neither did she.

I wonder if that is something else that has changed since the beginning of this new life for them.

I wonder what other big changes happened they weren't prepared for.

We reached the ground floor, still without encountering anyone. I think we are in the clear. Maybe they have all marched to the border already?

We enter this grand entryway, though grand isn’t how I would describe it at all. It is crude in its build, windowless, and dimly lit only by a rough metal ring mounted above with torches outlining it.

This is it. Freedom is through these doors, but we have no way of telling what's on the other side.

I looked back, meeting the eyes of Beretta’s beast. She nodded slightly, indicating to go. I can already imagine what she would tell me if we could mind link. What else can we do, you big baby? If we wait here, someone will eventually come and our freedom or our lives could be gone just like that.

I then stared into Cecilia’s soft green eyes, the fiery determination telling me all I needed to know. She’s not turning back, and neither am I. We are going through those doors, no matter what is on the other side.

“You stay behind me,” I told her firmly. “No matter what, stay with me. I will not lose you. Not now that I have finally found you.” I just found my mate. Nothing is taking her from me now.

“I’ll stay with you,” she says in confirmation, her voice making my soul dance.

She smiled tentatively, then took a step back, letting go of my hand as she shifted to her Lycan form.

Her Lycan is beautiful too. A soft red with white patches in her fur.

She nodded, and I followed her lead, shifting to let my beast take over once again.

“No way to go but out,” Irrita said, taking hold of the handle on one of the doors and pulling it towards her. Another woman, a fairy from the east, comes forward and opens the other door and we push forward to take our first glimpse of freedom.

Only that’s not what we see.

There was an army, just as Cecilia had said, but massive, covering the immense space in front of us.

At least a mile of scorched, barren ground, with all the dark races of the north, all facing forward with their backs towards us.

They are staring ahead, listening as a terrifying being on a ruby-studded podium speaks.

We sink back against the walls, hiding from the open view behind the doors.

I put my claw to my snout, indicating to stay quiet, then looked around the door to watch the massive being as he delivered a speech in a foreign tongue.

He’s fae, the magic emanating out of him is more than obvious, but I can not figure out which race he is.

Then, black wings spring from his back, expanding out, causing him to take flight. He’s a fairy breed, but a dark one. With his hairless body and sickly gray skin, he looks more demon than fairy in every way but his wings.

“Lord Tenebris,” Irrita sneared.

So that is the son of a bitch who rules this shit smelling hellhole.

With the bastard in the sky, I notice someone else upon the podium, looking forlorn and disgusted, staring out at the masses. A woman with golden hair that looks a lot like my Luna.

Her eyes moved through the crowd, then it felt as if she was staring right at me, her expression changing after a few long seconds.

She looked....excited. Relieved maybe. She looked up at the flying monster above, his body moving among the rows of men, still speaking in the demonic language.

He sounded like a general, readying his troops for battle.

That's exactly what he's doing. This is war.

The woman seemed ready to dance on her feet, staring at me again.

She presses her fingers to her lips, then folds all of them together, except her pointer fingers.

She puckers her lips against them, and I recognize the gesture.

She is telling me to be silent. She then folds an arm across her chest, looking up at the flying monster again, while lowering her other hand, splaying out her fingers and pushing it down like she is telling me to wait.

She's trying to be inconspicuous and it's working.

Is she sending me a message? Stay silent and wait? Who is she?