Page 64 of Taming His Vampire Mate

Or, no.

Not us.

It wasn’t really here either. It went straight for Ian.

It moved quickly, far faster than any human or animal. Yet it still somehow seemed to move in slow motion.

My throat closed with revulsion when I saw it.

It was a creature made of wood and vines, vaguely humanoid, towering seven or eight feet tall. Its arms were so long that its spindle-like claws scraped the ground. Grotesquely, it had a face: the skull of a deer, with vines grown around it. Then its jaws opened, revealing rows upon rows of three-inch razor-sharp teeth, dripping an angry violet fluid that smoldered whenit hit the ground. The jaws were far larger inside than outside, as though it had displaced reality.

It could bite a person in half.

It shouldn’t exist. Every part of my inner wolf rebelled, sensing it as an affront to nature, to the natural order.

I knew instantly it was one of the nightmare creatures from the darkest corners of the Otherworld—the realm of the Fae and the old powers, existing alongside ours. Magic originated there, as did nearly every being from mythology. The place could be impossibly beautiful. But from its deepest pits came slavering monsters who craved mortal flesh.

It must have wriggled through a nearby bleed.

And it went straight for Ian.

If I didn’t move, I’d watch this happen again—right here, right now. But I couldn’t leave him.

I couldn’t let him die alone.

Not again.

Ian clearly intended to fight. He showed no fear, staring it down as he began to transform.

But there wasn’t enough moonlight, and the process was too slow. Fur sprouted on his face. His fingertips curled into claws. His eyes went from brown to pale gold. But the rest of him stayed human—horribly fragile.

The creature leapt.

It never reached him.

Before I could move, before I could process what was happening, Thierry was suddenly there in a blur of speed.

He tackled the thing, wrenched its head back, and the monstrosity vanished in a puff of smoke.

I turned back to Ian, just in time to see him vanish too.

I’d never known exactly how he died. The dreamscape had never shown it to me before. I realized now what a kindness that had been.

Now I knew. And it made his death so much uglier.

“Jeremy!” Thierry hissed, dropping to my side. In a daze, I looked at him. His face was scrunched with concern, his whole body vibrating with tension. “What the hell was that thing?” His voice went high at the end, losing some of its usual coolness, like he couldn’t understand how the world had tipped so far off its axis. “Are you injured? Are you okay?”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure I could make my mouth work. Physically, I was fine. But what happened to Ian was worse than I’d ever understood.

That had been a memory, imprinted on the dreamscape itself. There was no stopping it.

Ian was gone.

Horribly, I could remember his laughter, the way he used to wrap his arms around me, the way he’d put his head on my shoulder, the mischievous light in his eyes whenever he teased me. He’d been one of the few wolves who dared to do that, given that I was his alpha. But he had been more than that. He had been my everything.

And thatthinghad torn him out of the world.

“Jeremy!” Thierry said again, shaking me.