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In a split second, my wolf had him on the ground, jaw locked on his throat. A growl reverberated through my chest when he tried to kick me off, but I had him.

Submit , I thought, tightening my hold on him. My wolf wouldn’t kill him right away. She didn’t want to. She wanted him to submit to her. To show her she was the Alpha, and he was now hers.

The taste of his blood, metallic and wrong, filled my mouth as he continued to buck in my hold. But still, I kept my hold on him.

The wind that had been holding us in this little bubble and keeping my mates away died. Rain fell more freely, mixing with the blood that dripped from my wounded shoulder, and from the other wolf’s throat.

“Ivy!” Adrian shouted. The smell of mint, despite faint, was a welcome scent. Comforting.

“Holy shit, she really can shift,” Rowan said.

“She’s fucking amazing,” Elias replied proudly. “Look at her. A white wolf.”

I only caught sight of Maeve, who moved to stand near me, and Damon. The former was bloodied, but unharmed, her scent not mixed with blood. The latter was untouched.

“Do not release him until he submits,” Elias growled, his smell of pine intoxicating as he came to stand beside me.

All I could manage was a growl, deep in my throat, as a response. The wolf continued to writhe beneath me, trying to free himself from my hold, but he stayed on his back.

“Why the hell isn’t he shifting?” Hawk asked. I could almost imagine the half-Fae male standing there, with his arms crossed, looking all sorts of unimpressed yet arrogant. “He should have shifted back by now.”

Maeve made a sound in the back of her throat. “Maybe he can’t.”

“Then he should die,” Orion said. “There is no point in him keeping his life if he has become a mindless beast only capable of taking orders from him .”

For some reason, that had the wolf whimpering and tensing beneath me.

“The wolf is scared of you, Black,” Rowan mused. “I wonder if he’s had the pleasure of meeting your father.”

Orion said something under his breath, only low enough for me, Elias, and Maeve to hear. Something about Rowan being a jackass. And yet, I heard his approach, his comforting scent filling my lungs.

“Shift,” he said, voice stern yet dark. “Face your Queen.”

The wolf beneath me shuddered, and it was the only warning I had to tear my jaw off his throat. Fighting the wolf was one thing, but the man ?

I managed to shift back and tried to ignore the agony that came with it.

Damn, I had been lucky last time, not feeling the change.

This time, though, it felt like the pain was tenfold.

Every bone in my body that broke and reformed sent a wave of agony through me.

And then there was my shoulder, which hadn’t had a chance to heal.

When I was my normal self again, my knees buckled. Arms wrapped around me before I could hit the ground, holding me to a chest that did not belong to one of my bonded mates.

Electricity shot through me at Hawk’s touch. His scent, cinnamon and spice, filled my lungs as I sucked in a breath.

“Thank you, Princess,” he murmured in my ear, as he helped me straighten. My legs were suddenly weak for an entirely different reason. “You saved my wings.”

And just like that, he was gone, leaving me confused and pathetic. My heart raced, each breath rattling in my lungs. But my eyes found those of the wolf, no longer in beast form, but now as a man.

A very naked man.

His wide, blue eyes were locked on me, and his chest heaved with each breath he took. There was blood all over him; mine and his, I could tell. A bruise bloomed around his ribs, likely from the one I’d broken.

But then there were the scars. Hundreds of them, all over his body.

Some were raised and white from being healed for years, while others were like carve marks, as if the flesh had literally been taken from the bone.

There were pinkish scars, too, and from the look of it, there were marks that hadn’t had time to heal yet on his chest .

Regret instantly hit me at even the thought of killing him. He’d been tortured by Dante and his men. Worse than that, probably brainwashed.

The other two, the Fae male and the mage, had seemed pretty aware of their actions.

But confusion filled the eyes of the shifter as his gaze darted from me to the others. When they landed on Orion, they widened before narrowing with even more confusion.

“You are not him,” he whispered, his voice hoarse, like he hadn’t had water in days. Maybe he hadn’t. Who knew what they were doing to him.

I took a step towards him and raised a hand to show him that I wasn’t going to hurt him. I tried to ignore the pain in my shoulder as I did. “We aren’t the ones who were holding you captive,” I told him. “But we also aren’t your enemy.”

Those blue eyes found mine. He had olive skin, and features that were sharp yet covered in years of beard. His dark hair was laced with silver, and it tumbled down his back in messy waves. There were even smaller scars on his face, ones that weren’t immediately noticeable.

The shifter shook his head. “No, your scent…” He closed his head and breathed in deeply. “We were told to find you, kill you.”

That didn’t surprise me. I tried not to react. “You don’t have to do that,” I murmured. “What’s your name?”

Adrian moved to stand at my back, his worry so heavy I could almost feel it. The others were careful not to startle the shifter. Thankfully, Ry had shifted back so that he was partially hidden.

“I don’t know,” the male whimpered. He brought a hand to his forehead, fingers closed in a fist and thumped it against his temple. “He keeps telling me to do it. To rip you apart. To feast on your blood. ”

I tried not to flinch, but it was hard. Bile rose in my throat at his next words: “You must kill me,” he said. “I cannot—he will win. In my head. He will convince me, and it will mean your death.”

My eyes flickered from his to Elias’s. He still stood behind the shifter, prepared to tackle him if he moved. Maeve also wasn’t far.

It didn’t take a mind reader to tell he really believed what he was saying. I had to believe that Dante had worked his mind-powers on the male. On others like him.

Dante was using shifters like weapons. It made me sick.

“There might be another way for you to live, to stop him,” Elias said, voice steady. Calming. “Submit to a new Alpha. Join a pack.”

The shifter’s eyes popped open, wide with fear. “He won’t let anyone go,” he whispered, voice trembling. “He will kill us all.”