Page 28 of The Wolf’s Appetite (The Lycans #8)

LENNOX

I ’d smelled Aisling’s blood before I saw her. That copper-salt tang cut through the chaos like a blade and made everything in me roar with rage and…fear.

I tasted her fear and pain, had that metallic scent coat my lungs and every nerve in my body until my vision turned red.

I could still remember the sight of her facing off with that fucker.

She’d been in her wolf form, her beautiful blonde fur like spun gold.

Her blue eyes were primal as she snarled as she protected the other females.

She’d been bleeding, her wounds deep and coated in a black substance that had the stench of dark magic.

And seeing her barely hanging on shredded the thin threads of control I’d been holding on to for my entire life. I’d thought my wolf was gone forever even though I’d found my mate.

But thinking that I might lose her? Seeing my mate wounded by that monster? It woke my inner animal. He’d come back in a rush that was violent and filled me with amazement all at once, slamming into me like an anvil crashing into my skull.

It had been so long since I’d felt my beast come alive. I thrived on the sensation of my fur bristling across my arms and spine, of my bones breaking and reeling, of my claws sliding free, and my teeth lengthening until my jaw ached.

I was going to fucking kill this bastard and feast on its heart.

After all the females had been removed from the room and taken to safety and after I made sure Aisling was out of harm’s way, I faced off with the fucker.

All the other Otherworld males circled the Leandrean.

The asshole stood in the middle of the wrecked drawing room, blackness dripping from its claws and serrated teeth.

I smelled my mate’s blood on the creature, and it enraged me all over again.

The air around the Leandrean rippled with a type of magic I’d never felt before. It shouldn’t have been able to get close to the estate let alone inside . Wards layered by the witches were supposed to hold against anything . But this wasn’t a breach. This was a jump .

The Leandrean had jumped through space and time, reappearing miles away from where it had been–with us–in seconds. This wasn’t a Leandrean ability. And whatever this creature conjured, it was old, corrupted magic that had done something it shouldn’t have been able to accomplish.

The Leandrean swayed back and forth, grinning from ear-to-ear as it faced off with all of us motherfuckers.

“This one is mine,” I said in my head, knowing the other Lycans could hear me, knowing that I shouldn’t have been selfish with wanting this bastard for myself. All our mates and children had been compromised. It was a fucking miracle no one had died. But Aisling had been hurt.

I didn’t know what this creature’s goal had been–getting to our females, testing to see if it could break through the magic and wards… or something more sinister. We may never know.

I should have been smarter and not reacted emotionally. But I was too far gone. I lunged. The Leandrean swung for me, claws slicing the air, but I was faster—my wolf back in my muscles, in my marrow, guiding every savage movement.

I slammed into him hard enough to hear ribs crack, my teeth sinking deep into the juncture of his neck and shoulder. The taste was foul—acid and rot—but I bit harder until cartilage gave way and I tore a massive chunk of him out.

He shrieked, grabbing at my scruff, and we went down together in a crash.

I heard shouts and roars, growls and warnings from my brethren, but I was too in the moment to focus on anything else.

The smell of metal being drawn and the sounds of guns being cocked told me the fighting was still happening even though I’d taken charge.

His claws raked across my ribs, but I barely felt the pain over the roar in my head.

A vampire snarled and dug its claws into the Leandrean’s eye sockets. Adryan. I looked into my crazy uncle’s eyes, saw him grin, and then he was laughing hysterically as black blood sprayed across me from where the asshole’s eyes used to be.

The creature screamed, the sound making the air vibrate. Witches kept chanting all around us, white magic flooding the room, but it did nothing to slow the fucker down.

The others were on the Leandrean then—Sebastian and Kane, Odhran and Cian, Ren and Luca. Adryan still chuckled, the sound deep and penetrating through the Leandrean’s screams. My Da slammed his full weight into the fucker’s side.

Kane tore into its leg with his claws.

Cian took the other almost all the way to the bone.

And even more vampires and Lycans joined the fray.

We ripped and stabbed, but the bastard kept fighting, swinging those black claws, kicking hard enough to send a Guard member through the wall.

Its eyes were gone, but it was grinning—a wet, horrifying sight that split its face. “Next time, I’ll feast on the females,” it hissed. “So sweet, their flesh.”

I drove forward with everything I had, my claws punching through his chest and curling into the hard bone of his spine. With a twist, I ripped him open, the sound wet and final. Black blood poured out in ropes, splattering on everyone near, and pooling at our feet.

But even dying, laying as its body twitched and its life faded away, it laughed. “We are in you now, wolf. We?—”

My jaws closed over his throat, and I ripped it out, tossing his trachea across the room until it slammed into the wall with a wet thwop .

The room went still as we watched his body spasm several more times before he let out his final breath and lay still, his dark magic bleeding out in threads of smoke and dissipating into the ceiling .

I looked at all the males, and I saw the same thing in each of their expressions, knew if I wasn’t in my wolf's form they’d see the same thing in mine.

We needed to get to our mates. I needed Aisling.