Page 50

Chapter 49

Rolf

R olf ran through the castle, armed to the teeth with knives he had stolen from the kitchens. He was going to find that bitch of a vampire if it was the last thing he did. But she was nowhere to be found. And neither, it would seem, were all of the other vampires.

Odd .

Fear pulsed through him the closer he got to the main floors, and he tried his best to shut it down—there was no use worrying about Adeline if he couldn’t even finish his part of their plan.

But still…

He couldn’t help but worry that he wasn’t there to help her, that she was in really big trouble, especially since he couldn’t feel anything through their bond. And that made him stop.

Don’t worry, I’m here, his wolf snorted.

Oh, thank the gods, he said back. Not an illusion .

No, but we don’t have time for this.

Too right, he said and continued up a stairwell. Rolf pushed open a small door midway up that opened onto a main hallway. The sound of music filtered down from a large pair of closed doors at the end.

Don’t! His wolf shouted, but before he could stop himself, he stepped into the hallway. Too late, he saw the dozens of vampires lurking in the shadowy recesses.

“Fuck,” he sighed and palmed two knives.

Slowly the vampires slid from their hiding places. A blond vampire stood at the far end, near the doors where the music came from.

“Don’t let him in!” Juliette shouted, and then it was chaos.

Rolf felt fierce pressure in his chest; he vibrated with an intensity he hadn’t felt during any shift. His wolf roared in his ears. His hands turned into claws.

The vampires swarmed around him even as he shifted into his wolf form.

Thick fur, sharp teeth, deadly claws, his movements became mechanical—swipe, gnash, roar, twist, leap, swipe, gnash, roar. One by one, the closest vampires fell, their heads separated from their bodies, their mouths locked in eternal shock.

He was blinded with rage and the desire to decimate the creatures who held his mate captive. But soon, he was surrounded; the vampires pressed closer, and his range of motion became smaller. A vampire sliced into his haunches, and he let out a ferocious roar. He whipped around and snapped the vampire’s head off, bones crunching in his jaw.

Something flashed in his peripheral vision, and he spun around. Was he going to get stabbed again? Two blades sliced through the crowd, and fountains of vampire blood shot into the sky. For a moment he thought it was his mate, but her scent didn’t fill the room.

Rolf’s wolf still swiped and gnashed, keeping a perimeter where the vampires dared not get close. But they crowded around him from a distance and backed him into a corner. He limped backward, his right flank bleeding from the stab wound, until his paws touched something metal.

A cage! he screamed at his wolf, but his animal was so distressed that he didn’t hear and kept backing up.

A scream echoed down the hallway, the piercing, guttural noise cutting above the crowd. Rolf growled. The vampires paused briefly. The echo faded and soon, the scream was forgotten and the vampires pressed forward again.

There was another glint of metal, then more blood spurted, and a head launched into the crowd. A few vampires turned away from Rolf, trying to see what was happening to their brethren, when Rolf saw Juliette. Her face was drenched in blood, but she wore a snarl as she sliced and sliced and sliced her way through the vampires.

“Come on, wolf!” she yelled, panting only slightly when her blade met resistance. She yanked backward and withdrew her sword from the neck of a vampire. Blood sprayed across her face. “Kill them!”

His wolf hesitated. Was she tricking them? But then she sliced into another vampire, and Rolf urged him to move, begged him to get free of the cage. His wolf leaned back on his hind legs and with one giant push, he launched into the air, landing on the other side of the vampires, right next to Juliette.

Together, they fought side by side, until the hallway was covered in vampire blood and bodies.

His wolf panted. Juliette wiped some of the blood from her face. Her eyes were hard, her face set in a sneer as she looked over the vampires she had killed.

She began to speak, but he growled. He didn’t want to hear her excuses. Her reasons. Sure, he should give her the chance to say her piece, but why? He got stabbed. Adeline was still in Erik’s presence. The fae downstairs were all still glamoured.

“Listen,” she started, trying to put a hand on his fur.

He snarled and backed away.

Juliette held up her hands. “I know what this looks like.”

He huffed hot air in her face. She didn’t blink.

“Just let me speak,” Juliette whispered. “It will make sense. I promise.”

He bared his teeth and walked a limping circle around her, but didn’t snarl again. The fae in this place were still glamoured and he needed to get them out. Time was short, even shorter now that he had been ambushed, so he would give her a few seconds to make her case, but then her head would be in his mouth if he wasn’t satisfied.

“Erik had this planned. I had to tell him everything I knew. Which”—Juliette shrugged—“wasn’t much. But now he plans to drink from Adeline and absorb her power by forcing her to mate and if I had to venture a guess…”

He snapped at the air between them so she’d hurry up.

“I think you two are already mated, yes?”

That stopped him. He tilted his head and stared at her, the question hanging in the air between them.

How does she know?

“It isn’t the full moon, and yet here you are in a shifted wolf form.” Juliette arched an eyebrow. “And if that’s right, then Adeline is a dead woman once Erik finds out.”

Another guttural scream ripped through the air, shattering the silence around them. Juliette’s eyes flashed to Rolf’s.

“Go,” she said, gesturing to the doors at the end of the hallway.

But he was already leaping over dead and dismembered vampires and throwing himself against the barricaded doors.