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Chapter Seven

Talia

M y arms are restrained at my sides, the cold table beneath me is hard and uncomfortable as I shift ever so slightly to test my movement.

With my eyes closed, my other senses heighten to try and understand what’s going on around me.

My peryton is angry, but the calmness in her rage and the lack of agony in my soul, tell me our mate is okay and close.

If you can really call the predicament we’re in okay, I guess.

For so long, I’ve wanted to escape this prison and the hell they unleash on me in the name of their religion.

When I closed my eyes at night, all I pictured was flying away from here, the wind rushing between my wings and caressing my fur without a single glance back.

It’s a fantasy that I thought could finally come true with Penn.

Of course, the Croisés are one step ahead of me.

They’re always ahead of me.

It doesn’t help that all I know is this prison and these people.

I’ve only learned what they wanted me to learn and only experienced what they allowed me to experience.

They control every aspect of my life from the moment I took my first breath, and now they control my mate as well.

If I thought I was a failure before this moment, it’s nothing compared to the self-hatred I feel now.

I may come from a powerful, mythical line of shifters created by the goddess herself, but I’m not worthy of this power when I don’t have the strength to wield it to save my mate or myself.

My peryton snorts, pushing up against the edges of my mind.

She gets distressed when my thoughts veer into self-deprecation.

There’s a feeling of warmth that fills my body, a light so bright it almost hurts, fills every part of me.

A whisper flows through my head, the sound soft and almost imperceptible.

“ You are worthy. It’s time to fight, my child. ”

It takes every ounce of control I have not to jolt at the sound of the foreign voice in my mind.

Right down to my very soul, I know it’s connected to the light and warmth that is fighting back all the poison, both physical and mental, that the Croisés have filled me with.

Mentally, I take a deep breath and calm the self-doubt as much as I can.

The voice reached deep inside of me and found the courage that’s been hidden and dampened by the years of torture.

It is time to fight.

It’s time to fight for my mate, for my peryton, and for me.

This isn’t the end.

My mate and I are still alive, and that means there’s a chance we can still get out of here.

My peryton ruffles her feathers at my change in thinking, her pride and bravery shining as bright as the light that’s becoming one with my magic.

Arthur’s hard gaze and creepy smile plays over and over in my head, the stark reminder of just how unhinged this group of humans is.

They are the ones that aren’t worthy of this magic.

They’re the ones that don’t have the strength to wield the power that flows through my veins.

If I don’t fight now, my future child will be fighting this battle, and I refuse to allow this heinous cycle to continue.

Opening my eyes, I whip my head in the direction of the laboured breathing.

A larger man in a white lab coat sits at a computer, staring intently at the screen as he breathes in heavy, shallow breaths.

My mate lies on a table beside me, his eyes cracked open in my direction.

With a small smile, I shift my eyes back to the only human in the room as I release tendrils of my magic to heal my mate.

This fight is going to be anything but easy, and I need to give us as much of a leg up as possible.

His injuries and poison are minor, meaning the healing is done in record time.

Penn grins at me, flexing his hands at his sides until they shift to furry, grey claws that break through the iron chains as if they were nothing more than frayed rope.

The sudden sound of metal breaking alerts the larger man and the guards standing outside the room.

The door to the room bursts open, but it’s too late for them to shift the tide.

Instead of the blonde, tattooed man I know as my mate, there’s a large grey wolf in his place.

He snarls loudly before lunging at the guards, tearing out their throats so fast I almost miss it.

Wolf Penn turns on the man cowering at the computer.

His pleading voice is cut off before any viable words even escape his lips.

Penn shifts back to human, grabbing the keys sitting at the desk before turning to me.

My eyes go wide.

The nakedness of my mate with blood dripping down his chin and chest is enough to completely short-circuit my brain.

“You can do more looking later. We need to move, baby girl.” Penn smirks while making quick work of the cuffs around my wrists.

“Our reinforcements will be here any moment and we need to get to the section of the castle they’re infiltrating quickly.”

Jumping off the table, I rub at my wrists as my magic heals the rawness and bruising.

“How do you know?” I question, running beside him as we head into the deserted hallway.

“I had this vision a couple weeks ago,” he murmurs, holding a hand out to stop me as we get to a crossroads in the hallway.

“I only saw bits and pieces, like the guards coming in that door, turning into the hallway my packmates are in, and killing the woman that was with the head honcho guy in our cells.”

Before I can respond, we’re dashing down a hallway swarming with Croisés guards.

They turn at our approach, guns swinging in our direction.

Without thinking, I throw a ball of raw magic at the group in front of me, knocking them backwards with so much force, they’re unconscious before they hit the floor with loud thuds.

Penn is back in wolf mode, his large, grey body flying through the rest of the guards.

Blood splatters the walls, turning my stomach as I sprint past it trying to not focus on the goriness of the fight, but rather the purpose of it.

They wouldn’t hesitate to kill us which means we need to do the same.

Their deaths mean our survival and that’s all that can matter right now.

Following my mate, we burst past a pair of double doors into the residential area of the castle.

This part of the castle was off-limits for me, even when I had more freedom as a small child.

It’s where the members of Croisés lived when they weren’t experimenting on shifters, their own little community that looks wholly unprepared for the invasion we’ve just committed.

The faces of the humans in front of us have varying expressions of fear, shock, and anger.

You can tell that some of them look at Penn and I and see nothing more than wild animals who need to be put down or caged.

The ignorance of humans is something I’ll never understand.

There’s a large explosion from the end of the hall, brick, fire and smoke quickly filling the space as chaos breaks out.

There’s screaming, gunshots, and the sound of howling wolves coming from every direction.

Penn nudges me with his snout, pushing me towards the site of the explosion.

“This is your reinforcements?” I whisper-yell at Penn, flipping my eyes between the debris and bodies covering the floor and his wolf body.

Penn’s wolf head dips in a nod, his orange eyes full of excitement and bloodlust.

With that confirmation, I run with all my speed towards the sound of howling wolves and the promise of freedom.

Penn

Talia’s trust in me fills the space in my heart to the point of pain.

My mate, the very essence of my soul, is trusting me with her life like we’ve known each other our whole lives.

It took one wolfy nod in her direction for her to let go of all hesitation and run head first towards an explosion.

This is our family coming to save us, and I know the moment they catch her scent, they’ll do everything in their power to protect her, just as I would.

They’re my packmates and the rest of Talia’s mates; their arrival is the turning of the tides of fate.

There’s one last part of my vision that still needs to come to pass.

That bitch from our cells is going to attack Talia from behind a pillar with a dagger.

At the time of the vision, I didn’t know it was my mate that she was attacking.

All I knew was that I would have to defend someone that means a lot to me.

Stupidly, I thought it would be one of my pack brothers.

Seeing the scene in front of me, I know it’s going to be her.

There was pain and rage like I've never known before in that vision, which means for the first time in my entire life, I'm going to try to change the future I saw.

No one will be hurting my mate today, fate and destiny be fucking damned.

A black wolf dives through the hole in the wall twenty feet in front of us, viciously throwing a body against the wall before turning in our direction.

Drayton's light blue eyes train on our mate, his nostrils flaring as he takes in her scent. It doesn't take long for the scent of Talia to light a flame of recognition behind his eyes.

Drayton's eyes stay fixated on Talia as she runs toward him, her faith in me leaving her with no hesitation in trusting the massive black wolf in front of her.

My sharpened vision catches every movement of my mate and my alpha. The dawning of realisation on Talia’s face is mesmerising, her jade coloured eyes widening in surprise and confusion. Watching her is quickly becoming my favourite thing in the entire world, which is a dangerous thing.

It's almost in slow motion that I realise the mistake I’ve made.

My focus was too caught up on my mate and not enough on keeping her safe.

The pillar is in front of us now, and the glint of that bitch’s knife is catching my attention, just like it did in the vision.

The woman from the cells earlier screams in rage as she dives at Talia, her knife striking her in the chest before anyone can react to what’s happening.

An anguished howl tears out of my throat, the same one I saw happen weeks earlier.

Lunging without thought, I grab the blonde woman by the throat, whipping her body back and forth as the hot, metallic tang of her blood hits my tongue.

My wolf and I are unhinged in our rage, shaking her dead body until all that’s left in my mouth is her torn out throat.

Chaos diminishes around me as more wolves jump into this section of hallway as the gunshots and screams start to die out.

Shifting back to human, I move towards Drayton who’s also shifted back and is holding an unconscious but breathing Talia.

“Please tell me she’s okay,” I say, tears already clogging my throat as I see the blood staining her clothes.

“From what I can tell, the knife hit her shoulder. She’s going to be okay. I don’t know what she is, but she’s healing even faster than one of us,” Drayton explains, his brow furrowed in confusion and concern.

“Is this— I mean, is she—”

His voice trails off, his gaze never leaving her face as he struggles to voice the question.

Drayton has always believed my visions, even the ones that the others refused to listen to, like those of Talia.

Even so, I don’t think he ever thought that our mate would come to us now, in this way.

“Yeah,” I answer the unspoken question, brushing a hand down her face.

“This is her. Our mate.”

Drayton curses under his breath, pulling her tightly against his body.

“Then let’s get both of you the fuck out of here. More of these assholes got away than I would like to admit. I want both of you as far away from here as possible before they come back.”

Turning away, he walks towards our packmates, shaking his head at their looks of confusion.

Wes and Forrester are taking multiple glances at Talia, their nostrils flaring as they sniff more and more trying to make sense of her scent.

Neither one argues with the alpha when he walks past, his glance at them saying not now.

Forrester moves beside me, Wes on the other side as I pass through the massive hole in the wall.

Drayton and I remain the only ones of our pack in human form as we move quickly out of the destruction of this gothic prison.

Alaric takes the lead with two wolves from his inner circle of enforcers making a barrier to Dray and Talia.

It feels like no time at all before we’re outside and running towards the copse of trees that surrounds this place.

Chancing a glance behind me, I almost falter in my steps at the sight.

There’s smoke and debris everywhere, leaving the already creepy castle looking like a scene from a horror movie.

To think that these insane motherfuckers have been holding our mate as a prisoner here for twenty-four years.

They’ll pay for the things they did to her.

This won’t be the last time we fight The Croisés.

We’ve won this battle, but I have no doubt that this is the start of a much bigger war.