Page 48 of Sassy Embrace
TWENTY-FOUR
LEIGH
“Come back to me!”
Claude’s voice ripped through her mind, barreling down the neural pathways of the desperately snapping wolf until it reached the woman inside. All she knew, all she could feel was blind, rage-induced hunger. There was nothing else in the world, only this one sensation that defined her very existence.
Until Claude reached her.
Leigh screamed in a gut-wrenching howl that morphed into a woman’s plea for help as her limbs lengthened and face narrowed back into her human form. She blinked her eyes open, her senses readjusting to their dampened form as she took in the carnage around her.
“No,” she whispered. The drug-induced haze gave way to a clarity she would give anything to hide from. “No!”
All around her lay the bodies of the dead, including some she knew damn well who met their fates in her own jaws. She keeled over, feeling a wave of nausea grip her as she desperately tried to steady herself on shaking arms.
Her senses were less heightened in this form, but she could still smell the distinct odor of blood and death. And itsurrounded her, caked on the walls and floor of the club she’d worked so hard to open.
She glimpsed patches of blood-soaked fur, torn limbs, wolves lying on the ground with eyes blank and broken jaws hanging open.
“They’re all dead…” Leigh realized, scanning the club around her. Every other wolf she howled and rushed and attacked with lay dead. The Wolfe brothers, standing there caked in blood and viscera and struggling to catch their own breaths, made sure of that.
So why was I spared?she thought. But more importantly, she asked herself why she was able to shift back from the brink of oblivion when no one else had before.
She finally looked up, seeing Claude staring down at her with equal parts relief and terror.
Claude. Somehow, he’d gotten through to her. He’d used their mate bond to reach her mind, pull her back from the brink. He did the impossible through sheer force of will.
How?
I told you, her inner wolf said, exhausted and meek.He’s our mate.
She reached up, trying to grab at his coat or pants or anything she could reach to find some sort of security in him.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice cracked and broken as she held back a sob. “Thank you.”
But Claude wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was staring behind her toward the club’s main entrance, his eyes dark and posture stiff.
And without a single word of acknowledgment, he took off, faster than any human could. Leigh looked around herself, still in shock and alone with the men who killed the other wolves around her.
She knew them. She trusted them. But she couldn’t stay there, not like this. Not after everything that just happened.
She needed Claude.
Leigh shifted back into her wolf form, her mental faculties all hers once again, and chased after him. She easily tracked him to a nearby alleyway, different from the one Kim cornered her in but the same in size and length.
The smell of a dozen different beings hit her all at once, almost all of them caked in blood and fear. She came to Claude’s side, a short distance from a group of vampires bound and on their knees. They were injured and exhausted, making them perfect prey for a woman on a mission.
Behind them stood Kim, knife drawn and ready to start slitting throats.
“How could you?” Claude asked, fists clenched and voice booming. “These people are innocent. Those wolves were innocent.”
Two of the hostages looked at Leigh like a rabid dog ready to pounce on them. It shattered her heart to think some of those injuries may have been her own fault.
“There’s no such thing as an innocent werewolf. All of them wear the blood of my husband on their filthy paws. And you, Aria’s lackey, you’re just as guilty!” Kim screamed, seemingly secure that no one was going to interrupt her little bloodbath now.
Leigh began instinctively growling, low and angry, oblivious to the terror she was adding to the hostages.
Kim’s attention focused on her, and she smiled wide. “Wolf. Kill,” she commanded, pointing at Claude.