a sharp breath as the Belorian scuttled by right outside and I backed up suddenly, crashing into Ethan's legs with a curse.
"Don't worry about the poor beastie," Sin said as he bent down to get a look too. "He's just hungry and horny and lonely. I was actually thinking we could bring him with us, but the tunnels might be a bit tight..."
"There is something seriously wrong with you," Ethan growled and I bit my lip as the creature scuttled into sight again, slowly turning its head like it was searching for something. Searching for us.
"It can't see our body heat through that ice, right?" I whispered even though the silencing bubble was still hiding any sounds we made, but something about speaking at full volume in front of that creature seemed like a terrible fucking idea to me.
"I got you, love. That thing can't see us," Ethan swore and I nodded as I stayed where I was, wondering if I should just cave in this part of the tunnel to make sure it couldn't follow us as I glanced towards the passage that led to the surface.
Just as I looked that way, a blood curdling scream echoed down to me and my eyes widened in fright as more screams followed it.
"What the-" I began, but before I could complete that thought, a hard body crashed into me and I was the one screaming as I was lifted clean off of my feet and carried straight towards the hole which led back to the library.
Cain's familiar scent wrapped around me half a second before we crashed through the wall of ice Ethan had constructed and fell sprawling to the ground between the bookshelves on the other side of it.
"Mason!" I yelled, fighting to break free of him as he wrestled me down and pinned me beneath him.
"I should have known it would be you!" he snarled in my face, his eyes wild with fury as Ethan and Sin started yelling from behind us.
"You have to get off of me," I growled. "The Belori-"
"Don't you tell me what I should or shouldn't do!" Cain bellowed. "To think I actually believed that you-"
A huge clawed foot slammed into him, launching him off of me and I shrieked in terror as the Belorian hurled him away across the room before its eyeless face turned my way.
I threw my hands up, a cage of thorns growing up to surround me just seconds before the Belorian lunged at me and a scream ripped from my lips again as its teeth sank into the thorny branches and started ripping them aside in its desperation to get to me.
"Hey, big boy, remember me?" Sin yelled from somewhere behind me and the Belorian's attack stalled as it whirled its head around and I caught sight of Sin shifting into the monster's version of a wet dream just before the thing lurched away from me and Sin took off with what I swear was a monster’s version of a flirtatious giggle as he made it chase him.
Ethan appeared above me a moment later, a layer of ice falling over the two of us as he used his magic to chill our flesh and I quickly disbanded the thorny cage surrounding me and let him pull me to my feet.
"We need to go, love," he growled, tugging me towards the tunnel as I looked back over my shoulder to see where Sin had ended up.
I let Ethan pull me towards the hole in the wall again, but before we made it more than a few steps, Cain shot in front of us and planted himself in our way, flames coiling around his arms.
"Don't you dare take another step," he snarled, the fury in his eyes a wild and fearsome thing.
"Mason," I breathed, pushing my way between him and Ethan as my mate formed twin daggers of ice in his hands and bared his teeth in a threatening way.
"Don't be an idiot, Cain," Ethan snarled. "You can't possibly expect to win against the three of us with our magic and Orders intact. Move aside unless you want to die in a futile attempt to achieve the impossible."
Cain bristled at the suggestion that he couldn't win against us and my heart thrashed as I saw that demon in his eyes which he'd unleashed against Christopher and the others to protect me.
"Just let us go," I begged. "We don't want to hurt you."
The fire flared brighter and a roar of fury echoed through