Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,67

paler and leaner.

I shove myself backward, but there isn’t very far to go. My shoulder hits the wall. I flinch, the panic tightening around my lungs, the lack of air dizzying me.

The Sylas-wolf lunges for the Kellan-wolf’s neck, but Kellan twists away at the last second and slashes his lord’s muzzle. They roll, Kellan getting the upper hand only for a moment. A second later, Sylas hurls him back against the floor. Blood flecks the paler wolf’s fur. Like the blood—like the blood—

I clutch myself, longing for an image of a peaceful landscape to retreat into, unable to tear my attention away from the chaos before me.

But it’s almost done. This time, Sylas manages to jam his paw against the underside of Kellan’s chin. His claws rake bloody lines down to the other wolf’s throat. With a ripple of his body, he’s a man again, holding the struggling wolf down with his still-clawed hand like a vise around Kellan’s neck, a feral glimmer in his unmarred eye. A jagged cut slices across his temple, bisecting one of his tattoos.

“Yield,” he demands, half growl, half bellow. “Yield, and you can leave with your life. By the Heart, Kellan, don’t force my hand. You know Isleen would never have wanted this.”

Kellan glares up at him, his teeth still bared, holding his wolf form. His muscles tense. He has to be able to see he’s beaten, doesn’t he?

Maybe he does. Maybe he just doesn’t care.

His wolf appears to go limp as if in submission. Sylas starts to release his choke-hold—and Kellan flings his body to the side. Not slashing out at the larger man. No, he whips his head around, his fangs and claws aimed at me.

One paw scrapes across my ankle, smashing the thin slats of the brace into splinters and carving through my flesh. Agony spikes up my leg. I heave sideways on my shaking limbs, not fast enough to outpace those gaping wolfish jaws descending on me.

But I don’t have to outpace them. Sylas springs, grabbing Kellan’s throat and slashing through the jugular with one powerful stroke.

Blood gushes down the beast’s chest. Kellan slumps onto the floor inches from my feet. His life flees him with a grotesque gurgle and a twitch of his furry limbs.

In another shudder, he’s shifted back into the man with the sallow orange hair and silvery eyes. Those silvery eyes don’t gleam at all now. They just stare dully at me, unblinking, while a scarlet puddle spreads across the floor beneath his head.

I push myself farther away, along the wall toward the door, a tremor wrenching through me. He’s dead. Completely and utterly dead. My stomach lists queasily.

I’ve never watched anyone die before.

He died—because Sylas killed him. The fae lord kneels over the other man, his chest heaving. His claws retract into his bloody hands. He can’t seem to tear his eyes away from his former comrade, his face stiffening in a mask of horror.

He slit his cadre member’s throat for me. To save me from being mangled by those fangs and claws.

As my stomach lurches again, a draft of cool air licks over my arm. My gaze slides from Sylas to the front door, which is standing ajar. Darkness and the rustle of the breeze over the fields beckon from beyond it.

I could still make a run for it. I’m bleeding and my brace is broken, my pulse is thundering and my breath still coming short, and maybe Sylas would give chase—but I have some kind of chance. For all I know, I might stumble out of the Mists into the human world just a few feet from this building.

Staring at the sliver of freedom, my body recoils.

I could dash out there into darkness and uncertainty, into a realm where every other being I meet might happily throw me back in a cage, chop me up, or worse—and if I’m lucky, scramble beyond it to a world I don’t know how to even start belonging to. Or I could stay here, with the only people who’ve shown me any kindness in nine long years. With the man who just killed one of his own rather than see me blinded and hobbled.

How can I really say I’ll be safer out there than Sylas has just proven I am within these walls? Whatever his reasons for detaining me, he won’t allow this prison to destroy me, no matter how much he has to sacrifice.

And it was a sacrifice. When I look at him again, his anguish