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I walked back to Odhran, his focus still on the human, who had a gaping wound in his chest. Through the rip in his shirt, I saw a large tattoo in the center of his chest.
“Odhran?” I prompted hard, urgency in my voice. I needed to get my mate somewhere safe to tend to her wounds and to figure out what the hell was going on. I needed to call Adryan and see if he knew what all of this meant.
I called Odhran’s name again, and he finally blinked a few times, snapping out of whatever haze he was in, and looked at me. His gaze lowered to my mate, his eyes widening. He ripped the prongs out of his neck and lifted his chin toward the car. Although he was back in the present, there was still no doubt he looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
Light started flickering intermittently from a few hotel rooms, the commotion and noise no longer drowned out by the storm, waking people up. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Once at the car, I got into the back and pulled Evie firmly onto my lap, letting her legs stretch out over the seats, unable to let her go. I’ll never let her out of my sight.
I pushed the long, dark fall of her hair away from her face and examined her again. She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever laid eyes on. She’s the most precious gift.
Once we were on the road, I grabbed the cell Odhran handed me and called Adryan. I placed the phone to my ear as I stared down at Evie’s face. A black-and-blue bruise was starting to form along her temple, and I clenched my jaw, my wolf howling in pain that she’d gotten hurt. The gash on her forehead didn’t look too deep, and the blood had since stopped, now drying to her hair and the side of her face.
When the line was answered, I didn’t bother waiting or giving a greeting. “We have a big fooking issue,” I grated out and pulled Evie closer to my chest, her slight body curled on my lap.
“Do we now?” Adryan drawled.
“Got attacked by two humans, and the arseholes were hard tae take down. But it was clear they knew what the hell we were.”
“Huh,” Adryan said, and I growled, unable to stop the auditory threat. “You’re still alive, bitching about it, so clearly they didn’t succeed, so I’m not sure why you’re telling me any of this.”
I closed my eyes and grappled for control. “Of course humans couldn’t take down a Lycan, but they weren’t trying tae fooking kill us. They were trying tae take us.” I saw Odhran looking at me in the rearview mirror, his eyes narrowed, ready to jump through the phone and take down Adryan for his clear disrespect. “I need a place tae take my mate, tae care for her. I donna kno’ what the hell is going on, but given this is yer territory, I figured ye’re the one who’d have the answers.”
There was a long silence from the other end, and I could picture the bastard sitting behind his desk in a chair that was like a fucking throne in the underworld. The arrogant prick.
“And you say you had a hard time taking them down?” Adryan finally asked in a flaccid voice.
I growled low, having no time for this. “Aye. I fooking told ye already. They’d been trained… trained to fight an Otherworld. Knew weaknesses, how tae fight, even if they didn’t stand a chance, no’ hand-tae-hand anyway. Had fooking tranq guns.” More silence, more tenseness. “He also had a tattoo,” I tacked on, remembering the mark on his chest, the one that seemed out of place, tightening the skin on the back of my neck as my instinct climbed higher that something was really wrong.
There was a low rumble on the other end, what I presumed was Adryan’s anger in verbal form. I assumed it’d probably have less dangerous males shitting their pants. It just annoyed me.
“A tattoo? Describe it to me.”
I felt my hand tighten around the phone, the plastic and metal and glass creaking, threatening to break at his fucking order. I told him what I remembered about the marking, my eyes never leaving Evie’s face. “Adryan.” I said his name hard. Final. “I need a fooking place tae take my mate. We can discuss this once I’ve cared for her.”
The bastard exhaled as if I was wasting his time. I gnashed my teeth and held in a retort. The last thing I needed was to piss him off, even though on any other occasion I wouldn’t have given a shit.
But I had a mate now and had to think more clearly, rationally. Putting her in danger because I couldn't control myself wasn't something I’d ever risk.
“Text me your coordinates, and I’ll let you know one of my properties close by.” More fucking silence. “And Cian?”
I tensed as the tone in Adryan’s voice changed, shifting to something harder, more dangerous.
“I’ll meet you at the property tomorrow. If what I think is happening really is… then we have a big fucking problem.”
15
Evelyn
I’d never been woken up by pain before, not something so soul searing, to where it felt like my skull had been split in two. It was breathtaking, so concentrated that I actually woke with a start, a gasp being pulled from me. I squeezed my eyes tightly but then immediately regretted it, as the motion had a sledgehammer crushing the side of my head.
I heard a deep voice, the words muffled, my ears feeling like they were stuffed full of wool, like I was trying to hear them underwater. But with each passing second, things started to become clearer, my hearing returning to normal.
“Tha thu sàbhailte. Cha leig mi le duine do ghortachadh.”
At first I thought I was losing my mind, that I no longer understood English, or maybe I was dreaming. But could you feel pain in a dream? The deep voice kept speaking, the tone deep and masculine, the words soothing as they wrapped around me.
I realized I hadn’t lost my mind, and as a stab of pain pierced right behind my eyes, I knew I wasn’t dreaming. Whoever was speaking wasn’t doing it in English.
