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I giggle again, the world blurring and getting darker around me. I want to get rid of the blur so the shadowy figures and I can be friends. Then we all can have fun.
The bendy one crouches down. Something takes my arms, pulling me upright, but it’s squishy in a funny way that doesn’t feel like hands. “She’s bleeding.”
I make a whoopsie noise because I forgot that part. “Sticky, sticky… blood so…”
My mouth stops working and my head lolls because holding it up becomes too hard, and then friendly darkness takes the struggle away.
Chapter 6
Phineas
She’s beautiful, and perfect, and fucking ours.
And those bastards tried to take her.
My jaw aches with the urge to let Beastly return again, not that there’s much left to devour of the ones who wanted to steal Mabel and her Hyde away. Between the three of us, we more than dealt with them. And yes, ordinarily we’re more circumspect, taking care to avoid leaving any evidence for a crime scene investigator to trace.
But these men dared to touch her.
Zeb rolls his neck in a stretch as he walks back to me, every sign of Ghastly gone now. “Fuckers.”
I make a sound of agreement, while nearby, Huck hugs his arms to his middle and peers at the green-skinned beauty before us. “Is she going to be okay?”
Heartrending worry fills his tone, the kind that goes beyond mere concern that she hit her head or that she may have an adverse reaction to the sedative they obviously gave her. It’s deep-rooted terror I hear, and to another person, that might make him appear weak.
I know differently. Only someone of incredible strength could have survived what Huck endured, and after all he’s seen and lost, he has plenty of terrible memories to give him reasons to be afraid.
To say nothing of how this is her.
I shudder, too enraged to speak.
“We’ll take care of her,” Zeb assures him. “Promise.”
I nod my agreement, but I can barely take my eyes from the Hyde goddess in front of me. Bending down, I scoop her up from the filthy concrete, careful to support her head and neck just in case she suffered a concussion from anything those bastards tried. If the two men with me were anyone else, I’d be concerned about how they might react to my actions. How I’m silently insisting on being the one who gets to hold her, touch her, and how I’m not letting them close.
But Zeb and Huck understand. Beastly’s nature means I cannot allow anyone else to put their scent on her first, even if only in this small way.
I breathe her in as I lift her, and my cock aches, already hard and ready, though I refuse to give into that need with her wounded like this. I first detected her scent when we were hunting that trader last night, a strangely sweet-sour bloody flavor that nearly felled me with its power and stunned Beastly like a bolt straight between the eyes. Every molecule of my being had instantly been aware of what she was to me, and the gods themselves couldn’t have stopped me from tracking her.
But when we reached an alleyway, both her scent and the trader’s wretched stench vanished entirely, owing to what I now know was her Hyde’s ability to disappear at will. We later found the abandoned building where she’d likely killed him, but even then, her scent left no path to wherever she’d gone afterward.
Beastly had nearly shredded the city at that, and I’d been left speechless, too aghast to tell my friends what I knew—that I’d found my mate, and hopefully theirs as well, but that I’d lost her before catching sight of her at all.
Until the bar.
In my arms, she curls up like she was created to fit there perfectly, and her round, pale green cheek rests against me in a way that makes a warm, hungry feeling flood my chest. A tinge of vibrant orange lines her eyes, as radiant and beautiful as a tropical flower. The brilliant hue stains the base of her dark lashes where they rest over her closed eyes, like a sunrise fighting back the night. Her body is delicate. Fragile like a doll, but with viciously sharp nails at the end of each fingertip and a predatory ability that’s left me hard as hell.
In every way, she’s breathtaking. And though her Hyde is still holding prominence, I can see pink streaks spreading through the roots of her black hair, hinting that Mabel is instinctively trying to disguise the truth of her identity.
Even drugged and unconscious, she protects herself, and pride for her surges within me as I hold her close.
“We’re taking her with us,” I say to Zeb, brooking no argument. She and her Hyde need to be nearby, if not for all of our reasons, then because Beastly is rabid at the thought of not being the one to protect her. But beyond the irrational reasons for bringing her along, plenty of rational ones prevail as well.
The traders might discover wherever it is she lives. A hospital might have spies.
Beastly wants to snarl at either possibility.
Zeb’s mouth tightens briefly, his eyes scanning the alley, but he nods. “I’ll call security.”
