Page 75 of Binding His Fated Mates

Then Daniel’s voice rang out—a few words in Welsh—and a cone of vivid green light slammed into the creature from behind.

The Mara convulsed, its grip on me loosening, a metallic shriek tearing from its faceless head. The tentacles retracted, curling back into the cavity of its torso.

I gasped, sucking in air, the world snapping back into focus.

The creature rounded on Daniel. My mate’s eyes widened and he took a step backward, incanting his light spell again.

The Mara tore across the room, going right for him.

I launched myself after it, just as it grabbed Daniel and slammed him into the wall, knocking the breath out of him.

Those horrible tentacles slithered out from it again, snaking up my mate’s body.

Raw, blinding fury gripped me. No way in hell I was letting it do that to my mate.

I drove the blessed iron blade through the creature’s back with everything I had.

The creature went rigid. Then its skin began to crack, the way mud cracks in the summer as it dries up. Fissures of light spread from the wound, spiderwebbing across its body like the fracturing of thin ice. The metallic shrieking filled the room again, reaching a frenzied pitch that made my eardrums feel like ice picks were being jammed into them.

And then the Mara exploded into fragments of grayish light that dissolved before they even hit the ground. Where the creature had been, there was nothing left at all, apart from the acrid smell of burnt flesh filling the air.

“Are you okay?” I demanded, my gaze raking over him for any sign of injury.

“I’m good,” he said. “Go help Lee. I’m right behind you.”

I nodded at him, then tore across the room—dimly aware that Jensen was now sitting up in bed, his eyes wide and disbelieving—and launched myself through the broken window.

The backyard was lit by moonlight and the headlights of Reed’s truck, which had just pulled up at the curb. The rest of the pack was spilling out. Reed and Harris out of the cab. Lacey, Oliver, and Sarah out of the truck’s bed.

And Lee was in the middle of the yard, facing the second Mara.

Alone.

My twin wasn’t in wolf form. He was human, his shirt hanging open and in tatters. He held the blessed iron blade in a reverse grip, his bare skin ghostly pale in the headlights. The Mara circled him, as if testing for an opening. Its torso was already split open, tentacles writhing, preparing to strike him.

Lee didn’t move, even when the creature stepped behind him. He stood in the center of the yard, perfectly still, the blade at his side, his gaze unfocused.

Then, without warning, Lee moved, dropping to the ground, the instant before the creature lunged at him.

He rolled onto his back and slashed upward with the blade in his hand.

One of the tentacles dropped off the creature, exploding into grayish smoke.

The creature shrieked again.

I darted forward, grabbed the Mara with both hands—my stomach clenching with revulsion because it was cold, clammy, and distinctly squid-like—and heaved it to the ground.

Lee rolled up onto his feet—we’d seen that in an old Jackie Chan movie once and had spent an embarrassing amount of time perfecting the move after we’d become wolves.

Lee and I barreled toward the creature, our movements perfectly synchronized.

The Mara phased out of reality, moving impossibly fast.

Lee froze, his eyes going wide. “Hunter!”

Then the monster’s hands gripped my shoulders from behind, and I felt the awful sucking hunger of those tentacles on me yet again. They were on the back of my neck and my solar plexus.

I felt an absolute refusal—a total revulsion, tinged with fury. It couldn’t have me. I wouldn’t allow it.