Grey was beginning to think it had been a mistake to let his emotions get the better of him.
Sure, the fight to free the captives held in the procession had been satisfying, and easy.
The
few demons that had been leading the slaves across the valley hadn’t
been difficult to take down in his tiger form, mostly because the first
two hadn’t seen him coming. The third had tried to run, and the fourth
had been too dumbstruck to put up much of a fight.
When they had all breathed their last, he had shifted back and freed the captives, a sense of satisfaction rolling through him.
Until
he had stood alone in the valley, and had grown aware of the lights in
the distance, of the fact that others were there, locked in chains and
fitted with collars.
About to be sold to the highest bidder.
A black rage had come over him, swift to consume him.
He
had shifted in a heartbeat, and had been sprinting across the valley in
the next, determined to reach the black market and put an end to what
was happening.
The moment he had seen the stage and the bastards
filling the space in front of it, waving numbers and shouting bids, the
moment he had scented the fear of at least a dozen people, all of them
different species, he had lost it.
Two guards had met death at his claws and fangs.
A third had hit him hard enough to drive him back out of his tiger form.
Which was never a problem.
He
could fight in both forms, had honed his skills over the three
centuries he had been alive, all so he could protect his charge, Maya,
and his family.
So he could protect the damned pride too, he supposed, although they didn’t particularly deserve it.
Or want it.
He
pushed thoughts of the pride out of his head as he grappled with a fae
male of some kind. He whipped his head forwards, cracking the male’s
skull with his brow, and the male grunted and staggered backwards,
clutching his head. Grey didn’t give him a chance to escape, or gather
himself. He launched at the male, grabbed his head in both hands, and
twisted hard, snapping his neck.
The male dropped lifeless to the floor.
Most
of the bastards who had been bidding on the auction had fled, but a few
had remained, obviously hungry to make sure they got whatever poor soul
they had purchased. One of them was frantically arguing with the demon
Grey had figured was in charge, a burly male who stood on the stage,
protected by three guards and showing zero inclination to join the
fight.
Was he so sure that Grey would meet his end before he reached him?
There were only a handful of enemies between him and the male now.
A
sudden surge of people rushing towards him had him growling and
hunkering down, preparing for them to attack him. He frowned as they ran
straight past him, some of them not stopping while others joined the
fight.
Shackles clanked and chains jangled as they attacked the guards that had been on his to-do list.
The slaves.
Someone had freed them.
He looked off to his right, towards the cages he had spotted earlier, and his gaze caught on something as a roar sounded.
Something incredible.
Blue
flames lit the darkness around the sleek black-panther-like feline as
it faced off against two demons, shimmering over the entire length of
its body.
A chill chased over his skin as he stared.
A hellcat.
He had read about them, but he had never seen one.
The
closest he had come to seeing one was Maya, and she only had the black
nails of a hellcat when she lost her temper. Their mother had told him
once that he had the eyes of a hellcat, pure cerulean, like precious
gems, and it was the smattering of hellcat blood that remained in him
from his ancestor cross-breeding with one that had given him those eyes.
Their mother had been a bit of a romantic.
It wasn’t whatever trace of hellcat genes he had that had given him blue eyes.
It was his deformity.
The hellcat edged backwards, away from the two demons with their damned batons.
No.
The hellcat limped backwards.
Grey
growled and stalked towards the males, fury boiling in his veins, a
need to kill them both for sinking so low as to attack an injured
hellcat.
A female.
He caught her scent as he neared, and
gods, his anger flared hotter in response, his claws emerging and his
fangs growing long. A need to shift swept through him, but fear held it
back, a feeling he didn’t understand as he set his sights on the smaller
of the males.
The pain that had forced him out of his tiger form had ceased. He could shift. He was stronger as a tiger.
His gaze flicked to the hellcat.
Cold chased through him at the thought of her seeing him in his feline form.
Abomination.
He
growled, and poured all the anger, the rage, he felt on hearing that
word chanting in his head in the collective voice of his pride, into his
attack. He closed the distance between him and the demon in a
heartbeat, had his claws against the bastard’s throat in the next
second, and had sliced it open on the third.
The male dropped hard as his life flowed out of him, revealing the hellcat.
Her eyes met his.
Bright pools of tropical ocean that he wanted to drown in.
He
growled, scooped up the baton the demon had dropped, and hurled himself
at the second male. The demon blocked his first blow, but the second
connected, striking the male hard across his wrist.
Grey struck again, slamming the electric baton into the male’s chest point first.
The demon grunted and shuddered as the charge unleashed, pouring into him.
Out of the corner of Grey’s eye, the hellcat began inching away from him, dragging her rear left leg.
He couldn’t blame her for trying to escape when she saw the chance.
Shackles circled her front legs.
She had been a captive of these males, might have been sold if Grey’s temper hadn’t got the better of him.
Or the warlock hadn’t given him this location as a place to find mortals.
Grey had been an idiot to think the male had meant Archangel soldiers were here.
The
male had presumed he wanted a mortal, and had pointed him in the
direction of where to get his hands on one. A slave auction. It wouldn’t
surprise him if the warlock had been on his way to buy a few poor souls
for himself. He didn’t want to think about what a warlock might want
with slaves.
The demon struck him across his right cheek, bringing
him back to the fight and reminding him that now wasn’t the time to
think about things.
It was the time to act.
Grey snarled
through his fangs and brutally shoved his baton under the demon’s chin
and pressed the button to unleash another blast of electricity.
It was enough to send the demon down and have him shaking uncontrollably.
Grey hit him again, a blast right into his temple, and held it there until the bastard stopped shaking and went still.
He picked up the male’s baton and twirled them both in his hands.
That left just the son of a bitch in charge of this disgusting auction.
Grey growled when he realised the male was gone.
The whole arena had emptied.
Leaving him alone with the hellcat.
He advanced towards her.
She
turned and hissed at him, ears flattening against her head, fangs
enormous. Her bright blue eyes warned him away, her flames growing
larger, more violent as they danced over her black fur.
They stuttered a second later and she slumped, but was quick to pick herself back up and shake it off.
He dropped the batons to the black dirt, aware that it had been a mistake to keep hold of them when approaching her.
They had made her view him as a threat too.
The
pain had her locked deep in her animal side, and that animal associated
the batons with pain, and with her enemies, people out to hurt her.
Grey held his hands up at his sides. “I can feel you’re afraid.”
Which freaked him out a little.
He
could sense Maya and Talon’s feelings, and Byron’s if he bothered to
pay any attention to him, but he had always found it hard to get a bead
on what others outside of his bloodline were feeling.
She was the first.
Was
it just because she was broadcasting her emotions loud and clear to him
because her animal was in control, her human mind suppressed by the
instinct to survive and the need to shield it from the horror of what
had been happening to her?
It had to be, because he didn’t want to think about it being anything other than that.
He risked a step closer.
She hissed again and swiped at him, right paw cutting through the air, leaving a trail of blue fire in its wake.
Her flames died down, covering only her paws and the tips of her twin tails, and fluttering around her mouth.
Because she was injured?
He glanced at her hind left leg, taking his eyes off hers for only a second.
In
that split-second, she lunged forwards and slashed at him again, but
still fell short. She wanted to fight him, feared him as much as she had
feared the demons who had beaten her.
“I’m not like them,” he
whispered and kept his hands held high, hoping she would see he was
hardly a threat to her now. He was naked and unarmed. “I’m not going to
hurt you… I just want to get you to safety. We can’t stay here.”
She
growled and backed off, placing more distance between them, showing him
that she wanted to escape this place as much as he did.
Probably more.
But
with her injury, it was slow going. She made it barely three metres in
the minute he watched her, and had to keep stopping, her flames dying
down each time.
“You’re going to pass out if you keep pushing yourself.”
She looked back at him and hissed.
Grey
sighed. “I get it. You’re angry, afraid… but I swear… I am not going to
hurt you. I saved you, didn’t I? Why would I do that if I was going to
hurt you?”
The look she gave him somehow answered him loud and clear.
Because he wanted to put another collar on her.
“Look…
I’m not into that sort of thing. I came here to free everyone, not
enslave them. I’m not like that.” He slowly kept pace with her as she
began inching forwards again, stopping every time she did, keeping the
distance between them steady. Voices sounded in the distance. She lifted
her head and growled, and there was so much pain in it, so much fear in
her, that he snapped. “I tried doing this the nice way.”
She growled as he closed the gap between them and he ignored her, let her smack him in the legs and try to drive him away.
He felt like a bastard as her fear increased, panic mingling with it in her scent.
She honestly viewed him as a threat.
He
bent, grabbed her around her waist, and scooped her up into his arms.
She hissed and wriggled, and he grunted as he tried to keep hold of her,
which was a damned feat given her size. She was far larger than a
tiger, and heavy with muscle that she was doing her damnedest to use
against him.
“I can’t leave you to fend for yourself and you know
people are coming… so you can bite and scratch me all you want, but I’m
getting you out of here before they arrive.”
She could clearly
understand him, but she took the invitation he had issued and raked
claws over his shoulders as he twisted her in his arms. He slung her
over his shoulder and held her hard over her back, but gently around her
hips, aware of her injuries. As much as she obviously wanted to hurt
him judging by the war she waged on his back with her claws, leaving
fiery trails across his skin and filling the air with the scent of his
own blood, he didn’t want to hurt her.
He swiftly carried her away
from the battleground, heading back towards the mountain range in a
direct line. She finally stopped trying to fight him when he reached its
base and began to ascend, going still in his arms as he picked his way
around boulders and up steep inclines.
For a moment, he feared
she had passed out, but her low growls and occasional hisses, and the
feelings he could sense in her said that she was still lucid.
Still angry.
He skirted the base of the mountain, his senses fixed as far and wide as he could manage, charting everything.
The people he had sensed drifted into the distance.
Good.
He
dropped back down into the valley when he smelled his own scent, and
found his backpack and clothes. The moment he put the hellcat down, she
growled and tried to get away.
He sighed.
“Really?” He donned his trousers, boots and t-shirt, and then slipped his backpack on over his shoulders.
She got all of a couple of metres from him before he had her back in his arms.
She didn’t fight him this time.
He
carefully carried her in his arms, which should have been the weirdest
thing, cradling a huge feline like a baby, but he had done it once or
twice with Maya when she had been younger.
Only this cat was infinitely more dangerous than Maya had ever been.
Blue eyes steadily watched him, pinned to his face as he carried her.
If she wanted, she could easily bite his head off in this position.
He just hoped she got the message that he trusted her.
And she started to trust him in return.
He looked down at her, strange warmth flooding his chest.
That sense of connection returned.
Deeper than before.
He dragged his eyes away from her, fixed them ahead and crushed the feelings she had brought to life inside him.
Whatever she was to him, it wasn’t going to happen.
If life had taught him anything, it had taught him this.
No one could ever love him.
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