Decebel closed his eyes and said a prayer to the Great Luna to keep his mate safe. His eyes popped open when he got a quick flash from their bond. "Drake has lost his mind." The words slipped into his mind and then the bond was slammed shut.

Chapter 15

"Rage like I've never felt was washing over me in great waves. Mixed with it was need, confusion, desire, and darkness. They aren’t my emotions and yet they are so intense it seems impossible for them not to be. Whoever they belonged to, they were coming, for me. She was sure of it, and with him, death would follow." ~Bethany

Pain radiated down Bethany's thigh along with a trail of blood. Sincaro had been especially brutal in his feeding and had bitten her multiple times, all in areas where there were large veins. He'd only bitten her on her upper thigh a handful of times before. This was the femoral artery, he'd explained to her once. For whatever reason, there were times when he would tell her exactly what he was doing. She was pretty sure he did it to increase her fear—sometimes it worked. Sometimes it just made her angrier.

The barred door to her cell slammed shut. The vampire that had carried her back to her cell turned and walked away without a word, taking the light with him and leaving Bethany in complete darkness.

She was anxious. If her leg didn't hurt so badly, she'd have been up pacing. But as it was, she couldn't walk without causing herself significant pain. So instead, she closed her eyes and attempted to center herself. She needed to figure out what was happening to her.

She didn’t understand what was going, but something was definitely different. Sincaro had sunk his long teeth into her thigh and she’d screamed in agony. In that instant, she'd felt a new presence inside of her. It was as though someone else was in her mind. The presence felt distinctly male. She wasn't sure how she knew it, but she guessed it might have been because of the possessive nature of his thoughts. They had to be his thoughts because they definitely weren't hers.

"Mine," the deep voice growled. It was raw, animalistic, and something inside of her was agreeing with him. No, she tried to tell herself. I am not his. No matter how she tried to convince herself of that fact, however, there was another voice inside of her that disagreed. Somehow this new voice was both hers and yet not hers. And this voice said that she was definitely his.

Bethany leaned her head against the wall behind her. Her body ached from Sincaro’s rough treatment and her mind was a turbulent storm of thoughts and feelings that she couldn't separate. So instead, she just tried to shut it all down. Attempting to ignore the deep voice and the pain, she let exhaustion settle over her and begged for sleep to claim her.

Peri couldn't believe what she was seeing. Drake had lost it. She had really believed that he'd be able to hold on, but the feral look in the eyes of the man/wolf looking back at her told her otherwise.

"What's wrong with him?" Sally asked quietly.

"He's feral," Jen answered before Peri could.

The male stared at them for a few minutes longer before turning back to the manhole and suddenly jumped down into it and disappeared from view.

"How did he find the entrance?" Jacque wondered out loud.

"Maybe it’s because he’s feral?" Jen offered. “The darkness inside of him was probably drawn to it.”

Peri waved them off. "Doesn't really matter at this point. We need to follow him."

"Um, why?" Jacque asked nervously.

"Because he's going to get himself killed," Peri snapped. "And feral or not, the vamps don't get to have him. If he's going to die because he's lost control, then I will be the one to put him down for lying to me. Dumb wolf."

Peri headed to the manhole and held out her hands. The girls grabbed them and she flashed them into the underground. She lit an orb to light the tunnels and saw Drake about a hundred feet ahead of them. "Keep holding onto me," she told them as she continued to flash after the wolf.

Peri was shocked at the vastness of the tunnels. Apparently these vamps had a thing for expansion because these tunnels went deep into the earth. Down and down the girls went as the tunnels funneled them deeper. She lost sight of him for a while and was considering turning back to wait for the others, who she'd released from the spell. But just as she was about to flash them back, they entered into a large chamber.

Peri dropped her arms as she looked around and realized that they were surrounded by cages. Drake was in his wolf form and, before she could call his name, he had slammed his head into one of the cage doors. It flew open and he lunged inside, stopping only inches from a small form sitting at the back of the cage.

Peri was just as shocked as the girls when Drake stepped even closer to the small human and pulled his lips back from his very long fangs. As gently as a wolf with big ass teeth could, he bit into the flesh where her neck and shoulder met. The girl screamed and jumped back pulling herself away from Drake. The possessive flea bag obviously didn't appreciate that because he was now snarling at the female he'd just claimed.

"Did he just do what I think he did?" Jen asked, her voice higher than Peri had ever heard.

"If you're thinking that he bit her in the way of his species when claiming a true mate, then yes, yes he did," Peri said as they continued to watch the wolf.

"What are we going to do?" Sally whispered.

"We're going to not panic," Peri offered.

Jacque scoffed. "Right, okay we'll get right on that whole not panicking thing after we get the feral wolf away from the terrified girl."

"Never thought I'd say this," Jen whispered next. "But did you release our mates and are they on their way?"

Peri nodded. "Yep. I'm sure they will be crashing in momentarily, which means those two need to be gone. If that really is his true mate and he's really feral, he will kill any male who even breathes the same air as her."

"Then let's get this whole rescuing thing under way," Jen said as she took a step toward the cage.

Bethany stared into the silver eyes of the huge—strike that—ginormous wolf less than a foot away from her. His fur was grey with a white undercoat, and she only knew that because he was standing right next to her. His head didn’t look like the beasts from the maze, but he was every bit as big as them. His deep growl rose up, filling the space around her and causing a shiver to run down her spine.