12. Slade

12

SLADE

T he way she was shivering and trembling in my arms was breaking my fucking heart—she was clearly still scared out of her mind. Even worse, it was me she was terrified of. She’d seen me change—seen me let my Darkness out. I hadn’t intended for that to happen— I had wanted to take my time before I told her what I was—about the thing that lived inside me.

Fuck —so much for that. Now she knew it all and the way she was looking at me let me know it was going to take a while to earn her trust back—if I’d ever had it in the first place.

I carried her to my ship and tucked her into the passenger seat. She watched me with mistrustful eyes as I fastened her harness and went around to get in myself.

I was still furious, of course—the Brute who’d tried to take her was going to die as soon as I found out who he was. He had to be punished— I could feel the Darkness pent up inside me roiling with rage. But thinking like that was going to make it come out again and I couldn’t afford that—not when Aurora was looking at me like I might gobble her up at any minute.

I would have to deal with it later, I decided. Right now I had to calm my new bride down and heal her wounds. I could smell fresh blood and I knew that she’d been hurt trying to get away from me. I needed to take her back to my suite at the resort and try to ease her fear.

But later that son-of-a-bitch was going to pay, I swore to myself. He was Clan Ruthless —his crimson eyes and large, leathery wings proclaimed it loudly. Not only had the bastard tried to kidnap the wife of another Clansman , he’d come to another Clan’s territory to do it!

If Clan Cruel had been disputing with Clan Ruthless , it might have made sense, but there were no conflicts between us right now. This could start one though. I needed to talk to Drake —he was Clan Ruthless and this information had to go straight to the Chieftain of his Clan . He needed to know that one of his own was marauding in another Clan’s territory.

But for now, I had to tend to my wife and pray I could convince her that I wasn’t a danger to her—not even when my Darkness came out. How was I going to manage that, though?

The easiest way to calm her down was to be close to her—to give her skin-to-skin contact and let her smell my scent. Fated Mates are naturally attracted and calmed by each other’s pheromones. They also leave a kind of trail that we Brutes , with our superior senses, can follow. That was how I’d been able to find her.

When I’d come back and found her missing from our table, I at first assumed she had gone to visit the ladies room. But then I caught a whiff of her scent in the air and her fear and panic came through to me, loud and clear. I also smelled another Brute —and I knew at once he was from a different Clan than mine.

I had followed their scents to the parking area and found Aurora just in time. And thank She of the Four Faces I had! If I had lost her…

I clenched my jaw, doing my best to tamp down the Darkness inside me. It wanted to come out again—to find that fucking bastard who had tried to take my bride and tear him limb from limb!

But the dark rage I felt wasn’t going to help right now. I told myself that I had to concentrate on Aurora . Somehow I had to win back her trust.

I just wasn’t sure how in the fuck I was going to manage that.