“Sorry, Princess, but your mates can’t kill us if they’re dead,” Jarid says with a smirk as he and Murray stand over me.
Suddenly, a knife appears right in the middle of Murray’s forehead. He stares with wide eyes before he topples to the side, dead.
“Holy shit, who threw that?” someone asks, and everyone’s eyes move around the clearing.
I have no idea, but I’d rather be on the side of whoever has just killed Murray, so I lie. “That would be my mates.”
“Impossible!” Jarid yells angrily. “They are days behind us!”
“Not all of them,” a familiar voice says from behind, making me turn.Holy shit!It’s my masked savior, once again, coming to save my life.
He moves in front of me, blocking me from their view, and I slowly stand. Placing my hand on my chest, I gasp as I feel one of my connections thrumming strongly. “It’s you,” I whisper in surprise.He’s the sixth connection, he’s my fated mate!
I see the men start to encircle us, so I move closer to him, slowly pressing my front to his back as I grip his cloak. “We’re surrounded,” I whisper.
“It’s okay, Love, I’ll take care of you.” Umm,swoon much?Fuck, that was hot. This guy is like my personal superhero, and the fact that he just called meloveand promised to take care of me makes me embarrassingly wet, considering the danger we are currently in.
“You’re surrounded, just hand the girl over, and we’ll forget you just killed one of my men.”
“Hmm… How about I kill you all and keep her for myself?”
“I’ve had to put up with her obnoxious fat ass for the last three days, there is no way I am just handing her over, I want what I’m owed!”
“Oh, hell no!” I growl, trying to move around my newest mate, but he uses his arm to keep me behind him.
“Give me a dagger,” I ask, placing my palm out to his side. He stares at me over his shoulder for a moment with his dark brown eyes, before grabbing my wrist and twirling me around to his front. His arms and cloak wrap around my shoulders. His hand moves underneath the cloak, out of sight, and the handle of a dagger is pressed into my hand. I wrap my fingers around it and try not to smile, feeling the weight in my hand as I adjust it justright.
“Hand her over, or we’ll make you watch while we take turns with her.”
The arms around me drop and I quickly lift the dagger over my shoulder before letting it fly, right between Jarid’s eyes. A matching kill to Murray.
“Love… that was fucking hot.” His hands tighten on my waist as he whispers in my ear.
I scream as I see the other men all lunge for us at once. While keeping one arm around the front of my shoulders, which keeps his chest pressed to my back, he kicks and slashes a path through the clearing until we’re at the edge of the water. He quickly pushes my back to a tree, telling me to “stay.” Before he whips back around and pulls out a sword. Holy shit, where was he hiding that thing? I watch with wide eyes as he dances around the ten remaining men, no, make that eight… and cuts them down with ease. I swear the whole thing happens within just a couple of minutes. Until finally, he stands with his back to me in a fighting stance, his head looking everywhere.
“There were twelve,” I tell him. He lowers his arm a bit and I watch as he checks every body on the ground for signs of life.
When he seems satisfied that they’re all dead, he spins on his heels and storms over to me, pressing his palms against the tree on either side of my head as his gaze searches my eyes.
“Who are you?” I ask him the same question I asked all those weeks ago, but never got an answer to.
He uses one hand to pull back the hood of his cloak, revealing beautiful jet black hair. He then grips his mask and pulls it over his head, dropping it to the ground. Because he was always masked, I expected to recognize him, but I know I’ve never seen this face before, I would have remembered him. His jaw is strong with a couple days’ worth of beard growth and his eyes are so intense, I feel as if he can see into my soul.
“I’ve caught you, Little Mouse. Now I can finally claim you as mine.”
“I… I… I… What?” I stutter out eloquently.
“That’s the rules, you know? The first to find you gets to claim you as theirs.” He traces a finger down my cheek, making me shiver. “But I’ll only touch you if you want it, Love.” His finger grazes across my lips. “And you do, don’t you?”
“I don’t understand,who are you?”
“Love,” he whispers, stepping closer so his body is pressing into mine. His hand cups my cheek and my breath catches in my throat. What is he doing to me? Why am I so drawn to him? Well, I knew why… he was one of my fated mates, is that what he was talking about? “Don’t you see? I won the mating hunt, I found you.”
“The mating hunt?” I ask in confusion. Wasn’t that the stupid game I had been stuck participating in when I first arrived in this realm? My eyes widen in realization. “Wait—have you been following me since then? I never willingly entered it, I think it’s a stupid way to find mates.”
A smile crosses his lips, making him look devilishly handsome. “Aye, Love. The moment I saw you walking through the throngs of men, I knew you didn’t belong there, and I knew you were mine. I wasn’t sure what to do with you at first, I wasn’t there to find a mate, I was just there meeting another man for a job. But when I saw you, I knew I had to stay close, keep you safe. And when you jumped on that damn bird, I nearly lost it. Thankfully, your first mate jumped on after you. It took me a while to find you after that. I keep finding you and losing you. But not following you across the desert was the worst mistake I made.”
“I almost died out there.” I don’t know why I tell him that.