If these men were from that tribe…they deserved what was coming to them. In fact, Saul would enjoy doling out punishment in the form of death for their disgraceful behavior.
They weren’t stupid though.
Their fire was built and roaring quickly. The reindeer was stretched on a spit in a matter of minutes and they had posted two males as lookouts.
Damn the bastards for being organized.
Saul circled to the left, making sure to stay downwind of the group. He crept a little closer to the furthest sentry. Pulled a knife from his belt and leapt, taking down the man in a matter of seconds and without a single sound.
He pulled off the coat the male had on and yanked the neck of the shirt down so he could see the tattoos on his shoulder. The ink that stared back up at him in the moonlight burned like fire down to his soul.
He’d been correct.
This man was from the same tribe that had taken and murdered his wife and unborn child over eight years ago—the Ka’lagh. He’d never forget those markings. He’d killed so many, but nothing would ever bring them back.
Now they were here. On earth. And they’d taken another woman against her will.
Now they weren’t just trespassers.
Now it was personal.
Now he would kill them. All of them.
He slipped his knife back into his belt and returned to his beast form.
His cat was silent with paws so large he could walk on top of the packed powder. He continued to circle the camp, getting closer and closer to the second sentry. One leap. One slice of his claws across the man’s throat and he would never be able to touch or hurt another woman ever again.
It was the least he could do.
Saul’s tribe stopped hunting the Ka’lagh after several months, but Saul had never stopped looking for the men who held his mate down, violated her, then cut her throat.
She had been carrying their first child. He’d lost everything that night. And he’d hunted those particular men for years before he’d finally found them and avenged their deaths.
Saul leapt again, this time into the center of the camp and onto one of the men sitting next to the fire tending to the spit. A shout escaped and then chaos erupted.
Snarls and growls.
Shots were fired.
Nothing hit him. At least not yet.
He used his massive back paws to shovel snow onto their fire, bringing darkness to their camp like a shroud of death. That’s what he would be for them.
Death.
He ripped the throat from the Reylean sentry, killing him before he had a chance to shift and really put up a fight.
A shot bounced off a tree near Saul’s head and too close to the body of the bound woman on the snow.
He ran to her side and used his claws to cut her ropes.
She groaned, but didn’t move right away.
He used a paw to roll her toward him, helping to bring blood flow back to her newly freed limbs.
She pushed her flimsy hood up from her face.
Her pale skin glowed in the darkness, ethereal and beautiful and…it had to be an illusion. Fate wouldn’t be so cruel. He’d known his fated match. He’d mated her. Loved her. She’d died. He’d lost his chance for his soul to ever be whole again.
And now…
Now Fate was taunting him.
His lion chuffed baring fangs and roared.
She screamed. The sound lodged in Saul’s heart like a perfectly fired arrow.
It wasn’t real. He was imagining the soul call glow. It was a trick of the moonlight. The northern lights. Anything.
The woman stood from the ground, backed away a few steps and then turned and ran into the night.
Another lion roared on his right. Then another.
Dalmeck.
He turned fast enough to get a solid swipe at the attacking lion’s stomach. And knocked him onto the ground with a satisfactory thud.
Teeth and fangs and fur went in every direction. Pain sliced through his flank, but he returned the favor, tearing a chunk out of his opponent’s shoulder. They rolled in the snow, staining it dark with their blood.
Mate. Soul call. Follow her. His lion clamored in his head. Her scent was burned into his brain now. She was a lion, too!
The opposing male slammed into him again, knocking him from his thoughts.
Kill.
Oh, that was exactly what he intended.
His jaws opened and snapped and opened and snapped again, the second time finding the other male’s neck. He ripped out tuffs of mane and then bit again. And again.
Finally, he found a true grip and tore using the added adrenaline from every emotion he carried deep inside him. Every memory of what the Ka’lagh had done. Every scream he’d heard when they’d attacked his home. Every moment of pain. He allowed it all to fuel his rage. Fuel his ability to continue to fight even past exhaustion.
A shot whizzed past his head and Saul leapt into the shadows between the trees in the direction the woman had run.
Dalmeck.
He clung to the shadows and trees, moving quietly. This was his home and he knew this mountainside better than them.
But he still needed to put as much distance as possible between them and himself and he needed to get the woman to safety too. But she was running erratically.
In the dark. In a black coat with a hood.
The wind was starting to pick up.
He could smell the storm coming. He breathed in, looking for her scent, then leapt forward into a ground eating run. He needed to hurry.
A few moments later he could hear her struggling through the snow. She was limping. Every step looked like agony and yet she kept moving.
Brave little thing.
He looked ahead through the trees, looking for markers.
A knotted tree with low-hanging branches stood out in the moonlight. One of Douglas’ most remote cabins wasn’t far. If he could get her there without being seen. They would be safe for a while. And there would be some supplies and first aid there.
She could use the rest and needed to get out of the weather. He needed somewhere to hide her for the rest of the night. And a little time to figure out why Fate would dare tease him with the prospect of another mate.
There was an exclamation of distress and she fell. One moment she was there. The next she disappeared over the crest of a hill.
Dalmeck.
Saul’s heart choked and sputtered like a snow machine that wouldn’t turn over. For a moment, nothing moved forward. Not time. Not his breath. His heart refused to beat.
Then everything snapped into motion faster than before. His heart. His lungs. His fear made his paws churn the snow.
He had to get to her.
2
Lorelei
After her fall, Lorelei remembered the sensation of being carried.
The smell of a male was strong around her. But not the scent of any of the Ka’lagh warriors who’d been dragging her through an icy forest all day long.
And it wasn’t as cold any more.
She peeked her eyes open. She was lying on her back staring up at wooden planks. She was inside a structure or dwelling of some sort. And she didn’t recognize anything.
She flexed her arms, surprised to find them loose. She’d been restrained all day to keep her from shifting into her lion form. Beaten a couple of times. Even if she had been free to shift. She was so weak and tired.
She’d learned today that the group that held her captive, their leader—Rivian Ka’lagh—wasn’t traveling with them today.