The wolves snapped and snarled, but Lexi couldn’t go out like this. Not under their teeth. Oh, she knew what the bite of a werewolf would do to her. She would be Turned in the last moments of her life, and she would be damned if she died a member of Axton’s pack.
She would die human, and fuck the werewolf games.
Lexi gripped the bloody shirt to her chest, breath shaking in terror. The air smelled of pennies. The wolves went mad, snapping, ducking forward and back. There was pack dynamics she didn’t understand. A feeding order maybe. Didn’t matter now.
Biting her lip against the whimper of fear that clawed up the back of her throat, Lexi stepped backward. The wolves lifted their heads in unison, ears erect, confusion in their eyes.
God, she didn’t want to die, but it was coming either way. Knife out, she took another step back, and her heel brushed the ledge. The wind whipped against her bare back, as if Mother Nature was trying to keep her upright.
“No blood for you,” she said in a shaky voice. “You lose.”
As the gray wolf leapt at her, his eyes deranged, his lips curled back to expose all those razor sharp teeth, Lexi launched herself backward off the ledge.
At least she was taking one of them her.
Just as she fell and the ledge promised to hide her view of the chaos, something massive and black barreled down from the sky and blasted into the gray wolf an instant before the animal hit her in the chest. Her attacker was knocked sideways and away from her, his mouth open and shocked as a high-pitched cry screeched from his throat.
Wait, wait, wait, was that Wes?
If Wes was here, then…
“Ryder!” she screamed when she caught a glimpse of the snowy owl above her, his enormous wingspan blocking out the moon.
He pulled his wings to his sides and dove for her, but she was falling too fast. She struggled against the destiny that was coming for her. Struggled against her death. She could see him so clearly, every feather on his face whipping in the wind, every black speck that decorated his snow white feathers. His gold eyes were like two glowing suns in his face as he tucked his wings tighter against his body.
Seven seconds. That’s all she had, and it was almost up.
Tears burned her eyes, but she had to be strong because he wasn’t going to reach her. She hoped he would pull up in time and save himself. He should hear what was in her heart before he lost her. He should see she accepted her fate so it would be easier on him.
“Ryder,” she choked out as the wind in the trees below kicked up. “I love you.”
And then she squeezed her eyes closed and braced herself for the pain.
And it…was…horrible. But not the pain she expected. Her arm felt like it was ripped from its socket and shredded by razors. She screamed at the dizzying, excruciating pain as she was jerked in a different direction. Ryder had one of her arms but his grip was off and his long, curved talons had raked up her forearm with the force of his desperate pull.
The outsides of her vision collapsed inward as sparks flew this way and that. She couldn’t breathe. It was as if the oxygen had been sucked from her lungs, and now something massive sat on her chest.
She tried to focus on the stars to keep from passing out, but something had blocked the sky, and everything was dark. An earth-shattering roar shook the mountains, but Lexi still couldn’t force a single molecule of air into her lungs, and the pressure and pain were too great.
Fire streaked across the cliff, illuminating the fearsome face of a beastly dragon, and blistering heat blasted against Lexi’s skin.
And then everything went dark.
Chapter Sixteen
Lexi rolled over in her sleep, but flinched away from the slashing pain in her arm. She bolted upright, clutching it across her chest, as if that would stop the burning.
Heart pounding, she looked around the dim room, lit only by the soft glow of the bathroom. She was in ten-ten, and her arm was wrapped up like a mummy limb.
Harper was sitting next to her on the bed with her knees drawn up to her chest and a hollow look on her face. And in that moment, everything came crashing back down on Lexi. The terror, the exhaustion, the feeling that she would never see Ryder again, and then the pain. So much pain.
“Where’s Ryder?” she asked, wanting desperately for him to hold her and tell her everything was all right.
Harper shook her head sadly and whispered, “I don’t know. Wes went to look for him.”
Lexi’s mouth went dry as a desert, and she looked down at her bandaged arm. “Is it bad?”
Harper bit her lip hard, then nodded. “Yeah. You’ll be scarred. Weston was raised a Gray Back. He can put anyone back together, but Ryder had to really dig in to pull you up. Wes saved the use of your hand, but…”
“But it looks bad. It’s okay. It’s okay,” Lexi chanted, bobbing her head. “At least I’m alive.” Nothing in her wanted to look at her arm or the stitches she could feel pulling at her skin. It still felt like someone had dipped her arm in gunpowder and lit a match, but pain was good. It meant she was still breathing, still here.
“Alana, Aaron, and Wyatt just left. I told them to go get some shut-eye. I thought you would sleep until morning, but I wanted to stay just in case.”
Lexi offered her a tremulous smile and settled against the mattress. “What happened, Harper?”
The Bloodrunner alpha picked at a loose thread on the comforter. “Axton and the Valdoro pack made threats when I was trying to settle these mountains. They wanted the land, but the previous owner chose to sell to me. Axton said the vamps would finish us off, but they didn’t. We chased the Asheville Coven out of the area a few months back, and I guess the pack’s need for revenge flared up again. They targeted Ryder.”