Bound

Pretty

XAVIER POV

Claire was in a fight to the death, and all I could do was watch in horror as she avoided a roundhouse kick by scooping down to pick up a lumpy white rock and murmuring "Pretty". I had returned to the city and was in the plaza of the hotel Xandra was staying at. We were having coffee at a metal black filigree table when Claire's world went up in flames.

Alexi! Get back into the box! The WOLF part of Claire is high! Xandra linked to Alexi, observing the savagery through my link.

I don't know how! He yelled back. Slamming down a coffee mug that cracked into a pile of jagged, orange, ceramic pieces.

Then cut off contact like you have been doing through sheer pig-headedness this whole time. Xandra hissed, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

I don't know how to do that either, that was always Claire's schtick! He linked in a jumble of words that would have tripped over themselves if he had used his tongue instead of his mind.

Through Claire's eyes I saw the maniac of an Alpha charging at her with murderous intent. He was coming down in a straight line, aiming to take her out at the hips, arms stretched wide, aiming to wrap them around her legs and take her down to the ground. She was beaming with her arms stretched out wide, as if welcoming a hug.

Where she would be toast. Terrified hands gripped the metal filigree seat beneath me as the horrific scene unfolded in front of me. I had nightmares of fights where Claire was in the middle of a warzone defenseless, and here she was. Staring at a charging man with her head cocked to the side like this was some circus sideshow.

The Alpha was getting closer and closer, and no matter how I tried to warn Claire, she just stood there.

In a roar of helpless fury I stepped into her mind like we did when we were sharing the stimuli of more intimate scenarios. Feeling her muscles flex under my command, as her conscious attention fell over in a mess of giggling limbs at the back of her mind.

We dropped down into a fighting stance, right leg forward, lowering her center of gravity. The shoulder of the charging man connected to her waist, and wiry arms wrapped around our extended leg. Moving on instinct, I reached over his shoulder to twist his head to the side in a neck crank. His hair was so greasy my hands nearly slipped clean off, but I just increased the pressure between our hands. Claire was strong.

Where the head goes the body follows, so the Northern Alpha twisted his torso, breaking the lock of his arms around our leg. Claire had been training to fight intensively for at least four months now, so her body was strong and supple, it just needed direction. I could provide that direction.

We could get through this.

I used the moment of control to look around her mind. Claire was swaying with an orange haze that swirled around her like a veil. A shadow shaped like Alexi wove through the veil to shroud her mind. I scooped both of them up and stuffed them in a black box without trying to think about the physics of such a move.

My meta mate jerked to attention beside me, and I invited him fully into my mind to see what I was seeing through her and feel what we were feeling. So I had the mate link with Claire, and an open link to Alexi and Xandra on the other side. In a naturally lit terracotta courtyard, surrounded by the gentle clink of elegant glassware and the soft sounds of late afternoon merriment.

Claire snapped back into her own consciousness with an outpouring of spicy adrenaline. Implications of this fight clamored for attention with a clanging of alarm bells. Relief eased one of the gordian knots of panic in my intestines. She was lucid again.