Shielding the Beast (discontinued)

Thirty | Trust

A/N:
New cover!! Tell me if you prefer this one or the previous one.

Happy reading :)

///

Anger burns in my chest and spreads like a fire. Hot rage shoots through my veins. Boiling blood pushes the long, sharp claws from my fingers and a guttural growl from my throat.

The word surfaces in my mind with a biting hatred.

Traitor.

I had hated her the first time my eyes met hers, the first time her high pitched, condescending voice reached my ears. But Daniel vouched for her loyalty. And Asher ripped me off of her when my claws were around her neck. If he hadn't, we wouldn't presently be having this problem.

To think that she had made me sympathize with her, if only for a millisecond, is humiliating. To have thought that, deep down, she was in the place I had been before. It makes me the stupid one. She played her hand until it's near gone, and mine is overflowing in my grip, cards about to spill onto the table.

But she hasn't won. Not yet.

My canines grind together as a painful lesson I was forced to learn long ago resurfaces.

Betrayal is a deadly thing.

"Amber."

I hear my name, but don't acknowledge it. My flexed fingers are nearly knuckle deep into the soil now, as if the ground were her throat.

"We should go," Cole urges again, his gaze falling on my clenched jaw. My head snaps in the other direction, and a suppressed snarl rips from my chest.

"You still want to save her now?" I growl bitterly, searing eyes landing on Daniel.

His expression is dead. Deflated. His head droops and his eyes refuse to meet mine. The shame he has for his ignorance only brings me a microscopic shred of satisfaction. What I want now, the craving deep within me, is to see Venya bleed. To see the life leave her eyes just as the fight has left Daniel's.

As if he read my intentions, Asher's hand presses down on my back simultaneously to my pressing against the ground to get up.

I look to him in question, but Cole speaks first.

"Leave her for now. We'll come back with a plan later. Take care of the others, then you can do whatever you want with her." With that he climbs to his feet, backing away from the cliff side. The rest of us mimic his movements.

Asher's hand returns to the small of my back as we make our way toward the tower, filing down a path nestled between dense trees and vegetation.

No one says a word. The aura feeding off of Daniel is like that of which is suited for mourning a loved one.

He didn't love Venya. He loved the idea of her. And now that's dead.

.

.

.

Night begins to fall, casting a solemn blue and a deep purple over the Italian forest. Shadows lay in abundance beneath the leaves, waiting to swallow whatever walks past in newfound darkness.

I watch from the balcony of the tower as the colors shift with the nearly sunken sun. My hands lay on the deteriorating bricks, cool against my palms.

"The Beta's broken," Cole's voice announces his approach. He appears beside me, leaning his elbows against the bricks.

"He'll mend." Even as I say it I don't fully believe my words. He loves to fight, but is he truly a fighter?