21

The situation was more than tense. She was almost despairing, at least from my side, and while the rain was the only thing to be heard apart from Keno's loud growl, I kept staring into his dark eyes and felt that Izzy was now between the tree behind me and pressed my back.

"Stop it!" I yelled when, heart racing, I realized that Jamal was about to snap next to me and turned in a flash to give him a warning look. He seemed to react almost more aggressively than Keno to the two vampire girls and was in his fighting stance the whole time. Always ready to tear the two behind me to shreds.

Aymo growled to my other side, too, but I knew that he was only doing it because of the pack's compulsion. To submission... He would never attack the girls first, so I turned my desperate and overwhelmed gaze back to Keno, brushing my wet dark hair from my face.

"These are only children! Please!", I tried to talk to him while my heart was racing and suddenly I felt that my voice, as well as my hands, began to tremble uncontrollably under his menacing growl, but I didn't intend to approach him bend over, even when my wolf was already lying on her back. I fought against my natural instinct!

"I'm scared," Izzy said quietly behind me, and when I just wanted to turn around to her to signal that I had everything under control, Jamal suddenly jumped on her without warning and swept her to the ground with him. bumped into by his broad shoulder, lost my balance and crashed sideways onto the hard forest floor. My head was pounding, but I quickly got back on my arms and watched in panic as the two girls threw Jamal into a tree, Jamal yelped in pain and Keno was now about to get involved in what was so unfair a fight.

"No!", I shouted loudly and wanted to reach for my companion, but he thundered past me through the dense trees at high speed after the girls, which Jamal did the same after a few seconds. Only Aymo remained with me and positioned himself in front of me in such a way that I could see nothing but him and his dark fur. "You're disgusting!" I snarled at him and got up quickly to gather all my pent-up anger. I closed my eyes, felt my blood rushing through my body at breakneck speed and a moment later my big paws hit the damp forest floor.

» We're going back! ' Aymo commanded me via Mindlink, but I only looked at him for a fraction of a second, taking a deep breath, and then I sprinted to follow Keno and Jamal's trail as fast as I could. I wouldn't let these two innocent girls die. They didn't deserve that...

They were still children!

Speeding up, I swept over thick branches and roots, all of which gave way under my heavy paws, while avoiding the many trees in my path and tracking my companion's scent. But when that trail of scent suddenly turned into something so obnoxious that I had to stop and wrinkle my nose, I was terrified and widened my eyes in panic as everything around me drifted into absolute silence...

Fire... But not the kind of fire that smelled like burning wood... No... It smelled like something I couldn't even identify... But unfortunately I could only imagine who was causing the smell and I yelped so loud and in pain that my whole body started to tremble...

My whimper was covered with deep sadness. My heart felt like it was tearing into a thousand pieces and from all the chaos in my head and my feelings, I just fell over and swayed powerlessly to the side, transforming myself back into this small, broken person who is now naked lying on the wet forest floor and dying inside.

"You're dead," I sobbed, not caring at that moment... I didn't care that I was lying here naked in the rain, looking lost at the clouds. I didn't care that keno was my mate... I never wanted to see him again... I didn't care if a vampire would come and give me the killing blow... because those two girls only died because I wanted to run away They died because they trusted me... died because I was too weak to stop the others.

With these thoughts I closed my eyes, feeling only the cold wind and the drops of rain that kept falling on my heated skin. Felt slight vibrations on the forest floor beneath my back. Probably Keno looking for me...

"Aria?!", I suddenly heard Aymo calling me, but his voice sounded muffled, as if he was calling me from so far away that it seemed almost impossible to hear him at all. But he was looking for me, but I didn't want him to find me.

I quickly opened my eyes again, tried to banish all the chaos and transform again, but my wolf refused and made me incredibly angry. Why was she always so stubborn?!

"Are you fucking serious?!" I said to her and looked around in panic. She was addicted to him...keno...and she had no intention of helping me escape any longer...

Stupid bitch!

So I had no choice but to continue walking completely naked and barefoot through the forest. Of course I could have gone to collect the scraps of my clothes, but one of the three would surely be waiting for me there, so that my escape would be over.

But she probably was anyway, because I was so excited I didn't notice that someone was sneaking up on me from behind and I cried out loud one last time when suddenly something was pulled over my head and I couldn't see anything more than Darkness.