“…Urk,” Haydn croaked like a toad.
Euphemia noticed Haydn’s hand loosening its grip on the rapier and his foot easing up on her side as he balked. In that moment, adrenaline kicked in, the pain disappeared, and she grabbed hold of the handle and yanked out the blade skewering her flesh. And then—
“…?”
Haydn saw a delicate, long piece of red metal sticking out of his side. It took three whole seconds for him to realize that it was his own rapier sticking out of his side.
Though she had succeeded in thrusting the rapier into him, she had unfortunately missed his vitals. Haydn spun around and kicked the woman gripping the rapier in the face. Euphemia’s shoulders slammed into the hard marble, ripping the breath from her lungs, and the searing pain returned. Stifling her cries, she scrambled to her knees.
“You sow! You dare turn on me?!” Haydn tossed aside his camcorder and pulled a pistol from his jacket. Sweat glimmered on his face, but the gun barrel was aimed precisely at Euphemia’s forehead. “Die, wench. Atone with your death.”
“DIE!”
Zelaide raced to Euphemia. There was no way for him to save her except to become her shield.
Zelaide cried out in a voiceless roar.
NO! Anything but that! She’s my life. She’s everything to me… My very soul!
Haydn squeezed the trigger.
“GAAAAH!”
BANG!
A black spike zoomed through the air at breakneck speed, passing Zelaide, and striking the gun barrel. The diverted bullet shot into the rock ceiling.
Zelaide threw himself on Haydn, knocking him to the ground. All of this happened in a blink of an eye.
Rocks showered them.
“…GUUERGH!”
Zelaide slammed his fist into Haydn’s face. Blood spurt from his nose like a water fountain. Haydn squealed like a Muta. Fear distorted his always smug face into something ugly.
“Bastard!” Zelaide straddled Haydn and shook him by his collar. “I should tear out your heart and feast on it…!”
The Beast Blood’s eyes gleamed despite the light. Madness flashed in them.
He brought his fist down on him over and over. Haydn quickly lost consciousness.
“Zel!”
A strangled cry instantly stopped his fists. Euphemia unsteadily rose.
“That’s enough. You’ve done enough. Any further and that thing will die without ever being fully punished. He will escape far too easily with a quick death… It’s okay now. I am right here… Calm down…please.”
“……”
The Beast Blood’s arms fell limply to his side. Those teal eyes vacantly stared up at Euphemia. And then, like a lost child who had found his mother after days of wandering, light filled his eyes once again.
“…Yumi…”
“Thank you for coming to get me… I was waiting for you.”
His mate reached out. Though she wobbled on her feet, she opened her arms to him.
“Say, would you mind coming to me? My leg hurts too much to walk. Oh, but you’re hurt too…”
Zelaide clambered to his feet. His legs were in worse shape than hers, but he stopped feeling the pain. Staring into her eyes, he dragged one leg behind him as he crossed the endless distance between them.
He wasn’t just crossing the physical distance between them, but the figurative gap that kept them apart. The gap consisting of barriers such as class difference, cultural difference, and the difference between the worlds they lived in—those things that seemed impossible to bridge and overcome.
Who the hell cares ’bout that?
Zelaide jumped the last several feet to her.
“Zel! Are you okay? Oh no, look at all that blood—whoa!”
Euphemia’s vision was suddenly obstructed by something big—Zelaide’s warm, broad chest. He dropped to his knees and was hugging her. Or rather, clinging to her.
“I’m alive…you’re alive…Yumi…” He nuzzled his face against the nape of her neck. “I’m sorry… You must’ve been scared… Sorry. I’m so sorry!”
Sorry for letting you get hurt. Sorry for not protecting you. Sorry for makin’ you the mate of a beast like me. Sorry for not givin’ up on ya. Sorry for bein’ unable to let ya go.
“…Forgive me.” Zelaide apologized profusely into her chest.
“Zel…? What are you apologizing for?”
“For being an idiot,” bitterly answered a voice behind them.
Zelaide sprung up and hid Euphemia behind his back. Shank was standing there scoffing at them. He had flipped the lever and dropped the shield. He had tied a cord he ripped out of the wall around what was left of his arm to stop the bleeding. Blood dripped from the tied off ends.
“……”
The Beast Blood males stared off. If stares could kill, theirs would have.
“Director Burhardt…”
It was the human girl who broke their silent battle. Shank’s gaze drifted to her. Boring woman…
This woman was only one of his subordinates at the temporary job he held as part of his current cover. She wasn’t particularly intelligent, and tried to get through life taking advantage of the privileges she was born with.
But that same woman didn’t lose her spirit even after being pinned to the floor by that sleazebag’s rapier. Her emerald eyes twinkled like the stars, making her just as beautiful and strong as any Beast Blood woman. Though she was more fragile than a flower petal, rather than be scared of the bloody arm that landed near her, she yanked the rapier from her leg and stabbed it into the back of the sleazebag during his moment of fear. How many women were capable of that? For that matter, how many men were?
And then there was the gun that was turned on her. Driven to insanity, the sleazebag tried to kill her. The young Beast Blood ran to shield her with his body.
Unforgiveable, Shank thought.
In that instant, even greater hatred for Zelaide exploded within him. That emotion threw a wrench into the man’s ability to tackle every battle with a calm mind. Shank was in greater shock that he’d lost his composure over Zelaide trying to protect his mate than the fact he had lost an arm.
He was finished after that.
He threw the spike without even thinking about it.
Almost as if…
Almost as if I was trying to save the woman from death.
And that very woman was embracing the object of his hatred.
What a farce.
Why is this woman—
“My—”
“Don’t look at her.”
Zelaide sensed it right away. Baring his fangs, he glared at Shank.
“She is my mate.”
“……”
“Don’t look.”
A ferocious growl rumbled deep in Zelaide’s throat. The blood-covered silver wolf rose to his full height and showed his prowess despite his wounds. In order to obtain his mate and keep her from another male.
The two Beast Blood males faced off, ready to kill for a mate.
And then the entire room shook from a brain-rattling impact.