Chapter 131

Justin POV

My mate’s shrieking scream sounded off from the distance, and I tore through every obstacle in my way to get to her, including shoving that eavesdropping Fae out of my way.

Randy wasn’t far behind me, the two of us running into the village square, seeing my mate laid out, eyes shutting on instinct, while a little dart is in here fingertips. She drops the dart, her body going under with her mind, and seeing her so motionless from a mere dart frightens me so much…

What if it were a silver bullet? She would be dead.

My Lycan snaps out of my frame without warning, rushing over to my mate where we stand over her protectively, looking around the skit of the pack village where a few of my warriors are watching on. They glare through them all, trying to find the one responsible.

Randy snarls, his dark fur wolf coming out and charging towards my mate and I, a panicked look on his face that I can’t exactly read until I hear a shot being fired, like a needle whizzing through the air towards us all.

Randy leaps in front of me, tumbling to the ground when a shiny dart punctures his neck. He’s out cold in a minute an di trace the direction of the dart, my Lycan leaping through the pack grounds until we’re at the edge of the line of neutral ground.

I see a flicker of light, as though the moon has caught a glimpse of a pistol, and I run right for that glimmer. My Lycan rips through the man that cowers at the base of the tree, holding a small gun that is thrown aside in the scuffle.

I bring my claws down over his features, watching him crumble and cower in his own blood. The Fae is beside me soon, pulling the mangled man from my possession. His eyes are wide before they close and he turns away.

The Fae is used to death but acts as though it bothers him now?

I shift back, needing to calm down while I take the chrome gun from my palm. “He had it coming,” I snarled. “Don’t even bother having him buried. The crows can handle him.”

“Oh no, Lycan,” he snapped, coming to my side as I walked away. “One small problem. That’s not the Huntsman.”

I groaned internally. I didn’t get a good look at his face and I didn’t care. I didn’t need explanations or answers or another damn prisoner. I needed him dead!

“Then his death will warn the Huntsman to never come for my mate again.”

“You can’t be acting brash, Lycan. If you go out alone and it is him—everything will—it will all end badly. I know how he works. He wouldn’t be merciful.”

I came to a stop over my mate and my Beta, both knocked out cold and sleeping deep with darts to blame. Looking over the pistol, I turn it over a few times and then fire a shot into the ground. Russo jumps up, petrified, but I grab it right away as it poke from the grass.

Holding it to the moonlight, I watched as the red liquid tries to drain out of the needle. I tipped it up, watching it move around the small vessel in curiosity.

“Here, take this to the healer. See if it’s something natural; If there’s a way to reverse the side effects.”

Russo took it begrudgingly, stepping over my Beta as he stops off toward the healers place. I ordered a warrior to get Randy to a bed inside the estate and focus on my mate for now, picking her up into my warm arms and bare chest after I ripped through my clothes.

She doesn’t even react, only laid out in my arms motionless, cold and sleeping to the world around us.

“Come on, mate,” I groaned. “Wake up. Let me see those beautiful, wide eyes.”

She sniffled but didn’t wake up at my request. I made it back to the bedroom and laid her down in the middle, wiggling her out of her clothes so she would be comfortably, only replacing it with a shirt of mine, too large for her small frame but engulfing her in my scent.

I loved her natural scent but I couldn’t help but try to stifle it with mine, because I knew she would get the aura in her sleep and she would relax when she would finally awake.

Until then, I sat up waiting for Russo to return and have answers on the dart liquid.

I should have been more careful to not let her go outside alone. Then again, she was supposed to be in bed. I know Russo had stuck behind to listen in, that damn Fae is nosey as hell, but I was hopeful she had listened to me for once and went to sleep.

I didn’t want her to be upset over Randy’s confession.

She is beautiful and special and strong—of course my own pack would find her attractive and would be partial to her kindness and uniqueness.

“Ju—Justin,” she cried.

I pounced practically over her body, my face right over hers while she squirmed. “Helen, please. I’m right here, just wake up and talk to me.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Russo purred from the hallway. He held up an odd looking plant in a pot, the leaves of the plants large and green with purple and red veins on the fleshy pads of the greenery. “Found out what it was.”

I crawled off from over top of my mate and sat on the edge of the bed. “Well, explain it, then.”

“Super poison, derived from wolfsbane but not as deadly to you and your mate’s species, Lycan. Sends the victim into a sleeping spell and a hallucinogenic state. She will be fine, she’s just going to be out for a few days.”

“Days? I grumbled. “Dammit. I just wanted to talk to her. She just got back and I can’t even be with my mate anymore, not without more battles surrounding us and trouble everywhere.”

Russo nodded, looking around the bedroom curiously. “Well, how about a vacation?”

I cocked my head. “I may love my mate but like I told Randy, I don’t know if I can trust her right now. I need to figure everything out and make sure we are safe here first.”

“The pack is safe,” Russo claimed. “You and your little Luna there—I don’t think so.”

He sat the dart down and plopped down on the chair nearby. The small pixie my mate has been holding before was in his shirt pocket, over his heart, and he brushed the hem open to make sure she was still okay.

“I heard about this place, I think from a human many years ago, were wolves would go to feel their strongest. It has something to do with the aura of the moon or something, like it’s stronger out there, and I think if you took your mate, then maybe things would get better between you.”

I paused, curiously considering the offer, but in the same breath, I couldn’t be sure it was a good time.

“What about the pixies, Russo? She said she wanted to go after the others.”

“I will have my wizards go after them,” he said simply. “Whatever is in this dart can’t harm them, so they would be able to cut loose the other pixies, if there are any more left.”

I looked at my tired hands, wanting to run away from my problems but as an Alpha, as the Last Lycan, I knew I couldn’t ever do such a thing. I had to fight, be the leader and defeat everything in my way.

But Helen whimpers, her state deteriorating since everything went wrong between us.

She needed an escape, a break, and I wanted nothing more than to give it to her.

“Where did you say this place was again?”