Chapter330:Protecting myOwn


    Sinir


    I growl down at the man before me, who is younger than I thought he would be, for one with


    such power. He has thick ck hair and a day’s worth of stubble on his thin cheeks. The man


    res up at me with dark, angry eyes and opens his mouth to speak but before he can, I p him


    – hard with an open palm.


    –


    The man gasps with surprise and pain, his eyes going wide as he stares down at the floor, and I


    smirk. I doubt this man has been pped anytime recently, if ever. He has the smug look of


    someone used to being in charge.


    But he’s in my house now.


    “You’ll speak when we tell you to speak,” I growl, and then I turn to the head of my


    –


    reconnaissance team, who is standing against the wall, his hands on his knees, panting a little.


    Craig isn’t a small man to see him so undone by the efforts suggests that this diminutive priest


    is, indeed, powerful in other ways.


    “How did you catch him?” I snap. Craig looks up at me and does his best to straighten up.


    “We followed the leads, sir,” he replies, looking me in the eyes, “that we gleaned from the


    conversation with the other priest, who wished to remain anonymous. They were…fruitful. We


    found this one’sir, forck of a better word. It was actually in a sewer -in an abandoned


    maintenance room. He was living there doing…” Craig hesitates and then shrugs. “Forgive me, Sir,


    for the dramatguage, but ‘arcane magics‘ are the only wordsing to my mind now. Lizard


    skins…and and snail shells, in jars – he had a cauldron –”


    “Thank you,” I say, interrupting and nodding towards the head of my investigative team. “You.


    will give your details to stair, as soon as you can. For now, though I want everyone here for


    the interrogation.” I lean forward towards the priest, who watches me with wary eyes and a


    clenched jaw.


    “An interrogation,” I continue, lowering my voice and slowing my words, “will be long, and


    bloody, if need be.”


    The priest proves himself a brave man, then, by baring his teeth at me in a little snarl. But I just


    each of my muscles are tensed, ready to rip this man’s head off. Roger steps in to take my ce.


    “Tell us,” Rogermands, his arms crossed as he looks down at the man strapped to the chair,”


    who you are. And what your people want with my brother’s child.”


    The man just grins at Roger, a too–wide expression that shows all of his teeth. “No,” he growls, a


    littleughter in his voice now. Roger stares at him ndly for a moment and then shifts his eyes


    to a member of the reconnaissance team standing behind the priest who whips forward a taser


    and ces it swiftly against the priest’s neck.


    The bolt flies through the priest’s body, making him shriek and twist in pain, but my man, well


    trained, pulls it away quickly. The priest goes a little ck in his chair, panting.


    “Let’s try again,” Roger says, kicking the leg of the chair to get the priest’s attention. “What do


    your people want with my nephew.”


    My eyes narrow, though, as the priest looks up at Roger again and just huffs a short, humorless


    pants, a smile growing on his face. “You are already…toote.”


    And then he starts tough – really, trulyugh, as a crash of ss sounds and a scream erupts


    upstairs –


    And my heart stops as I recognize it, instantly, as E.


    E


    I was just sitting here, tense, in my rocking chair by Rafe’s bas, one hand on the edge of it –


    as it always is – shushing him quietly as he falls asleep when –


    –


    I heard a little tapping sound at the ss of his window –


    I looked towards it curiously, expecting a little bird – maybe a squirrel –


    But terror flooded me when I saw a ck–masked face calmly tapping on my window, grinning


    at me. I gasped, my body turning to ice as I froze, as he quietly pointed to the bas and mouthed


    Please check at N/?vel(D)rama.Org.


    “I’ming for him.” (2)


    –


    And then it seemed to go so fast – the man pulled back his arm, and made a fist, and crashed it


    through the window –


    I don’t know how he did it – it should have broken his hand – Sinir paid to have those


    forced his body, head–first, into the room through the hole he made with his fist, the rest of the


    ss of the window cracking and shattering around him


    –


    But the moment he hit the floor, only half an instantter, my instincts came back to me, and I


    pulled my child’s rolling bas behind me and screamed –


    I shove the rocking chair away and back into the corner now, Rafe in his cradle behind me, as


    the man gets to his feet at the foot of the window. As he stands, my heart jumps when I see that


    –


    –


    there are more more men behind him, working their way up to the window and through it –


    moving unnaturally fast –


    The man in the lead is on his feet now, grinning at me, starting to prowl towards me –


    And all of my wolf instincts kick in, all of them, at once. And suddenly I’m snarling at them, the


    nails on my fingers elongating to ws, my teeth sharpening in my mouth. It’s not a full


    transformation – not yet – but it’s enough, now, to make it clear to the men who gain on me –


    That they will not take my child –


    Not ever.


    Not even over my dead body. I will never let them take him.


    “Here, kitty kitty,” the man says, menacing, only a foot from me now. “Hand over your little


    kitten, like a good girl –”


    –


    I roar and swipe at his face, stepping only one foot forward so that I’m still protecting Rafe with my body


    but enough that I catch his cheek even though he flinches back. My ws open three long, deep cuts


    across his face that I can see through the mask, marks that stretch from his ear


    downward, across his nose and his mouth.


    The man flinches back in pain and then, at least eight men behind him now, res at me again.


    “You’ll pay for that, bitch,” he snarls.


    But I just open my mouth and roar at him, at all of them, fury in every line of my body, ready to


    shred them with my bare hands – every single one –


    My message couldn’t be clearer.


    Come at me.


    But the man in the lead justughs, and then they do.


    I’m overwhelmed almost at once, pressing my back to Rafe’s bas and swiping with my ws,


    tearing at whatever flesh is closet to me, my mouth open in a constant roar. But there’s too many


    of them for me – I’m pulled away from the bas and feel something cut harshly against my


    back.


    I scream again – in pain this time and turn to see – I gasp


    the bas –


    –


    – one of those men, reaching into


    “RAFE!” I scream, reaching for him


    –


    But something grabs me, hauling me away, as one of the ck–masked men lifts my child into


    his arms and turns to smile at me.