Rhyannon Byrd - Dark Wolf Rising

She sniffed, swiping at the tears herself. “I know. It was stlupid .”

Eric exhaled a ragged breath. This was getting them nowhere, except making him want to kiss that sullen pout off her lips, and that was something they definitely didn’t have time for. They’d already wasted too much damn time as it was. “Come on,” he said, hauling her up into his arms. “We need to get out of here.”

She clutched at his shoulders and gasped. “Why are you carrying me?”

With the soft, warm weight of her in his arms, his voice came out rougher than he’d expected. “Because you’ll fall flat on your face if I don’t.”

“Oh. You’re, um, probably right,” she admitted with a wince, clutching at her forehead like someone with a raging hangover. “But you dlon’t need to scream at me.”

Despite the grim circumstances, Eric felt his lips curl with a wry grin as he headed toward the door. “I’m not screaming, honey. Your ears just aren’t working right.”

“No kidding,” she grumbled, still holding her head. He noticed that the drug seemed to be affecting her in waves—one moment her speech would be relatively clear, the next she was slurring her words again—but he didn’t know what it meant. Was she getting better, or worse?

“Wait!” she suddenly cried out, trying to look over his shoulder. “I need my backpack. They took it out of my bus.”

Turning around, Eric scanned the room, then spotted the pack on the floor at the right side of the sofa. He headed over and leaned down, letting her scoop it off the floor. “Thanks,” she murmured, clutching the pack between their chests.

“I need you to stay quiet now,” he warned her, heading back across the room and using the arm under her legs to open the door. He took a deep breath, but couldn’t scent anything or anyone in the hallway. Carrying her out of the room, Eric glanced right then left, trying to decide which direction they should go in. His gut instinct told him to head away from the muted, raucous blast of music coming from the main room of the club, so he turned left. He could only assume that the hidden exits Maggie had mentioned would be located in the building’s smaller outer rooms, like a private bathroom or a storage closet, where they would be less likely to be spotted, and he intended to search each one until he found a way out.

Walking at a swift pace, Eric hadn’t taken more than a dozen steps when he scented another Lycan up ahead of them. Lowering Chelsea to her feet, he quickly shoved her into a small alcove, leaving her to stumble back against the wall, her backpack clutched in her arms, as he turned to face off against whoever was coming. He could hear her sliding down onto her sweet little ass, and felt bad when she gave a startled yelp of pain as she hit the floor, but there was no time to apologize. The asshole coming was a Lycan, which meant he’d scented them, as well. If he turned out to be one of Curtis’s men who knew Chelsea had been taken prisoner, he was going to be a problem.

“Come on, you son of a bitch,” Eric muttered, flexing his hands at his sides, his weight balanced on the balls of his feet. The Lycan came around the corner at the far end of the hall with a guttural snarl, knife at the ready, and launched himself forward with a powerful swipe that would have taken Eric’s throat out if he hadn’t swayed back to avoid the blow. He was definitely one of the Whiteclaw, the bald-headed giant standing at nearly seven feet tall and built like a friggin’ juggernaut. At six-five, Eric was used to towering over others, but the top of his head barely came to the Lycan’s chin. The guy looked like a juiced-up, ’roid-popping Spartan, hungry for blood.

Huh. Had he actually thought his luck might be changing? Stupid. That fickle bastard would always turn around and bite him in the ass, doing its best to take him down. He could only be thankful it was still too early for the behemoth to take his animal form, which always added height and muscle to a Lycan’s physique. They could still release their fangs and claws before the rise of the moon, but both were strictly forbidden when near humans. Considering Chelsea was only a few feet away, Eric could only pray the bastard didn’t break protocol.

Switching the knife to his other hand, the werewolf squeezed his right hand into a meaty fist and swung with more speed than Eric had been expecting. The punch connected with his jaw in a hit that could have easily sent him sprawling on his ass if he hadn’t crashed into the wall, which was a pal, keeping him on his feet.

That was pathetic , he silently growled, pissed that he’d let the guy get in a shot. If Jeremy had been there, the Runner would already be laughing his ass off, mercilessly ribbing him for being such an idiot.

Time to end this shit .

The Lycan started to smirk, obviously thinking he was going to be an easy kill, and Eric brought his right leg around, knocking the knife from his hand and nailing the bastard in the ribs with a powerful sidekick. It doubled him over, but he quickly recovered, driving his shoulders into Eric’s middle like a linebacker making a tackle, knocking the wind from his lungs. They hit the floor with a crunching thud, each grappling for the upper hand, landing punches that would have killed a human. The guy might have been bigger, but Eric was faster and more experienced—not to mention better motivated. Within seconds, he had the Lycan pinned facedown on the floor, hands trapped against the small of his back, Eric’s right arm cinched tight around the male’s throat.

“Where’s the nearest hidden exit?” he demanded. “Tell me how to find it.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the Lycan wheezed, his deep voice gritty with pain. “You can’t win this. We’ll kill her before we let you keep her. That nosey little bitch needs to be put down.”

A thick, guttural animal sound vibrated in his chest, and for a moment Eric couldn’t hear anything over the furious roar of his pulse pounding in his ears. His eyes narrowed with deadly purpose as he tightened his hold on the son of a bitch beneath him.

“No one touches the woman,” he scraped out in a low, chilling voice, aware of something shifting inside him. Something feral and violent and savage that wanted the bastard’s blood—but it wasn’t his wolf. It was darker, deadlier, rising up from the depths of his being like a primordial beast surging up from the seething belly of an ancient, merciless god. His fangs burned in his gums, heavy and hot, while his claws seared beneath his fingertips, eager to draw a river of blood.

Taking a deep breath, he could scent the Lycan’s fear in the air, and knew the male had sensed the darkness building inside him. Seeing through a red haze of rage, Eric lowered his mouth to the Lycan’s ear. “No one—not a single one of you gutter-slime assholes—is ever going to touch her,” he said in a soft, deadly slide of words. “Because I’m willing to do whatever it takes to see that she remains unharmed.”

Then he curled his hand beneath the Lycan’s chin, jerked it around with a powerful yank, and made his warning a fact.

Blinking her gritty eyes, Chelsea tried to focus her wavering gaze, but it wasn’t easy. Making it onto her hands and knees, she crawled a few steps forward, until she was able to peek around the edge of the alcove.

Holy…crap .

She blinked again, unable to believe what she was seeing. She’d been worried Eric was getting his ass kicked—but she needn’t have been. He was standing in the hallway, hands clenched at his sides and his chest heaving, powerful muscles and veins bulging beneath the golden skin on his arms, while a massive, unconscious man lay at his feet.