Darkest Hour (New Adult Paranormal Romance) by Catherine Bullard Page A

surging through him. Springing to his feet, he threw all the wolves
off him at once. They flew through the air, and he heard their whimpers as
their massive bodies collided with the trees, but they bounced back fairly
quickly and charged him again, hatred glowing brightly in their yellow eyes.
    It should have been impossible
for Thomas to evade with the extent of his injuries, but as the first one
lunged for his throat he evaded with a surprising amount of speed and energy.
He felt a rush of power flow through him, and realized that his injuries were
healing at an incredibly fast rate. The pain was rapidly fading, his strength
and speed being returned to him with each passing second.
    Another wolf lunged and this time
he struck out with his arm, backhanding the wolf so that he went flying. The
animal slammed into a tree with a loud crack of bone, and then lay limply on
the ground. The other wolves howled at the loss of their comrade and continued
to press the attack, but Thomas was relentless—he used his own fangs as
well as his extraordinary strength to rip through flesh and break bones. Soon
the snarls turned into whimpers, and the remaining few wolves tucked their
tails between their legs and ran off.
    Panting, Thomas knelt beside one
of the dead wolves. The adrenaline and power rush was fast wearing off, and he
had lost a fair amount of blood. He wanted to pass out in this clearing and
rest for a long while, but that wasn’t possible. Neither he nor Elsbeth would
be safe until Malachi was finished.
    So he forced himself alert, and
sank his fangs into the dead wolf’s neck. The blood was still warm from the
recent kill, and though it wouldn’t be as nourishing as live blood it would
still do. Sated, he wiped his bloody mouth with the back of his hand and went
to find Malachi.
    It was time to
end this.

CHAPTER 7
     
    Elsbeth paced back and forth in
the hall, her anxiety mounting like a tidal wave, ready to crash on top of her
at any moment and render her senseless. She knew there was no reason to worry.
Thomas hadn’t been gone that long—maybe an hour, perhaps less. He was
strong and smart and knew how to take care of himself. He might have been her
lover, but he was right that she couldn’t continue to baby him. He needed to go
out on his own, learn how to survive on his own merits.
    If she spent one more moment
pacing inside this house, she was going to scream.
    “Oh, who am I kidding?” she cried
aloud, throwing her hands in the air. Her instincts were screaming that
something was wrong, and they were almost always right. She wasn’t acting like
a misguided mother hen. She wasn’t.
    Whirling around, she wrenched
open the front door to see Malachi standing right outside, his hand raised as
though he were about to knock. He blinked, seemingly as startled as she, and
then rearranged his features into a sober expression.
    “What are you doing here?”
Elsbeth snapped. “You know you are not welcome at my doorstep.”
    Malachi sighed heavily, his eyes
downcast. “I’m afraid I have some unfortunate news for you. I found Thomas’s
body in the woods.”
    “What?” Her throat closed up, and
she felt as though she’d been punched in the gut.
    “It seems that the wolves were
out hunting tonight,” Malachi’s eyes were round, full of sympathy, but Elsbeth
caught a flash of glee in them he wasn’t able to smother. “I suppose you hadn’t
warned him about them?”
    “You bastard!” She slapped him.
“You lead him right to them, didn’t you?”
    “If he was stupid enough to be
lead, that’s his own fault.” Malachi stepped forward, trying to crowd Elsbeth
into the house, but she stood her ground, even though it meant she had to
endure the presence of his body, only millimeters away from her flesh. “He
might have some of my blood flowing through him, but he’s still mostly human,
Elsbeth. He’ll never be able to take care of you.”
    Elsbeth pushed at his chest,
trying to create some distance, but