My Fated Mate Can Have Her-Chapter 190: Hunters

Violet

I flinched, trying to get up, but Rowan held me stiffly in place, his glare dead set on the trees in the distance. I stared at him, baffled. The animals had gone ahead for a while, why would he still want us staying here?

Before I could speak up, the silhouettes within the trees fully formed as they emerged from the trees like shadows, at least a dozen of them fanning out to surround us in a loose semicircle.

They emerged from the trees in their wolf forms, moving with a predatory grace. They were not hiding the fact at all that they were searching for me. Coiled around the neck of the biggest wolf was a massive red serpent, with its scales gleaming in the light. Its forked tongue flicked the air, tasting and searching.

I went still.

Why did they have that exactly?

For a long moment, no one moved.

Then, one by one, several of the wolves began to shift and within seconds, around five or six of them stood before us in their human forms. Their clothes were mismatched and their appearances were a bit rough. They were either rogues or mercenaries.

The one at the front was tall and lean, with a jagged scar running straight across his neck as if he had healed from a slit at his throat. He rolled his shoulders as he settled into his human skin, his eyes sweeping over us with cold calculation.

Another wolf shifted beside him, shorter, stockier, with a shaved head and a thick neck. He reached into a pouch at his belt and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

My blood ran cold.

It was most likely the same flyer Rowan had shown me back in the capital. The one with my face on it.

"Please, excuse us," the stocky one said, his tone almost conversational as he unfolded the paper and held it up. "We are looking for someone. A woman." He turned the flyer toward us, and my own face stared back at me from the detailed sketch. "You two wouldn’t have seen her around, would you?"

I made sure to remain as calm as I could. They hadn’t caught on to the fact that it was me. Cutting my hair had done wonders, but if they stared hard enough, they would see the similarities between my face and that picture!

Rowan’s body was tight beside me, his energy carefully contained, but I could feel the tension radiating off him in waves.

What was he doing?!

They would know something was wrong just from looking at Rowan!

Then again, how exactly did they find us? I couldn’t help but let my gaze drift to the snake.

"Can’t say we have," Rowan replied, his voice steady. Almost bored.

The scarred leader tilted his head, his eyes narrowing slightly as they moved between us. "Strange. You both seem awfully tense. What are you hiding from exactly? I can barely sense your energies."

Some of the wolves became more alert.

"I would advise you do something about your lunar instincts," Rowan started, staring at them. "There is a horde of Gravejaws not too—"

Rowan was cut off as the serpent reared its head up with a sharp, loud hiss.

Its massive body lifted its head high into the air as it let out a long furious hiss directed at me. Its eyes started to glow an intense green colour.

The wolves went still.

The stocky one looked at the serpent, then back at me. His eyes dropped to the flyer in his hand, then rose again, tracing over my face, my hair, the shape of my features.

A slow, wicked smile spread across the lips of the scarred one as he paid closer attention to my face.

"Well, well," he drawled. "I can see the resemblance now." His eyes locked onto mine, and all pretence of civility vanished. "Changed your hair, sweetheart. Almost didn’t recognize you."

My stomach twisted with cold dread.

They knew who I was.

The stocky man raised his voice. "By Ascalone’s—"

Rowan exploded into motion, and in that split second, the wolves still in their shifted forms lunged forward.

Rowan’s transformation was so fast I barely saw it and with the next moment, he was tearing into the first attacker. His jaws closed around the wolf’s throat and he wrenched sideways, ripping the head clean off the body and sending it flying.

I gasped, momentarily stunned by the sudden death, but I didn’t have time to watch.

Two wolves were coming straight for me, their bodies low, their teeth bared.

I dropped my weight and rolled sideways as the first one sailed over me. The second adjusted mid-leap, its claws raking toward my face.

I caught it with my syzygy, stopping the wolf mid-air. For a fraction of a second, it hung there, suspended, its eyes wide with shock.

Then I slammed it into the ground so hard the earth cracked beneath its body.

The first wolf had recovered and was circling back. I sprinted towards it, not waiting for it to reach me.

The wolf flinched, not expecting me to have closed the distance so fast. It immediately tried to adjust and meet my sudden charge, but I was already inside its range.

I ducked under its snapping jaws and drove my elbow into the side of its skull. The impact jarred up my arm just a bit, but I felt the wolf stagger. Before it could recover, I grabbed a fistful of fur at the back of its neck and pulled, using my momentum to swing my body up and over its back.

For one brief moment, I was mounted on the wolf like a rider.

Then I wrapped my energy around its body and crushed.

The wolf let out a strangled yelp as my syzygy constricted around its chest. I could feel its ribs straining and its lungs compressing before I released it. I couldn’t help the pang of guilt that tightened at my chest. I lifted the already weakened wolf and hurled it sideways into another one that had been trying to ambush me.

They collided in a tangle of limbs and fur, and I was already moving.

I spun around to face the next threat when something shot toward me faster than I could sense it.