However, as it rose over her, its flesh turned inky and smooth; most of the creature was powerful tentacles the width of tree trunks at their roots, but at the epicenter of those horrific, wriggling appendages was a center mass that was mostly teeth. It split nearly in half with the width of its jaws, and it had a half dozen more tentacles wriggling inside its pink mouth.
Most disturbing, those tongues were each tipped in a separate and torturous instrument—corkscrews, pincers, rippers, and tiny clawed fingers.
The beast slicked forward on pseudopods made of muscular fibers, its precise shape still hard to make out because every part of it was in constant motion. It made a clicking, squealing sound like a dolphin.
Rae backed from the horror, heart pounding in the back of her throat.
It lunged, two of its tentacles lancing for her like straight, inky slashes—each tentacle spiked in a wicked talon intent on skewering her.
Just before they landed, something seized her, carrying her abruptly through the air.
***
His mate under attack, Garr swept in and picked her up in both arms. Her slow human nervous system wasn’t fast enough to react to the beast, and so he released her at the clearing’s edge, spinning to face the monster.
Another tentacle speared for him: the creature used the same method of attack as the underwater decabeast, except faster.
Yet Garr was faster still. He twisted just far enough to the side that the tentacle shot past him, leaving only a thin, searing cut to his ribs instead of running him through. He brought his blade around, and before the creature could retract its limb, he hacked it off.
Violet ribbons of blood filled the air and the scent of it drove him wild.
His heart a burning coal, his blood liquid fire, Garr charged, slicing off a second tentacle before it even reached him.
The beast cracked a third appendage through the air like a whip, taking him by surprise—decabeasts never tried those attacks, since they were too slow underwater. But in the air? It came on lightning quick, and was so unexpected it smashed him in the ribs and tossed him like a rag doll.
***
Rae could barely keep track of Garr; he moved like a wild beast. His roar was blood curdling, the swipe of his metallic weapons too swift to fathom. He left a trail of blood and severed viscera in his wake.
The creature’s retaliatory swipe tossed him onto the ground, but he rolled with it.
He never stopped moving. The beast, by comparison, was ungainly—its main form of locomotion on the ground was to slam a tentacle’s spike into the earth and drag itself along in a swift, zig-zagging pattern. But Garr worked through those tendrils and flicked them off the creature one at a time.
Its animal screams went up an octave, wailing like a siren as Garr ripped it to shreds in front of her.
It managed to grip his sword in one of its tongue pincers, but Garr brutally seized the tongue and ripped it from the creature’s mouth, rending its flesh with strength Rae hadn’t thought possible.
Then he drove its center mass through with two otoya swords, lifting it bodily into the air. The animal strength in his back and shoulders was on display as he ripped it cleanly in two, sending a torrent of violet blood through the clearing.
And through the bestial display, he roared in triumph.
It fell dead and he hacked at it anyway, seeming to fight not until it was dead, but until he was satisfied.
***
The beast had attacked his mate—a prime’s mate—and Garr did not stop hacking at it until no single piece resembled the original creature it had been.
To threaten a prime’s mate was the most grievous of sins, and if he’d have suspected Lyr were at all involved, he might have started striking out at her as well.
Instead, glancing to Rae, he confirmed she was still unharmed.
Unharmed, but there was something in her eyes. A wide-eyed terror that he recognized as the fear prey had for its natural predator. She wasn’t looking at the monster, either, but rather him.
Unsure what to do, Garr approached her. “You are safe now,” he said, realizing he literally dripped with the blood of the thing he’d just killed.
Aghast, she only managed a weak and petrified nod. She didn’t believe she was safe at all. In watching him move, in watching him not just hunt but rage against this sacrilegious, woman-attacking beast, he had filled her with dread.
In that moment, Garr did not feel like he should have—he did not feel like her protector.
Chapter Seven
When Vaya reached the clearing, she and Garr had a terse discussion about the monster. Rae caught bits of the conversation as she lingered at the clearing’s edge, unable to take her eyes off the human-shaped animal she’d watched so effortlessly take apart that monster.
The sight of him had inspired many feelings in her—before the combat, irritation and outrage chief among them. She’d feared him at first, but in the way she would fear any powerful male who tried to cow her. She hadn’t understood until now precisely how inhuman a Ythirian could be.