Sapphire.

*Gabe’s POV*

I had just taken a drink of wine when I heard something similar to a moan of pain.
I immediately looked over to check on Phire.
She lay on the marble ground, her hand on her stomach.
I leaned down over her, calling her name.
Then a peculiar scent hit my nostrils.
It was familiar to me ,but something I hadn’t smelt in a long time.
Heat.
Sapphire’s heat.
My wolf roared to life in me at the smell, claiming Sapphire with his song.
Sapphire is my mate.
Sapphire is MINE.
I heard chairs scrape around me as werewolf men got up from their chairs, the thought of claiming Phire fresh in their minds.
Over my very dead and very cold body.
I scooped Phire up in my arms, the scent of her heat and the feel of her small, soft body against my own aroused me beyond compare.
I ran, to where not even I knew, but my wolf knew.
He was carrying her where she would be safest, besides in my arms.
Her pained cries became louder as the seconds passed, angering my wolf and myself.
We wanted to kill the thing that was hurting her but since the thing that was hurting her was apart of her, we couldn’t, because we would have to hurt her in the process.
The concept of hurting her at all had my wolf growling protest.
She stirred as another fit of pain racked through her.
“Gabe, make it go away.” she said.
“I’ll try sweetheart.” I replied.
I knew just how to do that ,but I knew that she probably wasn’t ready for it.
She has told me since we were little that she was saving herself for marriage, heat cycle or not.
I would honor her wishes even though my wolf and myself longed to claim her.
Who would have thought?
The princess and the bodyguard are soul mates?
The man with a sick past and the princess whose kindness outshines all she comes in contact with.
The monster and the damsel in distress.
The one thing that I have wanted all my life and have denied myself turns out to be mine to begin with.
My wolf howled in agreement.
Phire pressed her face against my chest, biting the material to my expensive suit jacket against the pain.
I cooed to her, trying to sooth her until we got to my wolf’s destination.
My wolf told me that it was only a couple of miles left.
Before I had thought better of it, my wolf called up a portal to take her to the mortal plane.
Ash gave me the ability to create portals in case that I felt that Phire’s life was ever in jeopardy.
I, myself, didn’t think that her life was in jeopardy, more like my wolf thought her innocence was in peril and to my wolf, that was just as important.
I jumped into the portal, chanting the place in which I wanted to go.
The place I was taking her was a house in which Ash bought me for a safe house.
You would think by the way that everything was made that he would have known about this.
Nah, he couldn’t.
Could he?
These thoughts circled around in my head when we entered the mortal plane.
Sapphire lay limply in my arms, the force the portal enforced on her and the pain finally knocking her unconscious.
I stared for a second at her sleeping face, each facet and curve as familiar to me as my own yet it seemed like they were different now.
Because her features were more drawn from pain?
Because this is the closest I have been able to study her face in the light?
Or was it because I was finally seeing her as my mate, as mine?
The reasons for these I could not be sure, but somehow, in a few short hours, I am seeing Phire in a whole new light.
Without my knowledge, my wolf had began to led me in the direction of the safe house.
After an hour or two of walking through thick forests we arrived, Phire still unconscious in my arms.
She stirred slightly in my arms as I shifted her to open the door, murmuring, “Gabe.”
I smiled at that.
I opened the door to the lavishly adorned house.
A sign hung over the doorway leading to the kitchen proclaiming, “Hello Gabriel and Sapphire” in bold letters.
The jackass knew that we would be coming.
Every piece of furniture had been dusted and polished, the hearth filled with a small fire.
I growled low in my throat in anger.
The bastard.
I walked as gently up the stairs as I could without moving Phire too much.
I found the master bedroom and laid Phire on the dark blue sheets.
Her hair spilled over the pillow, her lashes once I had got settledshadowing her cheeks slightly.
I placed a small kiss on her forehead, whispering “Goodnight, Phire.”
I went to other side of the huge bed (I think it’s a Goliath sized.) and crawled in, pulling the coverlet over me and Phire.
Phire curled up towards me, my body heat drawing her near.
She murmured a sleepy, “Night night Gabe.”
I chuckled and stared down at her.
Sleep began to slowly fog my mind but before it claimed me completely it declared with a finality: she is MINE.