Claws extended, canines aching for flesh, focus solely on Callum, I leapt at my mate.

A carnal rage inside me urged me forward to fight him with everything that I had, to sink my teeth into any bit of flesh that I could, to prove myself, and to kill him. Thiago ordered my wolf to slaughter his, and my wolf craved to do just that.

The world turned to chaos around me, Thiago's warriors fighting Callum's and Adan's. Callum shifted into his wolf and dodged my attacks, one after the other. But I didn't stop moving forward toward him, even when the battlefield reeked of blood.

I couldn't stop.

I wanted to so badly.

"Bria," Callum said through the mindlink, but my wolf didn't stop.

We slashed his shoulder, making him bleed out slightly. He healed it quickly and dodged another one of my attacks, ducking underneath my paw. I leapt forward, growling, and snatched his paw between my teeth.

"Stop it."

Callum wasn't fighting as hard as he had during his battle with Adan. He was either already hurt, or he didn't want to hurt me. Deep down, I knew it was the latter. He would rather die himself than to see me in pain.

And I couldn't fucking believe that my wolf didn't recognize it, her own mate.

I desperately tried to stop myself, but my wolf wouldn't seize back control from Thiago. He had pumped that fluid into our bloodstream, the same way he had probably done that to his hundreds upon hundreds of warriors before me, and taken complete control.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop my body, nor my wolf.

"I'm so scared, Callum," I said through the mindlink.

While I didn't know if he could hear me, he didn't respond, which killed me more on the inside. I had to endure my wolf, her aggression, and that stupid brain-washing liquid that Thiago pumped into me all by myself.

It was so damn lonely. I had no control.

My wolf stabbed him in the underbelly with her extended claws. Pain ripped through my chest, my heart shattering into a million fucking pieces at the sudden hurt in his eyes. He stumbled back and squeezed his eyes closed for the briefest moment to heal his wound.

But it didn't seal right back up like it usually did. This wound was deep.

"Harder, Bria," Thiago called from the edge of the battlefield, as he walked backward through the woods, probably to somewhere safer. "You've weakened him enough. I want you to kill him. Go for his stomach."

At the sound of Thiago's orders, my wolf went crazy. She stalked toward our mate like he was some kind of prey, licked her bloody lips, and roared at Callum Lee, our fucking mythology professor because Thiago told us to.

"Please," I cried to my wolf through our mindlink. "Please, stop this."

"Kill," she growled back. "Kill Callum."

"He's our mate! Our mate!" I growled back, desperate to take control and not submit to her. There wasn't a damn chance in hell that I could kill Callum, but my wolf didn't even recognize him as our mate anymore. She called him by his first name, which she never did.

She saw him as a threat. Not as the man whom we loved.

This wasn't right.

This wasn't fucking right.

"Stop!" I screamed at her. "Now! Please!"

I tried desperately to dig my heels into the ground, to heal, to stop, to do something.

But my wolf was stronger than my will. Fighting against a ruthless, savage beast wasn't an option. I didn't have any fight in me; I had been running and hiding from Thiago all my life. Now, I had a fucking wolf inside of me who wouldn't stop hurting the only person who ever loved her.

Seeing an opening, my wolf forced me to leap forward and pummel Callum onto his back so hard that I heard a crack in what must've been his spine. Terror rushed through me. I couldn't stop this, nor could I stop her.

We stalked toward him, our blood-soaked teeth bared at our mate.

With those golden eyes, Callum stared up at me. Not in fear. Not in fright. In anguish.

He wasn't going to fight me back. He wasn't going to stop me. He made that clear.

"Please," I begged her. "Don't do this."

My wolf stepped over him, one paw on either side of his body, then sank her canines into his underbelly. She sank her teeth as deeply as they could go and pulled back up with a chunk full of his flesh in her mouth.

I tasted Callum's blood, his flesh on my tongue.

Blood poured out of his wound, creating a puddle on the ground underneath him. I forced my wolf to drop his flesh from our mouth and backed up slowly, wanting her to see what she had done, the pain she had caused.

This was never supposed to happen.

Why couldn't she snap out of it?

"Bria," Callum said through the link, his voice soft, almost like a whisper. "I love you."

My entire body froze, hearing each word fade into oblivion, one softer than the next. He closed his eyes, and I feared that he would never open them up again. His muscles all relaxed, his clenched jaw relaxing.

This couldn't be how it ended.

Standing over his body, I shook my head.

"Mate," my wolf whispered to me, pain shooting through our entire body and finally realizing what we had done. "We hurt mate."