by Lucia Ashta
22
Since the moment my eighteenth birthday rolled around, shifting into my skunk came as easily as talking. Sure, my shift had improved remarkably since all the practice Professor McGinty forced on us, but for me it’d been more a matter of finesse than significant changes to my basic technique. I felt my shifter magic as a latent hum constantly within my chest, as if it were beating along with my heart. It always responded immediately to my call, which was why my shifts were the fastest in my entire fourer class.
Reaching for my skunk magic the same as I always did, it responded right away, and I sucked in deep, ragged breaths. But though my power answered my call, it was sluggish, creeping, inching along when I needed it to sprint now more than ever.
I swallowed premature panic, tamping it down. Everything’s going to be fine. My magic has never let me down. It’s not going to start now.
And yet…
My magic spread along my body like a splash of liquid slowly dispersing across fabric, feathering as it went because it had all the time in the world.
Hurry, I willed.
Nibbling at my lip, I took half a step to the side while holding Why firmly against me. I’d take another half step once I was sure Blondie hadn’t noticed.
He trained his gaze back on me just as the edges of my body finally began to blur, and narrowed his eyes at me. “Don’t you dare shift. Not unless you want the rest of us to follow suit.”
Did I want to face down the lot of them in their fierce animal forms? Hell no. The idea was to shift so quickly that I’d have the advantage. Now I was in a worse predicament than before. I’d revealed my hand prematurely, and he was calling my bluff.
Still, I wouldn’t stop the shift now. Halting a transformation halfway through was dangerous. Magic flowed like a river. It ran in one direction, and when you interrupted its course, you worked against the magic’s nature. It didn’t happen often, but it was possible to end up part animal, part person—permanently.
“Stop. Now,” Blondie snarled, sounding more like an animal than a human.
How many threats has this guy made without carrying through?
Even so, I wasn’t stupid enough not to fear him. One look at Fury suggested he was scared for me, which made no damn sense. His brother had kidnapped Rina—for him. Then his brother had kidnapped Wren and me, and Rina another time. And yet the emotion beaming through his one open eye told me he cared very much about what happened to me.
As my body began to blur more intensely, I had to push away the sights of the others. My transformation chugged along like a freight train overburdened by far too much cargo. Something was wrong. No matter how much I didn’t want to believe it, my power wasn’t working properly.
I wanted to put Why down on the ground so he wouldn’t be startled when I completed my shift—assuming I even could do that now—but he wouldn’t understand why I needed to let go of him and that it was only temporary. He would fight me.
Shouts circled the room, but I forced myself to tune them out.
I wrapped the force of my will around my shifter magic, encouraging it to complete its job before Blondie struck me again. Or killed me. He looked like he had a vicious temper.
My body began to flicker as meaty hands gripped me around the shoulders, shaking me like I was a naughty vending machine refusing to deliver. My teeth rattled against each other, and I worried for Why, but all I could do was hold on. And direct more will to my transformation.
Come on! Please hurry.
Like I’d stepped into a time machine with a twisted sense of humor, my shift continued in slo-mo. I struggled to draw in full breaths, only this time it wasn’t because of whatever was being done to me. Panic was attempting to claim me, even while I fought with everything I had not to succumb to it.
By the time my shift finally entered the final stage of vibrating, Why was a hot, trembling mess in my arms, and the shouts around me were so loud that it was becoming more difficult to tune them out.
A loud roar filtered through my focus. And when it was followed by another, Why dropped from my arms to the ground at my bare feet.
Half a second later, I fell to four paws and popped my eyes wide open.
Shaking like a leaf in a stiff wind, Why stood in another puddle of pee on the ground. Nudging him with my snout, I encouraged him onto my back. He scrambled up my side like I was a tree and sank his little paws into my thick fur, hunkering down.
With Why safe, I quickly took inventory. Looking down and around at what I could make out of myself, I seemed the same as usual. Given how far up Why had had to climb, it seemed I was as big as usual too.
Good. I was hoping like hell the slo-mo effect was a passing thing and that the rest of my skunk would operate as always.
With my new eyes, I avoided looking directly at the lanterns. Skunks are nocturnal creatures, and my eyes were designed to see in the darkness. The light the lanterns put off stung them. I rapidly blinked the sting away and swept my gaze across the length of the room. The dark corners didn’t hide additional shifters or frightening creatures. The walls were a roughly hewn dirt, and I saw no additional paths leading out of here than the one Darla had taken.
Blondie remained in human form, but the four shifters who flanked him, including the eager, bloodthirsty Linda, had shifted, standing to the side of a pile of their discarded clothing. I took in two massive grizzly bears and two werewolves. A quick sweep toward Fury’s throne revealed that two additional werewolves guarded him. All but one of the wolves were perhaps fifty percent larger than a wolf found in the wild.
I was three times the size of a usual skunk, which made me far too small to take a single one of them on.
Still, I might be a skunk, but I was mighty. No matter how much I’d wished I might have been a more majestic animal, my skunk was scrappy, fast, and vicious when necessary.
One way or the other, I was getting Why and me out of here. We were escaping this cavern.
I’d figure out the rest later. One step at a time before I became so overwhelmed that I couldn’t do anything.
One of the grizzly bears rose onto his hind legs and belted out an almighty roar. The second one joined in right away, combining her bellow for a chorus ferocious enough to send lesser women running, quaking in their proverbial boots.
I was no lesser woman.
I threw my skunk head back and roared.
Blondie chuckled. I narrowed my eyes at him and vowed to myself that I’d be the last one laughing.
And then Blondie’s gaze trailed from my head to my chest. It stilled there, his mouth once more agape.
“What is that?” he asked me.
I started to smile a mischievous, skunky smile at him—because I could no longer answer any of his questions, duh—until I realized what must have drawn his attention. My heart did a few freaked-out flops.
My pendant.
I was supposed to be all skunk. Thick, lush, black and white fur—nothing else. I wasn’t supposed to be decked out in a sparkling, jeweled pendant fit for a queen.
I blinked down at the purple, traitorous thing.
“Take it from her,” Blondie ordered.
Several beats passed before the genius realized that none of his crew could execute his order in animal form.
“Fine, I’ll do it,” he muttered, stomping toward me.
Yeah, I wasn’t playing this game anymore.
Feinting to the left, I darted right as his outreached arms swiped empty air.
A chorus of snarls filled the chamber, and my pulse sped up as fight or flight mode heightened every one of my skunky instincts.
Two bears and four wolves prowled closer, one measured step at a time. Blondie laughed and moved out of the way, leaving a clear path for his underlings to attack. My gaze snapped between all of them. I had to move now before they closed in on me.
Then Fury released a blood-curdling cry that had me whisking my attention to him. His one good eye was wide, messaging something to me silentl
y. It took a moment for the fact to click that Fury was actually trying to help me, distracting them for me. By the time he croaked “Run” around a battered throat, I was already moving.
One of the bears had risen to its hind legs again. Darting toward the bear, I hunched down and ran between its legs, only then realizing this was definitely one of the male shifters and not Linda. His twig and berries rubbed along my back before sweeping across Why. I gagged for a second before emerging from beneath him.
The wolves turned on a dime, swiveling in my direction and giving chase.
Hold on, buddy, I mentally telegraphed to Why.
One of the wolves’ snapped at my hind legs. I felt the air from the movement of his teeth against my fur.
Too damn close.
I darted left, right, then left again, and evaded three of them.
But the fourth one caught me, clenching large, pointy teeth around my hindquarters, sinking beneath my thick fur to pierce my flesh beneath.
I tried to shake his bite free, but my forward movement only managed to tear into my flesh and muscle more.
Whimpering, I stopped moving.
Why whimpered too.
They’d better not hurt my pandacorn! If they so much as touched Why in an unfriendly manner, I was going to roast their asses—somehow. I was resourceful and I’d find the way, even if it meant haunting them from the afterlife.
A cold, wicked cackle echoed throughout the cavernous space and a wave of hate swept through me. I’d only known Blondie for all of fifteen minutes—tops—and I despised him more than I’d ever hated anyone in my life. And that included my kidnappers.
“I’ve got you,” Blondie said, joy radiating off him.
Apparently, for megalomaniacs, when your minions did things, it meant you’d done things.
“And I’m not letting go,” he said.
The remaining wolves and the two bears retreated to open a path between their leader and me. When I tensed and tried to move, the wolf only clamped his jaws down harder, scraping bone. My breath hitched as a fresh wave of pain tore through me. One quick crunch and he’d pulverize my back right thigh.
“Whoever you are, I want to thank you for coming here today,” Psycho droned on. “What you have there is clearly a magical object, and a man can never have too many of those. Especially not when he’s preparing to take over the supernatural community. I’ve laid the path for my takeover. Now that Rage is out of the way, and his brother’s soon to follow, I have all the mages, vamps, and shifters I need to make it a clean sweep. Anyone who doesn’t agree with me will die. I’ll keep things simple.”
This wasn’t good. Not at all. And it went far beyond the wolf with his teeth in me.
Blondie had begun our interaction concerned with concealing his secrets. If he was revealing them now so openly, it could only mean one thing:
He didn’t expect me to get out of here alive.
The realization scared the shit out of me. It also sent a wave of determination rushing through me. If he planned to kill me anyway, then I had nothing to lose in trying to get out of here.
I also had Why to think about. Whether or not I’d wanted him to come into my life, he was my responsibility. If I didn’t protect him, he wouldn’t stand a chance at protecting himself.
Blondie crouched down in front of me. I lunged for him, snapping my teeth at him.
He backhanded my face with enough force to make me see stars. Swallowing blood, I whined and lowered my head in submission.
For now.
He reached for my necklace, greed shining in his eyes. Wrapping his fingers around the delicate silver strand, he yanked on it. As usual, the necklace stretched but didn’t break.
With renewed ferocity, he wrapped the fingers of both hands around the strand and tugged so hard that when his grip slipped and he let go, he slammed backward onto his ass.
I wished I weren’t so terrified so I could laugh at him.
And just like that, the fear that had been thumping through me so violently that it was beginning to make me nauseous retreated. It was there one minute, gone the next.
The pendant. It had to be.
Selene must be right. Her power must have somehow ended up in the pendant.
If she had the power of the angels, then maybe I could access enough of it to smite these dicks or whatever it was angels did when someone held them against their will.
I tilted my head back, no longer willing to cower, not even for pretenses. Blondie, too fixated on my pendant, didn’t seem to notice. He eyed my necklace, licking his lips. He stood directly in front of me, hands on his hips while he debated how he could get the jewel off me.
It was all the opening I needed. Taking a few seconds to prepare myself for the pain that was sure to come, I lunged forward. The wolf’s teeth scraped across bare bone as they slid backward.
Blinking furiously, I willed myself not to black out from the pain.
I opened my jaw as wide as it would go and clamped down on Blondie’s crown jewels with everything I had in me.
23
Several things happened at once, distilling into loud, overwhelming chaos.
Blondie released a shriek that would have made any opera singer proud. He bent, gasping for air before he again backhanded me across the face, ripping me free of his crotch—taking a chunk of jeans, boxers, and flesh with me.
The asshole would never be the same man again—guaranteed. I was pretty sure I had a piece of testicle in my mouth. But before I could spit out the grossness, I had bigger problems.
The force of Blondie’s strike wrenched me away from the werewolf’s hold on my leg. Whether in retaliation for what I’d done to their head honcho, or simply as an instinctive predatory act, the wolf clenched his jaw tighter around my hindquarters.
As momentum pulled me in the opposite direction, his teeth slid further down my leg.
Until … snap.
Nausea swept through me like a crashing wave; darkness lapped at the edges of my consciousness.
I gaped, gasped, and gulped air desperately through the pain.
I didn’t have to turn around to look to deduce that the werewolf had all but snapped my right leg clear off. It felt like my thigh bone hung by only strands of sinew and sliced fur.
The wolf’s jaw still wrapped around me, I slumped to the ground. After that, I couldn’t move. I could barely think while I blinked furiously to push away the pain to remain alert.
Furious growls and snarls, both of menace and triumph, circled the dank space, which now reeked of blood and fear.
Blondie moved back into my field of vision, hunched over, hands on his knees as he sucked in ragged breaths. “You,” he wheezed. “You’ll pay.”
I already was paying. Broken as I was, I didn’t have a chance of protecting Why from them. And if they realized he was important to me—which, let’s face it, he was no matter what I said about him—they’d hurt him to get back at me.
I hadn’t properly considered the leverage of Why when I’d decided to clamp down on Blondie’s bits.
I spit out the piece of testicle, a mouthful of blood—some his, some mine—and two of my teeth, then slumped back to the ground like dead weight, my shredded back leg draped across the ground like a KFC drumstick. Just the thought of my mutilated body was enough to send panic rushing through me. But I didn’t have the energy to properly entertain how bad the situation was. It was taking everything I had to stay awake to do whatever I could to help Why.
If I had to, I’d switch back to human so I could negotiate some kind of deal to protect him.
My pendant for his safety. A greedy fucker like Blondie might fall for it, even if he’d already seen the pendant didn’t want to come off me. With how deeply wounded I was, a shift wouldn’t leave me any energy to direct to my healing. Still, I’d do if it was the only way.
Blondie panted some more, slumping to the ground directly in front of me, coated in a sheen of sweat. I could smell the perspiration on him. Hi
s own desperation mingled with mine, polluting the air. He blurred and swam, blinking from one of him to two and then back again. Fighting the whimpers that wanted to slip out of me, I kept my mouth shut. Running my tongue along the inside, I discovered a canine and the tooth next to it gone. In their place, a gaping, aching hole.
As if Why could sense all that I was feeling, he cried, whining and tearing at my heart strings.
Could I bleed out from my injury? I wondered hazily. Probably. Maybe I already was. I wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer. My lids drooped heavily. It took more energy than I had to fight the effects of the pain and stay wake.
“You can let go of her,” Blondie said to the wolf with the lethal jaw. “She’s not going anywhere like that.”
The wolf released his hold on me and I about blacked out then and there as his teeth slid past the torn flesh and bone, sending sharp jolts of pain whisking through my leg and up into my hip.
I sucked in shallow breaths. How in the hell had I even ended up in this position? The power of the angels wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I was about to accidentally die. Cause of death: megalomaniac asshole.
That sucked. At the very least, couldn’t I have had one fun romp in the hay with Ky before I left this world? Jeez. The twists of fate were a bitch.
But something else was there, something important that I couldn’t quite grasp, tugging at my attention. My blinking became heavier, slower, my thoughts even more sluggish, more foreign, as if my consciousness were already drifting away from me.
Blondie scooted his butt across the ground, leaving a tangy trail of copper-smelling blood smeared across the dirt. “You’re going to die,” he gasped.
Yep, it pretty much felt like that’s what was about to happen.
The two bears and several werewolves roared and howled their agreement.
A whispered No, dammit arrived from far ahead of me.
Fury. It must be. He and his unexpected lament seemed very far away, as if from the end of a very deep and dark tunnel.