Into the Light (Axe Druid Book 1)

by Christopher Johns

  Eventually, she stopped and chuckled, “Eventually, you will break down and assist me of your own free will. Without your friends as bargaining chips. Who knows—you may find that I am very giving to those who give me what I want.”

  She brought over one of the chains I had seen in a corner and locked it around my wrist, then my opposite leg. It was attached to the ground by magic, so when her influence wore off, I couldn’t break the chains or pull them from the earth. She left the pavilion and me in it, still kneeling in a pool of my own blood. I would think that the lycanthropy would help me recover more, but her injuring me could have been keeping that kind of regeneration from taking hold.

  I took a few moments to inventory my body and ensure I had full control of everything. Despite the lycanthropy questions, my natural healing abilities helped me to heal a little, but I was pretty far from okay. I touched my earring, though I didn’t need to, and called out for my friends. And I kept calling. Nothing. Not a damned thing.

  That meant the possibility of a few things. One, my friends had their items confiscated like mine, and they had simply forgotten to take my earring. Two, they were being held out of range for the magic to work. Three, there was some kind of magic at work in this camp that prevented communication magic. The last thing I could think of was something I didn’t want to think of at all.

  I heard the howls and cackling laughter of the Werewolves outside, then quiet for a long while. I thought about setting fire to the pavilion, but when I reached for my spells, it was like I was being blocked. So that meant that my theory about something interfering with magic might have some truth to it. I slept fitfully for a few hours, partly in fear of her return and another beating, the other part being the congealing blood on the floor and in my fur stank; it was hard to ignore with my heightened senses.

  She returned halfway through the night, her white fur glistened red with the blood of some beast that she had killed. She offered me food, a hunk of bloody meat, but I refused, much to her delight. She gobbled the morsel up then shifted into her Elven form and wiped the blood off with the towel that she had used earlier in the day.

  She laid down next to me with a warning, “Touch me in any way that I find even mildly threatening, and I kill one of your friends and cover you in his entrails.” At the threat to my friends, my mind blanked and I stilled completely. “Okay? Good boy. Sleep tight!”

  Needless to say, I didn’t. The next day, the same woman I guess I had attacked came back to grab what she could to clean and bring me food.

  “I’m sorry if I attacked you.” She nodded and went about her business.

  “We don’t need to talk to the slaves, dear,” Pastela said from her desk. “They know better than to think they rate a conversation.”

  “Where are my friends?”

  “Mmm?” She turned and looked at me. “They’re safe for now. I assume you saw that large, wooden structure on your way here? While you were planning your escape? Yes? Okay. They’re there. Once a week, we like to have the slaves fight each other or a member of the pack for entertainment. If you’re a good boy, I’ll take you to see it tomorrow.”

  I had to fight the urge to be sick—I swallowed hard—but I knew I just had to bide my time. We needed to get out of here, and I needed my friends to do it.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I woke up to a tug on my chains from Pastela. “You were exceptionally good last night, so I will keep my word.”

  When she had been beating me, again, she hadn’t had to order me to hold still. I stood there, taking the brutal punishment for refusing her bed and her insidious plans once more. When she had finished, I had to fight to keep my footing, but before I fell to my knees, I looked her straight in the eyes and spat a globule of blood at her. She took great pleasure in licking it off her face with a longer than possible tongue before doing more… delicate work.

  I grimaced inwardly at the compliment, remembering how I had almost bitten my tongue off not to scream when she had decided my left arm didn’t need the flesh that had been on it. I scowled at her and got up slowly. After she finished, she had taken the manacles off and ordered me not to move. With me free, she healed me, then took her time doing it again. Rinse and repeat. I hadn’t been allowed to sleep all night.

  She smiled at me, clearly thinking she was breaking me. As a ‘reward’, she allowed me the decency of my torn trousers. She took the ankle chain off, and I slipped them on. I still had no access to my magic, though. She bent and grasped the base of the chain that attached to the earth and whispered a word. I tried not to look like I heard anything and just stared ahead blankly. She tugged the now freed chain, and off we went.

  I stepped outside to cat calls and jeering from the general populace. No big deal there. Maybe I could use that to my advantage somehow? We would see.

  It took about five minutes at a decent pace to get to the arena. There was an entrance facing west, large enough to accommodate any in their hybrid forms, that led to some stands that climbed up a few rows. There were only twenty or so wolves in the arena. There were still some searching for Bokaj out there somewhere.

  I looked into the pit, only about ten feet down below the bottom row, and saw my friends under an awning. They looked battered and bruised but not broken—as far as I could see.

  I breathed a small sigh of relief.

  “You didn’t believe me?” my jailer pouted.

  “Forgive me for doubting a psychotic bitch.”

  “Forgiven, but just for you,” she purred disgustingly. “But the Dark One? He will pay dearly for that. Farlow, the Dark One shall be today’s champion. Send in one of the omegas.”

  A wolf with black fur off to our left complied and dropped into the pit with my friends. They barely took note of him as he used a key to unlock Yohsuke’s chains. Yoh stepped out from under the protection of the awning and flipped off Pastela. He saw me, chained and helpless, and gave me a small nod. He was okay.

  “You, omega, get in here.” The wolf then pointed in my direction, and as I gave him a confused look, a figure bounded over where I sat and landed in the pit before my friend. It was the same wolf that we had spotted the night we were ambushed.

  “He’s mine.” I pointed at the omega. “Let me fight him in my friend’s stead.”

  “No,” she said, looking smug that she had gotten to turn the tables on me.

  “If you let me fight him, I will be a willing participant in your plan.”

  She looked at me with suspicion. “You swear it?”

  I nodded.

  “Speak the words.” She licked her lips and glared at me hungrily.

  “I swear that if you let me fight, I will take part in your… fun.” I shivered at the thought of her touching me the way she was probably thinking.

  I felt the weight settle over my chest. I was bound, but I had left myself a loophole a mile wide. Stupid ass was gonna get hers. I kept my bearing as she undid the clasp on my chains. It fell away with a thud, and I rubbed my wrist on reflex; it was sore but whole. I rolled my ankle this way and that, working the stiffness out.

  I stepped forward to the edge of the pit and dropped in. I landed and walked toward my friend, relief clear on my face.

  “Hey, brother. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  He swung his fist out, and it connected with my chin. It surprised me. Then he pulled me into a headlock. His earring brushed up against the side of my head as he locked the choke in. A small victory that he wore his still, but why was he so pissed off?

  All for show, brother. I’m glad you’re doing okay, man. They need to think we hate you, Yohsuke said.

  All good, man. I thought the worst, and I am more than happy to be wrong as hell. Damn that right hook wa–I started, but he interrupted.

  Here they come. Kick me away from you. Cause a scene.

  Kill. I set my feet to get ready.

  I roared with what little breath I had left in my lungs and flung him away from me over my shoulder. I threw him a
little harder than I had meant to, but he landed the way they taught us in the Marine Corps—slapping the ground with his forearm and palm to help absorb the impact—and he was fine. He made like he was going to lunge at me again, but the Farlow wolf got to him first. The beast cold-cocked him in the temple, and my friend went down like a sack of potatoes.

  “That’s the thanks I get for trying to save your ass?” I yelled. The rage came a little, and I tried to keep it at bay so that it was believable but not overpowering. Luckily for me, the asshole I really wanted to fight started to talk.

  “Poor little fox,” he chuckled. “You’ll never be one of us, and now your own friends despise you. Sucks to be you, fox.”

  “Oh, you have no idea what suck is, omega.” I laughed. “How does it feel to be the Pack’s collective bitch? I bet you get all the shitty jobs, too. At least the alpha gets to use me. You just get passed around don’t you? Or, looking at your ugly ass, I doubt anyone would touch you, and she wants to have my babies? You jealous?”

  It worked; he came in swinging for the fences, and I was going to really enjoy this. Time to try and learn to control this shit. I didn’t let the rage go but tried to harness it. I pictured the hybrid form in my mind and urged the shift. That’s exactly what it was—a shift. It wasn’t like the brutal transformation I had seen Pastela go through a few times. It was my change, a quick shift and I was in hybrid form, ready for mister asshole.

  I growled at him wordlessly and blocked his haymaker easily. I grabbed his blocked wrist and twisted as I jerked back on the limb. A satisfying crack came from the joint, and I let it go as I backed away smiling.

  My opponent turned and threw out the limb, popping it back into place easily enough, but it looked painful. He was more cautious now, walking in a circle with me mirroring his movements.

  “Don’t tell me! That’s fear I smell, isn’t it?” I sniffed loudly before scrunching my muzzle in disgust. “Does it always smell like urine?”

  He fell for it again and came at me with arms spread wide for a tackle aimed at my mid-section. I waited until the split second he looked away, then brought my right foot up and push kicked his left clavicle as hard as I could. The bone resisted, then caved, and his momentum dropped with his shoulder right into the ground beneath my foot.

  I grasped the omega by his injured shoulder and picked him up until he was kneeling in front of me, staring up into the stands at Pastela. She was smiling down at us, obviously enjoying the show. Good because this was going to suck, maybe. Fuck it.

  Get ready to play, you guys. I mentally whispered to my friends.

  “See how she smiles while I beat your ass, you pathetic worm,” I taunted. He started to struggle, grasping at my arm with his good hand, but I batted it away easily. He was in serious pain, healing or no healing.

  “She doesn’t care about you. You don’t even rate a name. You’re worthless,” then I whispered so low that I hoped only he could hear it, “but your death is for a good cause.”

  I roared and took my clawed right hand, shoving it deep into the meat just under his shoulder blade, breaking his ribs along the way, and tore out his heart with a sickening gurgle. The look of mirth on Pastela’s face turned to outrage as I threw the clump of bloody meat at her.

  “Oh, my pet, you won’t even get to enjoy this night.”

  “That’s on you. I had every intention of keeping my word.”

  “You will pay for your insolence. Your friends will, too. I’m going to enjoy breaking all of you.”

  She dropped into the pit with me, and I dropped the omega’s body irreverently. I shifted back into my natural fox-man form and rolled my shoulders. Yup, the urge to eat my kill was still there, and my stomach actually growled. Gross.

  Incoming, boys!

  I looked up to see a dark figure on the unoccupied wall behind us loose two arrows, one of which hit Pastela right in her right eye and burst into flame. She screamed and howled in furious pain.

  “Duck!” I heard behind me. I saw Yohsuke throw something, then something else and moved back in his direction. Two detonations of his new favorite spell Star Burst sounded, and wolves scattered.

  Balmur finished unlocking Jaken’s chains, then looked up at his best friend. “Hope you brought a little more than your winning personality, man. There are a lot more of them than us.”

  Bokaj had gone full badass and was firing arrow after arrow into anything that wasn’t us.

  “Yeah, I found something that hates Werewolves as much as we do, and he’s on his way. Couple minutes tops, but we gotta hold them off until he gets here.”

  “Sick! Let’s go ham, guys,” I said. Balmur had already pulled his weapons out. “How did you manage to keep those?!”

  “Same way Yoh did, man.” He smiled as he stabbed a slow werewolf in the hamstring. “I put them up before they overwhelmed us. Didn’t you?”

  “FUCKING HELL!” I screamed. This time the rage really did take over.

  I grunted and fell forward only to rise again on hybrid legs. I roared, and the red tinge to my vision began to throb like the beating of my heart. As it pulsed, I began to move to that beat. Step. Swing. Connect. Elbow. Kick. Bite. Claw. Claw. Bite. Roar.

  The rhythm stayed consistent until I got to the great white bitch pulling the arrow out of her eye socket.

  I inhaled and let loose a roar as loud as I could at her. I didn’t know why, but she was now top of my target list. I bounded forward, and she held out a hand as if one hand could stop me. I was death incarnate. Primal. ALIVE.

  “Stop,” she growled.

  And I did. I couldn’t stop my forward momentum, but my limbs froze in place. I barreled into her. The force must have made her control slip a bit because I felt her command fade as she stumbled back. It was just enough for me to regain a little control.

  “DIE!” I roared loudly and swiped at her throat. Her hand was back up, and the control tightened once more.

  “You forget your place!” she screamed, blood dripping from her muzzle. “Let me show you.”

  She came toward me slowly, then raised her clawed right hand and brought it down. It seemed to move in slow motion, inching ever closer, and I was helpless to stop it. I strained and tried to get my muscles to move, and I felt them twitch before nothing moved at all.

  A whistling whine buzzed my left ear and hit her in the armpit, then another in her neck. The arrows sprouted from her so fast, I couldn’t seem to comprehend how. All I knew was that I could move now, and she was close enough to get to.

  I lunged forward and bit into her throat. Blood dribbled into my clenched jaws, and everything became more red tinged and brutal. I remembered tearing, eating, feasting on the flesh of my most hated enemy. My chest swelled to bursting with pride at my victory, and I howled in delight.

  Then a large thing showed up, and these creatures attempted to corral me away from my kill. One with metal all over hit me with light, and it hurt. A lot. Lunging again. Biting. Trying to bite. Sleep.

  * * *

  I woke up on a pile of rubble, nude and sore. I shook my head groggily, then looked around for my friends. They were standing in front of this behemoth, man-shaped creature with a single eye staring at me in hatred. Each of my friends had their weapons drawn and aimed at this thing. Bokaj was trying to talk it down it seemed.

  “He’s the friend I told you about!” he explained loudly. The thing was twenty feet tall and would have made a brick shit-house jealous. Massive arms, well-muscled and scarred led to hands with two fingers and a thumb. In those hands, the cyclops held a huge club and looked like it wanted to use it. It stood on thick, stubby legs with the same amount of toes.

  “Friend no attack other friend!” it bellowed. If I hadn’t been awake already, that would have woken me up. Fucker had a voice like a freight train horn. “He bad-wolf now. Me kill him like others. You thank Grum.”

  I had to admit, he sounded kind of adorable in his thought process, but I didn’t want to die. I got up slow
ly and put my hands out to my sides, palms up. I had no more clothes to wear other than dirty ones; I’d have to clean them. They were my last pair, I thought, so I just walked over naked.

  Oh well.

  Nudity seemed like a bit of non-issue at the moment.

  “Grum, is it?” I asked, and he just growled at me in response. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, buddy, but I don’t remember attacking anyone.”

  “You did! You attack friend! You bad-wolf!” he cried, raising his club as if to crush me.

  “HEY! WOAH, BIG FELLA!” Bokaj waved his arms in front of him. “Easy now!”

  “I forgive him!” Jaken shouted. That seemed to puzzle the cyclops, but it worked because he lowered the weapon.

  “I squish him for you. Flat, like bug?” Grum tested the waters a bit with that.

  “No, no. It’s okay, really. Friends like us fight like that all the time! He was really just playing, right Zeke?” My friend looked at me with the kind of face that I knew I had to play along.

  “Y-yeah!” I stuttered then got it under control. “We attack each other all the time. When one of us goes to the bathroom and comes back, we already have a prank to play on them. It’s like a game we play.”

  The giant being looked at us for a moment; his one eye narrowed in suspicion. “Game?”

  “Yeah!” we all chorused and nodded enthusiastically.

  Yohsuke took it a bit further and tossed an Astral Bolt at me that caught me in the shoulder and knocked me on the ass.

  “See?” he asked, laughing convincingly. “It’s a game!”

  Grum nodded after a moment, as if what we had said was a wise piece of advice you’d get from an elder.

  “Game look fun.”

  We all agreed.

  He smiled. “I play too!”

  We all stood still, a moment too long, as the gullible Grum swung his club at Jaken like the armored Paladin was a golf ball. He raised his shield in time to protect himself and went sailing back my way. We were twenty feet away from each other to start, and he was rising as he went. I shifted into my Ursolon form and jumped, trying to catch him, but I just missed. He landed in the rubble I had been laying on with a crash.