“Get walking,” G commanded.
I walked beside him on the left, Colin flanking his right. I watched the beta’s fists clench. Having the lowdown on what an abusive prick Colin was, G’s resolve to not smash his face in was gonna be tested. Hardcore.
Kris covered the rear, his boots barely making a sound.
“We’re the best at stalking,” Colin said to G as we walked. “You know that, Beta. Your dad wanted us at a distance, to be hidden. Ally and Drew are not on the same level.”
“Why are you showing yourself now?” G’s answer was loaded with icy steel.
“Thought it might be best, seeing as we’re crossing into the danger zone.”
Fuck you with the we!
“And the keycard?” G asked.
“High Alpha.”
“What?” I blurted. “Why couldn’t he give me one before I left?” I didn’t look over at him.
“He said the swordmaster would have you covered.”
Dad pulling the strings, eh? Getting his paws in, thinking he was so clever.
Damn.
Not now. Job to do.
How as I gonna focus with him here? Was this the tenshi answering my prayers for a bone? Sick. And that was sick in the shite way.
We reached Mikuri Pond and the junction, taking a pause. The left path sloped down, while the right path went up. It wasn’t a pause to think, as we knew the direction we needed to hit, but a scan of the scene. Still no sign of the baku.
“Carry on,” G said.
As I went to walk, I was stopped by a force inside me. It dropped like an anchor. Clang. Fixed me down, my eyes on the water.
The pond was pretty huge, more of a lake if you ask me. It sat at the heart of snowy slopes, crimson fog drifting across the surface. Quite a way down too. Wouldn’t wanna slip and take a roll.
“Aki?” G said. “What’s wrong?”
The more I looked at the water, the more I knew the pathway up to the mountain was wrong.
I told G this.
“What do you see?” G asked.
Just ‘cos I wasn’t addressing my dickhead ex directly, it didn’t stop him from opening his gob. “It’s just water.”
“Quiet,” G said.
That shut him up.
“I don’t know. There’s something...whoa!”
“What?”
“My katanas.” They started to buzz in their sheaths. “Wait.” I pulled them out, and they swung in the direction of the lake, a force pulling for the water like it was magnetic north.
“Then we check it out,” G said.
There was no way the blades were going back in their holder now. They really wanted to go down there.
I called up my babies. “See what’s down there.”
I could see okay, nothing around the edges of the water. One of the wolves would’ve spotted something anyway. Still, I liked to have my bases covered.
A breeze, the sound of running in the snow.
Kris moved first, taking on the blur of orange coming right for us.
Holy shit! Baku!
My babies snapped back to me, growling.
It was just like in the picture, a fox with white horns and red eyes, and it didn’t make a sound as it tangled with Kris, only the slamming of its body on the stone path, the snap of its neck at the hands of the werewolf.
And here they came, charging over the snowfields, the wind stirring up at their presence.
We formed a circle, back-to-back, then struck out. I moved quickly, free of hesitation. The one baku coming for me dodged my swing, and I leaped over it, barely missing being snagged by those horns.
Sucked down into a straw. No thanks.
I turned, the quiet creature doing the same, head down, going for the kebab.
I got in there first, driving my blade into its side. The steel buzzed, the hilt pulsing, drinking down the black energy. The baku was doing the action of howling in pain but in silence. It collapsed. Dead.
My other swords used to turn red when they’d swallowed the energy they’d taken. These were different. A white glow, three pulses, a shimmer of that same red, then back to regular steel.
What the hell?
More baku. I took down another, the same thing happening. Shit! There were at least ten around us. Kris had shifted to a brown wolf, clothes in shreds all over the path. Colin and G were dealing with the foxy wankers in human form. Didn’t make their kills any less savage.
Another baku for me. It leaped, and I dove, then swung upward, slicing its belly. Guts and gross things poured over me. I quickly got to my feet, shaking it off.
All it took was one horn. Then it was over. One mistake, and that was it.
G had just finished twisting the head off a baku, when he said, “Get down to the—”
Wham! G went over the edge, tumbling down the slope to the water. It was a bigger bastard than the others and had come out of nowhere.
Kris went after him faster than I could blink, tearing down the slope.
“G! Fuck!”
As I went to move, a boot met my stomach. I hunched over. Hands were in my hair, pulling me upright. I yelped with the pain in my scalp, the aching in my belly.
Colin brought his face close to mine. “Don’t ever forget you’re mine, Akira.”
“Get the fuck away from me!”
“Mine. Forever.” He licked my face.
I cracked him with a head-butt, sending him staggering backward with a roar.
G was at the bottom of the slope, wrestling with the baku fox. Kris was dealing with his own onslaught of the orange fuckers.
And I had this piece of shit.
“You’re mental,” I yelled, pushing the pain he’d inflicted on me way down.
Thanks, adrenaline.
“You’re—”
I cut him off. “I told G everything about you. He knows, Colin.”
If his glower could strike me dead, it would’ve.
“That’s right, motherfucker. All that shit you did to me, all that—”
A baku went for him. He roared again, taking the fox on. Made short work of it. Blood from the kill dripped off his hands.
The sick fuck licked his fingers. “You think you’re so clever, Akira. Poor little victim. I remember the way I used to make you scream when I fucked you. Forgotten that? You’ve never had a harder dick than mine.”
“Or a harder fucking fist,” I countered. “Yeah, I remember, wanker. Selfish lover, selfish cunt all round.”
“Somebody needs to wash your mouth out.”
Rage. So much rage. “Why are you doing this now? This is—”
“So you know who has the real power! Me! Not you or Gabriel or your fucking father! Me! You’re mine, Akira. Mine! Do you hear me? I’m seared in your heart!”
He killed another baku without breaking a sweat, tossed its body aside. A horn had just missed his face. Shame!
“Look at Gabriel down there. He isn’t me, and he never will be. I’m the true beta. The true alpha. And your true love.”
There was pure madness in those eyes. I’d only ever seen that level of crazy in Mama Rita.
“You’re a nut job. You’re done. So fucking done.”
“And you’re mine!” He lunged at me.
He’d kill me. No question. He didn’t really care about the silver moon. He wanted power over me, ultimate power over everything. Just like that, a new enemy had risen.
As he charged, I dove, but he grabbed me by the hair again, kicked my legs out from under me.
Three baku were coming.
He sat on my chest, pinning me down. “You’re mine.”
“Colin! Baku!”
“I know.”
“Then, do something!”
He rolled off me and took them on. I had no choice but to do the same, taking two out with my katanas, blood spraying over my face.
Man, the rage was at full pelt.
As Colin finished the baku, I went for him. Swung. He ducked and kicked me in the bal
ls. I grunted, staggering back, determined not to fall on my arse for him again.
He grabbed my throat. “If I can’t have you, no one will.”
Official: He was a mega fruitcake.
And I was furious.
“Akira is mine,” he roared, crushing my windpipe. His eyes were molten gold. Yep. He was gonna totally end me. “Mine. All mi—”
I brought a katana up, still clutching both of them tight. I managed to pierce him in the side. That was enough.
Golden energy flooded the blade.
“No!” he howled.
I was dropped, and I jumped back.
Colin clutched his side.
Whoa.
“What have you done?”
I’d taken his wolf power. It was out of him, in my weapons. The white glow, the triple pulse, the shimmer of red, then gone.
Colin was running across the snowfield, clutching his side. There was a line of red in the snow. His blood. And baku chased him.
Let them have him. He was human. Colin was human. As easy as readymade cookie dough. Human. I’d stolen his strength. Everything.
He was as good as dead.
I watched him run until he vanished into the still rising fog.
They could deal with him. Colin would die, and I’d never have to see his face again. There wouldn’t be a body left after the baku sucked him all the way down.
My dad had once said I was dangerous. He was so right. I had the power to break him, the most powerful man in the world. Why hadn’t I realized that before? At the end of the day, he was just a wolf. Just like Colin.
Why was I even thinking like that? I blinked, shook my head of the bad juju.
Oh, no. Was that a consequence of taking power? A new version of it? No twenty-four hours this time?
A blood-curdling howl rang up from the water below.
Gabriel.
I snapped out of my funk. I’d deal with that later.
Running down the slope, I leaped over boulders until I hit the edge of the water.
“Oh, shit!”
G was in his black wolf form, tearing open a baku. There were like eight dead foxes dotting the shoreline.
Kris had got himself on the end of a horn. I’ll never be able to bleach the sights and sounds from my mind. His bones were contorting, the noise of the constant cracking horrific on a whole different scale to regular horrific, his flesh swirling into the horn like it was liquid brown fur and skin going down, down, down.
Eaten alive.
The worst part was, the baku was dead. Split in half. One final meal. The parts of Kris that had been swallowed were spilling out the other side like stringy pasta, joining the innards of the dead creature that steamed on the ground.
Another baku came at G, and he took it down. I did what he hadn’t had the chance to do yet.
I cut Kris’s head off.
My katanas were deadly sharp and cut right through in one strike. There was no way of stopping the eating of his corpse, but he was free from the pain now.
I hoped.
His wolf power was swallowed by my weapons.
G finished his kill, then shifted to his naked human form.
“Shit,” I whispered. “Shit.”
He came over.
“Are you okay?” I asked him. Stupid question!
He nodded, didn’t say anything. Nearby was his backpack. He threw it over his shoulder. There were spare clothes in there, but it was pointless using them right now.
G was releasing long puffs of condensation into the air, staying silent.
I scanned the slopes for baku. “Looks like they’ve stopped for now.”
He crouched down at Kris’s head, laying a hand on it. “Be at peace, brother,” he said in Japanese. “Let the tenshi guide you to the next life.” He turned to face me. “Where’s Colin?”
“Decided to turn on me like the piece of shit he is, so I took his wolf power. He ran.”
“Good riddance,” he replied coolly.
“Yeah, let’s hope so.”
We’d so talk about that properly later.
My blades swung of their own accord, the pulling force mega-powerful now. They dragged me to the water’s edge, then into the pond until I was waist-deep.
G followed. We’d have to discuss Colin later. He didn’t ask me again.
Poor Kris. That should’ve been Colin there. And I wouldn’t have shown him mercy. A slow death for him. I could be a fucking monster too.
My swords tilted downward, moving in a small stabbing action.
“I guess they want me to…stab the water.”
“Then do it.”
No messing about. I used both blades to drive down into the cold pond.
They clanged on the surface, rattling my bones. Instantly, the entire water froze over with a film of ice. It raced across, crackling. After a few seconds, it exploded, bursting upward in a spray of warmth. No more ice.
“What the—”
The water parted, rolling back to create a corridor of dark liquid, exposing a stairwell that led down to the mouth of a cave.
“Okay, then.”
“Let’s go, Aki.”
He took point, and I followed him down the wet steps, being careful but quick.
These swords had done this.
Keys.
The swords are keys.
Whoa.
Chapter Twenty-One
What was on the other side of the cave entrance wasn’t a cavern.
We were outside, under the stars, the night the blackest black I’d ever seen. If it weren’t for the stars and the proper white moon, I’d have said the sky was the place that all color and light went to die.
“Where the hell are we?” I said.
Snowfields, proper thick snow like in my dream, stretched out to the horizon. A mountain in the distance that did change shape, slowly fading from one size and form to another.
We were standing on a stone disc. There was a five-storied pagoda looming over us, looking pretty similar to the one in Sensoji. Only this one had a white pillar, golden balustrades, and black eaves, and a black finial.
There was a sakura tree (cherry blossom) hanging over a small pool, koi swimming in it. Blossom fell, drifted on the gentle breeze, landing around the pond, never on the surface of the water.
Blossom. Pink. The same petals that made up the petal woman from my dreams.
What was this place?
Freaky, that’s what!
I crossed the circle, went up the steps to the pagoda, and tried the main doors. Locked.
My swords weren’t buzzing anymore. I sent Bob and Rose out, but they couldn’t pass through the door. Even to the metaphysical extensions of my senses, which could pass through walls, the way was locked.
I placed a sword on the door. Nothing. Tried the keycard. Nope. So much for every door and all that.
“Now what?” I said.
Laughter. Familiar, making every one of my nerves stand on end.
Mama Rita.
I spun, and there she was, coming through the cave with Violet Cross beside her, a male and female banshee behind her. The woman screamer was Lana Krystal—the one who’d got away. Sean, the warlock was there too, and some male elf I didn’t know.
A whole fucking army.
“You!” I barked. “What the—”
The banshees leaped into action, screaming their lungs out. G and me went flying, crashing into the pagoda doors. I landed on him, my swords spinning out of my grip. I swear their clatter on the stone echoed like we were in some chamber.
I sprang to my feet, G rushing past me. I scooped up my swords, but they flew out of my grip. Yanked right out.
“Good work, Violet!” Mama Rita proclaimed.
“Wasn’t me.”
“Really? Sean?”
“Not me.”
The bitch shrugged. “I’ll take Akira’s obvious clumsiness as a win.”
Tenshi! I was gonna cut her head off. “Fu—"
Mam
a Rita laughed as another scream sent us both back where we’d been.
“This is the end, Akira,” Mama Rita said, cackling some more.
Mazoku slithered out of her body. Zach looked on, as helpless as always.
G leaped through the air, aiming straight for Violet. But he...slowed down. Went into proper slow motion.
What the fuck? Violet wasn’t using her magic. Neither was Sean or the elf. No one was doing anything to make this happen.
“G!”
Another banshee scream, this time, all the energy projected at me as I went for one of my blades. Even before the scream caught me, the katana flew away.
This wasn’t happening!
I crashed into the door headfirst, cracking my knees off the stone as I hit the ground.
“Fuck!” I tried to get up, lost in a daze.
What was that rattling sound?
“Oh, Akira!” Mama Rita called. “You’ve got to see this.”
I slowly turned, my head pounding, nausea kicking my arse.
G. A silver chain wrapped around his neck. Held by Violet. Mama Rita had a blade in one of her big hands.
“Watch this!”
“G!”
She stuck the silver blade into his neck, howling with laughter.
“I win! I win!”
“G!” I tried to get up, but something slammed me down. “G!”
Lana took out a silver knife of her own, and she joined Mama Rita, stabbing him over and over again—the neck, the chest, the face, slashed his throat. He was dead before they’d finished. They laughed and kicked him, spat on him.
The silver residue from the blades hissed in his bloody, mutilated flesh.
“The beta is dead!” Mama Rita cried. The banshees cheered, Violet was smirking at me, Sean and the elf chuckling.
Tears burned my cheeks as much as the screaming seared my lungs. But I couldn’t get up, no matter how many times I tried.
“G! I’ll fucking kill you all! I’ll fucking kill you!”
Mama Rita walked over, the silver dagger dripping with G’s blood. The initial force kept shoving me down. I wouldn’t stop trying. I had to get up. I had to kill them all!
“You—”
She ran up the stairs and kicked me in the face. My head snapped backward, cracking on the ground.
“I’ll kill—”
She crouched, smacking me around the face with the back of her hand. The mazoku hissed around me. “Me, Akira? What about me? Didn’t you hear? I win. I win big.”
Four Moons: The Complete Collection: (Books 1 - 4) Page 40