Restrike: (Lycan Academy of Shapeshifting: Operation Shift, Book 2)

by Shawn Knightley

  Lothar looked at me with stunned eyes, almost as if I had just confessed that someone close to him had died.

  Rodrick’s jaw clenched at the sight of me. And McKenzie was trapped in place like she had shrieked and then froze in place.

  “Lothar?” I said his name. “Lothar!” I repeated it. He didn’t move. No one moved. I was the only one in the entire room that could still move about and barely see through the glow of blue light consuming Lothar’s bedchamber.

  ‘What magic is this?’

  Rodrick, Lothar, McKenzie, and the guards were all frozen in place, unable to move and unable to speak. Well, everything except their eyes. I could see them blinking. Lothar started breathing heavier. His knees buckled. Then the guards followed along with Rodrick and McKenzie. It was as if they were paralyzed and then slowly suffocated.

  Lothar’s last orders repeated in my mind. Everyone get out!

  I started backing up, ready to make a run for it out of the room. Only my legs wouldn’t budge. I was struck by the same paralysis as the others. Something invaded my senses. A smell that made my lungs feel like I was inhaling hot ash. It stuck to my throat all the way down as I gasped for a single breath. The air in the room wasn’t oxygen anymore. It was some sort of gas. I reached for my throat and tried to breathe. My feet were stuck but my arms seemed to work. Not that it stopped the stinging striking at my nostrils with merciless force. Until finally, I collapsed onto my hands and knees, barely catching myself before I collided with the bloodstained hard wood floor.

  ‘Silver! There’s some sort of silver pathogen in the air! Is this one of the Dolch Erbe’s weapons?’

  I collapsed to my back along with the others. I managed to turn my head to see what was happening before my entire body went stiff and I couldn’t take in a single breath.

  A hint of movement distracted me. The body on the floor was alive. I saw the arm twitch. Then the leg. And within a few seconds, I didn’t see Nurse Roslyn anymore. I saw a tall man with a muscular build in a black trench coat, large enough to be a cloak, shifting before my eyes right back into his normal state as he got up from the floor.

  ‘It was a trap. This whole thing was a trap.’

  I blinked multiple times to see if I was hallucinating when the cloaked man stood and turned to face me. A shadow covered his hooded face, preventing me from seeing who it was. He dug inside his pocket and pulled out a small decorative copper box. One of the designs on the sides stood out right away. The symbol of the Dolch Erbe was etched into the copper.

  The cloaked man lifted the lid to the small box and I saw bolts of electricity start to spark outside the edges. Then they grew larger until the electrical sparks turned into massive bolts that cracked like lightning, striking each person in the room with overwhelming force. One hit me right in the center of my chest. My back arched as my body clenched from the pain, trying to see through the blinding light. It spread over my entire body.

  ‘It’s silver. He harnessed the power of silver. And the air. It was silver in some sort of gas form.’

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. When the silver lightning stopped shocking my body and retreated my limbs didn’t relent. They remained tense like I had been electrocuted. I couldn’t move a single muscle. Not even my eyes. I tried to focus on the crowning magic inside of me. I didn’t feel it lingering in the background like I usually did. The cloaked man did something to force it down and keep it away.

  He took steps over to me. Each time his feet met the wood floor I felt my racing heart start to beat a little faster.

  ‘This is it. This is how I die. I went through being murdered and enduring the trials to have it end like this?’

  The man knelt down on the wooden floor and lifted the hood off his head. Devon stared down at me with the same flirtatious smile that once held my interest and captivated my attention, making me willing to bend the rules and put my life at risk. Only he looked different. His face was marked with long claw wounds. My claw marks! They left silver scars behind, forever marking his once handsome face with his treachery.

  He brought his hand over to my hair and brushed a strand back so he could get a clear look at my face. Then he brought a single finger down to slide over my cheek as if he was a lover touching me gently as I slept.

  “Don’t worry, Riley,” he whispered in a deep voice. “This will be unpleasant but you’ll find it worth your while.”

  I couldn’t look away. I was still frozen. And still fighting to feel my magic at the tips of my fingers. Nothing happened.

  Then the red fog appeared. It wafted over the floor behind Devon. He was too distracted to notice. And for the first time since I fell, I was grateful that I couldn’t move. If I had, my eyes might have darted away from his, revealing what was happening.

  The crowning magic brewing behind him wasn’t mine. It was Rodrick’s. He slowly stood up, breaking free of his paralyzed state faster than me. The sound of metal gliding against the holder on his belt hidden inside his dark trench coat finally caught Devon’s attention. Devon stood from where he was kneeling over me just in time for Rodrick to lunge the sword clean through Devon’s gut. Rodrick shoved his weight forward and pushed Devon away, crashing the sword into the stone with enough force to pin Devon to the wall. But Rodrick didn’t stop there. He kept pushing the sword deeper inside of Devon. It wasn’t without effort. I could hear Rodrick struggling to breathe through the thick silver laced air.

  “Why?” Rodrick growled through his teeth.

  I heard the sound of blood gurgling up Devon’s throat. “Do you really care to know?” he muttered, trying his best to avoid showing just how agonizing it was having a sword running through his intestines.

  “The longer you wait, the less I care.”

  Devon snickered at him, as though the entire situation was funny. “It didn’t take much convincing. And I’m not the one you should be asking.”

  The red fog started curling around my body and loosening my legs. I could bend my toes. Then my knees. Until finally, my hips relented and I could roll over to see what was going on. Rodrick’s crowning magic was slowly breaking the bind of the silver gas wafting throughout the room.

  ‘It seems the Dolch Erbe have a nice collection of unique weapons as well.’

  I had never seen Rodrick shift before. He did so faster than I’d ever seen Lothar shift. And when he did, his head nearly crashed into the ceiling. He towered over everyone, including Devon. His fur was brown with streaks of blonde. A gorgeous coat of hair that I envied. His fangs were long, snarling down at Devon as he took his impossibly long claws and tried swiping Devon across the face. Only he never got the chance. Devon swooped under him, taking the sharp blade into his hands and pulling it right out of the wall.

  The red fog curled over my arms and gradually allowed me to move more of my body. I reached for the ground and tried to push myself up. I wasn’t strong enough yet. The air was still thick with enough silver vapor to make me weak.

  Devon kept his grip on the blade and pulled it right out of his own chest. Rodrick went down on all fours and started mauling him. He latched onto Devon’s head with his bare teeth and thrashed him back and forth, trying to break his neck.

  Devon reached inside his pocket and took out the box once more with blood covering his sliced hands. I could see the skin on his palms healing from pulling out the blade. Just enough for him to lift the lid off the box and allow the silver strike of lighting to burst out and smash Rodrick right in the chest, throwing him clear across the room. He plowed through Lothar’s bed and crashed through the bedroom window, shattering the stained glass and breaking through the stones on the wall. I heard him growling all the way down as he fell from the tower and onto the grass down below.

  The copper box remained open. I saw Lothar finally coming around and trying to stand on his knees. The silver lightning bolt shot straight into him as he tried to shift, stopping him before he got the chance and freezing him into place as silver sparks flew throug
h the air.

  Devon got up from the floor, covered in his own blood. The wound in his chest had already healed and he was back to grinning gleefully. His expression said everything. He won, Rodrick had lost, and there was nothing I could do to stop him now.

  He didn’t waste time taunting me. His arms swept under my back and knees, lifting my body over his shoulder.

  “It’s been fun,” Devon laughed down at Lothar below him.

  I wanted to reach out to Lothar. To fight back. To do anything! I tried kicking him. My legs could move but not with enough force. Devon chuckled as the blow of my legs didn’t do any damage at all. I tried to move my fingers. My right hand started to twitch. I reached inside Devon’s trench coat, searching for anything I could use against him. Something sharp pricked my finger.

  ‘Gotcha!’

  It was a dagger. The same damn dagger he used against me in the forest. And I had just enough strength left to wrap my fingers around it.

  I yanked it out of his belt and shoved it right into his back. And what I hoped was his spinal cord.

  Devon groaned and fell to his knees. And to my surprise, his grip on me loosened. I pried myself free and fell to the floor. I was still weak but at least I wasn’t being carted off to only God knows where.

  I pushed myself on my hands and moved one leg at a time, trying to stand up. I fell right back down to the floor. Apparently, being able to move my body didn’t mean I had total control over it yet.

  Devon yanked the dagger out of his back with a loud grunt and lifted his hand up toward me with his palm open as if he was going to summon the lightning right through his arm and send me flying just like he did to Rodrick.

  A strong breeze swept through the room. The hole in the wall from the broken window let in a stiff wind that sent papers on Lothar’s desk flying about in a sea of chaos. My hair flew behind my head. When I peered back to see what was going on I half expected to see a storm brewing behind me. Far from it. There was a bright glow ripping through the air just outside the hole in the wall. It floated in a circle of light revealing another dimension opening up. And it was pulling me toward it.

  I gripped onto what was left of Lothar’s bed frame, holding on for dear life. Which wasn’t that tight of a grip considering my fingers just got the ability to move again a matter of seconds earlier.

  The wind latched onto my body and wouldn’t let go. The glowing hole in the air was pulling me with all its might, sucking me away.

  “Lothar!” I screamed.

  He was still paralyzed, helplessly watching with no way to help me.

  My fingers started to loosen. I couldn’t hold on anymore.

  The last thing I saw before I was sucked right out of the room through the hole was Devon’s face. And that twisted smile of his. Only this time he wasn’t assuming he had won. He did win. I flew right out of the room and into the unknown.

  13

  I’m not entirely sure how long I was out. All I knew was that the second I woke up, my stomach began doing flips and turns. I started retching as the burning sensation of bile in my stomach forced its way up my throat. Then came my recent meal along with any water that was lurking inside my stomach. The space around me was blurred. Nothing was steady. It was as if I had been struggling to get a rowboat back to shore during a storm but found I couldn’t make it all the way. Everything moved around in circles until a white flash of light burst through the air before me, illuminating everything until I could see clearly again.

  I was in a heavily wooded forest. The trees were thicker than the woods Devon took me to. There was a large black cauldron sitting over a fire with something bubbling inside along with four large silver goblets. I could smell what was inside them. Blood. It tickled my senses but I couldn’t say that it made me hungry. The last thing I wanted in my queasy stomach was food.

  Barking in the distance startled me. Then the sound of howling. There was a wolf nearby. Not a werewolf or a lycan. The sound it made wasn’t deep or menacing enough.

  Two men circled the cauldron as bright blue flames started to edge over the sides. They were dressed in long dark furs covering their backs and faces. I feared what they looked like underneath.

  Someone stepped through the bright light spread over the space. I squinted my eyes to see what was happening. Devon walked through the light and gracefully stepped onto the dirt below him. His eyes instantly drifted over to me.

  I tried to move but my body was still feeling the poison of silver in the air, crushing me into the ground and making my body ache.

  Devon walked my way and knelt down as he had before, playing with the curls in my hair as he taunted me. He knew as well as I did that he gained the upper hand in the end. As if he knew something I didn’t. Which given my current predicament, he probably did.

  “Where are we?” I managed to mutter.

  “I told you not to worry, Riley,” he answered. “I got you here safe.”

  “What was that?”

  “A vixra tunnel. A magical causeway from one place to another. The sickness won’t last long. I promise.”

  I glared up at Devon as he smiled down at me, trying my best to let him know that the second I could move my entire body again he would regret doing this to me.

  “Devon!” A sharp voice pulled his attention away. “Stop fooling around and get her ready.” It was one of the men wearing dark furs. It looked like the fur of a large bear. He circled the cauldron and stopped on the other side.

  Devon picked me up and brought me over to a tall stake lodged deep into the ground. He tore away my trench coat and held his hands over my hips until I could move my feet. Then he pulled out the one thing that I grew a hatred for the second I arrived at the academy. Locksin. He tied it around both my wrists, ankles and my chest. Once it was firmly fastened around my bare skin he attached it to a chain on the stake, pulling it tight so I couldn’t get away.

  “Steady yourself,” he said. “It will only get tighter if you resist.”

  ‘What? You want to make sure I can stand as you torture me?’

  I regained all the strength in my legs but it didn’t matter. He had me right where he wanted me. And he knew I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “We’re starting, Devon,” said the man in the bear fur. As the sight before me became clearer and my vision returned to me I saw the teeth. The bear’s teeth and claws were still attached at the head. The other man was draped in a similar fur but his was a wolf.

  The other one remained standing on the opposite side with his hands folded before him. I could see the array of black tattoos on his skin. His face was still a mystery hidden in darkness.

  Devon walked over to the cauldron and took one of the four silver goblets into his hand. The others did the same. Then Devon took the dagger I used to stab him and withdrew it from his side. Apparently, he made time to grab it before following me to… to… where ever we were. I grinned inwardly at the sight of his blood still staining the silver blade. Until I saw what he was going to do with it. He disappeared into the woods and came back with a rope in his hands, pulling along a wolf as it whined and wrestled with the rope to get away. His teeth gnawed at the rope, again and again, trying to get loose. Until he fell onto his back and Devon was able to pull him.

  Then the second he had the wolf close enough he plunged the dagger into its heart. I winced as the wolf cried. Then in a matter of seconds, it stopped moving. Devon removed the dagger and lodged his bare hand into the wolf’s chest. He ripped the heart right out, tearing the veins and arteries away.

  I watched with stunned eyes as he took the tip of the dagger and let it sit over the top of each goblet, allowing the wolf’s blood to trickle into each one from the top of the blade. After the goblets had drops of blood he took the wolf’s heart and tossed it into the cauldron. It hissed as the contents splashed from side to side.

  My pulse started racing once more as they formed a triangle around the cauldron and started chanting. It was a harsh language that I didn’
t recognize. But I swear some part of me must have known whatever they were doing was dangerous. Or at the very least, unnatural. My body started reacting before I even realized I was moving. My arms had strength in them again. I yanked down the locksin around my wrists, desperately trying to get away. The wretched material only got tighter until I couldn’t feel the blood flowing to my fingers anymore.

  I half expected them to drink the wolf’s blood from the goblets. But they didn’t. They took the dagger one by one and sliced into their palms, allowing more blood to drip into their goblets, combining with the wolf’s blood. Then they tossed the blood right into the blue smoking cauldron. The flames inside flickered higher and hotter. I could feel the heat from where I was tied up.

  ‘The visions! This is what I saw in my dream.’

  The smell of sulfur practically punched me as the flames grew. I started gagging when it seeped into my throat and threatened to choke me.

  The flames went from blue to black as smoke barreled up into the sky. The raging fire underneath heating the cauldron turned a normal orange hue.

  It was suddenly bright enough to take in everything around me without having to squint my eyes. Where ever we were, it was old. Ruins stood all around me in tall formations. Stones piled high showing where structures once stood tall as low hanging clouds drifted through what I imagined were windows and were now nothing but holes in the stone with vines covering them in long layers of green.

  I didn’t know where the hell I was but I could sense it was holy on some level. It was a sacred place. And one where many people had died. Perhaps lycan? Or witches? It held strong magic that flowed through the air. I could smell its potency.

  Movement stirred as I looked back at the three men placing their goblets near the cauldron. Then they stood and removed the furs covering their faces.