Wolf's Choice

by Carina Wilder

  I pulled my arms down only to see the Marquis’ wolf’s limp body dangling from Krane’s enormous, fang-filled mouth. Blood trickled in streams along the animal’s matted fur. His eyes had faded to gray, the life sapped from his body.

  I fell to the ground and pressed a hand to my beating heart as I watched Krane toss his victim aside and transform back into the human form I’d grown to know so well, yet not at all.

  “Ariana, look away,” he said, reaching down and grabbing the wolf’s head in both hands.

  “But…”

  “Look. Away.”

  I tore my gaze in the other direction. A moment later I heard a crack like a snapping tree limb.

  Then silence.

  I knew without looking that he’d shattered the wolf’s neck to ensure that the beast would never rise again.

  The man who’d caused Tristan so much torment two centuries ago was no more.

  Krane had finally avenged his brother.

  The dragon shifter made his way over to me, his eyes focused on the clearing in the distance. His right arm was bleeding from a deep wound, but he seemed unfazed as he yanked off his belt to tie a tourniquet around it. “It’s a mess out there,” he said, his eyes fixed on the walls of flame that separated us from the battle that was still raging.

  “Yeah, it is. Let me help you with that,” I replied, taking the belt from him and tightening it around his upper arm just enough to stem the flow of blood.

  “I thought you weren’t coming,” I said in my best attempt at a casual tone, despite the fact that I’d come close to dying—and the fact that I had no idea if my husband was alive or if a single living creature would walk out of this hell on earth in one piece.

  “I wasn’t going to come. But then I remembered that my entire life’s mission for two hundred years has been to watch over my brother. So here I am. From the looks of it, I didn’t get here a moment too soon.”

  “No, you didn’t,” I said. “Thank you, Krane. You’re turning out to be the most unlikely savior I’ve ever met.”

  “You’re welcome,” he grunted.

  He winced in pain as I fastened the belt, his eyes moving to the wound to assess it. “Shit,” he growled.

  “You’ll be all right. It’s not so deep…”

  “It’s not that,” he said. “It’s my dragon..he can’t fly. Not until this heals. I could feel it in his wing when I shifted. The bastard Marquis crippled me; I’m no good to anyone like this.”

  “Oh no,” I moaned, my heart sinking. I pulled my eyes to the clearing. In the distance through a gap in the wall of fire, I saw Elodie’s gold dragon hovering just above the ground, her eyes focused on some target beneath her.

  “What’s she doing?” I asked. “It looked like she’s cornered someone…”

  Krane stared into the distance, his eyes glowing gold as his brows met in a look of abject rage. “She has,” he said. “It’s Tristan.”

  I looked again only to realize he was right. It was Tristan’s beautiful wolf that she’d trapped out there. Somehow she’d caged them both in a circle of fire, so no one could get to them on foot. The Valkyries’ flying horses were largely disabled, and those who weren’t were busy fighting Nero, who was thrashing around madly at the other end of the clearing.

  The only way to get to Elodie now would be…

  I swung around to face Krane. “We have to help Tristan,” I spat out. “I need to get to him!”

  Krane nodded. “I know. You can’t, though,” he said, “and neither can I. There’s too much fire between us and him. If we ran across it right now, it would roast us to death before we’d made it ten feet.”

  “I could get to him if I flew,” I blurted out. “I could get to him if…if I had wings.”

  “I told you, Ariana, I can’t fly.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I said, even as Madame Lola’s words wound their way through my mind.

  Look to the man whose heart is ice. Melt it, Ariana, with your heart of flame.

  The man whose heart is ice had to be Krane. I had to make him see what it was that I wanted, by any means necessary.

  By now I was desperate. Elodie had landed. Her dragon’s neck was arched gracefully, its emerald eyes locked on Tristan’s wolf, whose belly was pressed to the ground. He looked like he was having trouble moving. “He’s hurt,” I moaned. “She’ll kill him if we don’t stop her.” I turned and pulled my eyes up to Krane’s. “You know you have to change me,” I said. “It’s our only option.”

  He shook his head violently. “No way. You’re nuts if you think…”

  “Krane,” I said, looking out to where his brother was crouched, wounded, weakened, near his end. “You’ve tried all your life to save Tristan. Don’t let him die now. Not like this…not when we’re so close to having a life together. Change me. Here, now. Let me go to him. I have the blood of a Valkyrie in these veins. You know that. You know I can take it. And if I can’t, at least you’ll know I tried.”

  He stared at me, his irises burning with golden fire. In that moment, I knew his dragon understood. The beast knew what I needed. He knew it was the right thing.

  “If I do this,” he said, “I can’t promise any good will come of it. I can definitely promise a lot of crazy shit will go through that mind of yours.”

  “If you don’t do it, my husband will die. I won’t be able to live with myself, knowing I could have saved him. Please, Krane. You know it’s the only way.”

  He struggled for a few seconds, then with a feral growl Krane pulled me close, yanked my collar back and sank his teeth deep into my shoulder. I screamed with the pain of it, with the searing agony of his dragon’s venom burning through my body like a potent, fast-working poison.

  When he let go a few seconds later I stumbled backwards, but by some miracle I didn’t fall. I felt weightless, lighter than air. For a moment the world went silent and white, as if I’d stepped into a void.

  My mind was empty, and the whole world was new.

  But then everything came at me at once. The sight of dancing flame. The smell of burning flesh. The distant sound of screaming. The trees around me, the thick smoke on the air…all of it had grown vivid beyond imagining. But I pushed it all away, focusing my mind on a singular purpose.

  Inside me an unseen power churned and grew, a creature of fire springing to life. I could feel it just as I felt my own mind, my body, my soul. I could feel its wants, its needs.

  I spun around and locked my eyes on the golden dragon who stood a hundred feet away, tormenting her victim by making him wait for his painful death.

  The only question now was how fast I could reach her…and after that, how quickly I could take her down.

  “Are you all right?” Krane asked. I twisted around to take one last look at him, only to see that he had an odd expression on his face.

  Almost like admiration.

  “Better than okay,” I said. “So much better that I can’t even tell you.”

  Chapter 29

  The entire clearing was on fire, and two battles were raging at once. The massive attack on Nero’s dragon by the remaining Valkyries and wolf shifters, and the silent war brewing between Tristan’s wolf and Elodie’s dragon.

  Without another word to Krane I raced towards the clearing, slamming my eyes shut and willing whatever creature had come to life inside me to show me what it was made of. I leapt towards the flames, pushing myself off just as my foot hit the outer edge of the woods.

  The next thing I knew I was in the air, massive red wings outstretched on either side of my body. I moved my head from side to side, stunned by the sensation of pure power that coursed through my veins as I soared.

  So, I thought, I’m a red dragon.

  I finally understood Tristan’s love of the color. I could only hope that he’d still love it after he saw what I’d become.

  At first I tried to steer my dragon, to maneuver her this way and that as I approached the place where Elodie’s beast was still perche
d on the ground near Tristan. But the creature fought me, resisting every thought, every attempt at control. After a few seconds, I had no choice but to set her free.

  Do what you need to, I told her. You understand better than I do what you’re capable of.

  The moment I let her go, my dragon soared straight into the sky, so high that I thought she was fleeing for her life. But then she lunged downwards like a torpedo. Suddenly we were all but on top of Elodie, whose neck twisted up just in time to see a set of jagged crimson talons coming at her scaled face. My dragon grabbed her by the neck, twisting her away from Tristan, her golden body slamming sideways through her wall of fire, into the trees at the edge of the woods.

  I wanted more than anything to shift. To go to Tristan, to make sure he was okay. But I couldn’t, not yet.

  I attacked Elodie again, my jaws clamping around her throat. I could feel her thick golden scales give way under the pressure from my fangs. With every passing second of violence, a surge of delicious energy filled me.

  For the first time in my life, I understood what it was to feel the rushing high of bloodlust. Others had described it to me. Tristan had told me how gruesome the sensation had been when he’d first been changed. A constant, unrelenting desire for the pain of others.

  But I pushed those thoughts away, telling myself that this was different. My lust was controlled, regulated by my capacity for rational thought. I didn’t want to murder at random. I only wanted to end the woman who’d tried to kill my husband, by tearing her into a million pieces, hearing her screams fill the air around me.

  As I clamped down still harder, she thrashed under me, trying to pull her body upright. Huffs of flame snorted out her nose, shooting into the air above us. But after a few seconds, those stopped and her body went limp under the pressure of my jaw.

  I finally released her, dropping her neck and head to the ground with a thud that shook the woods around us. Her sides were heaving, her eyes half-closed.

  I pulled my neck back and inhaled, preparing to unleash a sea of flame in her direction. I wanted her body to be a pyre. My desire to take down the leader of the Seven, to ensure that she would never again terrorize any living soul, was greater, almost, than any I’d ever felt. Every inch of me had turned into raw, seething hatred. I pictured her suffering, broken, weeping, pleading for her life.

  I wanted it. I wanted to see her writhe in endless pain.

  Terrified of the emotions that had begun to consume me, I pulled back and stared first at her, then at Tristan’s wolf, who was standing on the ground a few feet away. He was looking up at me, calm and quiet despite the wounds in his neck and shoulder.

  Trick had been right—Tristan had utter control over the beast inside him. He’d struggled for years to tame his wolf, to keep him from lashing out at his enemies.

  But me…I had become a monster.

  I spun back to the gold dragon, smoke huffing from my nostrils. I needed her to die. Needed her to suffer. Tristan would understand. He had to know my hatred, my anger. He had to know she deserved it.

  “Ariana,” a deep voice somewhere below me said, “Don’t do this.”

  Twisting back around, I saw then that Tristan had shifted. He had a hand clamped over his shoulder and his eyes were burning blue, the wolf inside him still very much alive.

  But I have to, I wanted to say. She’s trying to keep us apart. She tried to kill you last night. She was going to do it again. She’s our enemy.

  I looked back at Elodie, who was twisting on the ground, trying to pull herself together enough to get up. I could see the flesh between her thick scales; I knew where I could pierce her if I wanted to. I could feel the fire inside me—the fire that would take her life if I chose to use it.

  “If you kill her, you’re letting the dragon control you,” Tristan said. “Think of the woman I know. The woman I love so much. The woman who protects others. No matter how much she might hate someone, she wouldn’t kill them. If you do this, you lose yourself.”

  Krane kills. You kill. Others kill.

  The Marquis killed.

  But he was right. I wasn’t like them.

  If I let this awful desire take hold of me now, I’d never regain control over the dragon inside me. I might become someone cruel, someone vindictive, like the man who’d changed Tristan. Or like Elodie herself. My dragon would always know that she had the power, that she was stronger than me. Stronger than the woman I’d always tried to be.

  I shot Tristan one final look before lashing out at Elodie’s dragon, my jaws clamping down on one of her huge, delicate golden wings. I tore through her flesh even as she screamed in agony, and then I backed away.

  I was done.

  A few seconds later, the red-headed woman was lying on the ground, grasping her arm. Her emerald eyes were blazing with rage, and she stared up at me with a look of pure hatred.

  I closed my eyes and asked my human body to come back to me. A moment later I was on the ground, fully clothed, standing between Tristan and the leader of the Seven. Breathing deeply, I walked over to her and crouched down, my eyes fixed on hers. I could feel my irises burning, the dragon inside me fighting for release.

  Not right now, I said. I’m the master in this relationship.

  “You’re not in charge anymore, Elodie,” I said, looking over my shoulder to the place where the army of shifters and Valks had finally managed to subdue Nero. “You don’t run the show anymore. We do. Tristan and I.” I looked towards the man who’d walked over to stand next to me, his chest heaving, hands clenched into fists. “And Krane, too,” I added. “If you ever try any of your shit with us again, I will make you suffer for it. You terrorized us under the guise of strength, but you are weak. You’re ruled by the monster inside you, which means you’re nothing.”

  “As are you,” she snarled. “The creature who just destroyed my wing showed the whole world what a vindictive bitch you are.”

  I shook my head. “No, Elodie. That was an act of mercy. As long as I live, I’ll never be like you.” I nodded in Tristan’s direction. “If he decides he doesn’t want me anymore, he’s free to leave. But if he does leave, I never want him to suffer. I’d never take his life in a pitiful act of vengeance, like you would. I love him. You don’t know the fucking meaning of the word.”

  Without another word I rose to my feet and walked over to Tristan, who caught me in a tight embrace. The moment my face pressed into his neck, I burst into tears.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I know you must hate me for what I’ve done. I just couldn’t…”

  He pulled away and stared into my eyes, cupping a hand over my cheek. “Are you serious? I’ll never hate you. I’m so fucking proud of you. You controlled her, Ariana. You took hold of that dragon like nothing I’ve ever seen. Not to mention that you made me keep my word.”

  “Your word?”

  He kissed my lips. “I promised I wouldn’t die. Elodie was going to make me break that promise, and you knew it. As powerful as I am, my wolf wasn’t strong enough to take her on. But you were.”

  “I couldn’t take the thought of it,” I choked, tears streaming freely now. “I nearly lost you already. I couldn’t bear the thought of today ending without you. So I did the only thing I could. I asked Krane…”

  Tristan’s lips curved up in a smile that contained all the love in the world. “My brother did what I was too scared to do for you. I just…I never wanted you to suffer, lover. I never wanted you to feel that hideous sensation that comes with the change. I didn’t know what it might do to you. But I think it was selfishness that made me too afraid to change you myself. I love you so much that I didn’t want you to become something else. You were perfect. You still are.”

  “I understand your fear,” I told him. I’d felt it, that desire to take a life for no reason other than my own pleasure. For a moment I’d turned into the Marquis. I’d become a sadist, and it was only Tristan who’d brought me back to myself.

  The flames in the distan
ce had finally begun to die down, and Tristan looked over at the crowd that was gathering around us now. When I turned I saw Kara’s face staring at me from between to other Valkyries. I nodded solemnly to her, and she returned the gesture as if she understood. At some point we’d have to deal with what happened today. We’d have to talk about the casualties, the sadness of losing so many of our own.

  “What are you thinking, my fiery wife?” Tristan asked with a hand on my back.

  “I’m thinking you’re stuck with me for a long time now,” I told him with a withering smile.

  “That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard,” he replied. We looked over at his brother, who’d finally managed to make his way through the clearing and was currently lifting Elodie to her feet with his good arm. I could only imagine what he’d have to say to her before today was done.

  “Krane!” Tristan called out.

  His brother turned to look at him. “What?”

  “Thank you…for saving my life.”

  Epilogue

  Krane and Trick went hunting for Marcus the day after the battle. They found him in New Orleans, and brought him to us at the new house.

  When the door opened and he saw me, he cowered. At first I thought it was out of guilt, but I realized after a moment that it was the presence of my dragon, lurking somewhere beneath my surface, that frightened him. He could sense her power, her anger at what he’d done to me.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” I told him gently. “You betrayed us, but I’m not going to punish you for it. I know you weren’t yourself when you made that choice. I know the animal inside you was destroying your mind.”

  He bowed his head. I could see that his cheeks were wet with tears.

  “Marcus,” I said, looking sideways at Trick, “I have news for you.”

  He pulled his head up to look at me, but tore his eyes away quickly. “What is it?” he asked in a voice that was little more than a whisper.