“No!” Clara protested and grabbed his foot as he passed, smearing his pants with blood. He fell to one knee and turned to glare at her. “Don’t kill them! It’s my fault!”
“What do you mean?” he asked coldly.
Thunderous barking and growling interrupted their conversation as Tyson was the only wolf of the pack left standing. He struggled under a mountain of Parker’s wolves. Felix, and the others of Parker’s human-form men, surrounded him on the outskirt of the skirmish, their net guns raised. One net wrapped around his hind end. His fall caused the entire structure to tremble as if it would fall with him. Dust rose from the crevices that were created as a result. He snarled and fought, his face drawn in a fear inducing grimace. Felix raised his gun again and another silver net shot off. Just before the net fell over his head, his eyes locked on Clara. Of course, her attention was riveted on him. He growled again and did his best to work his body from beneath the net and Parker’s wolves until finally, another net was shot. His body went stiff and he lay down.
Still more wolves were captured beneath the awful nets, but the fight began to die down. Parker looked over the scene and laughed deeply in his throat. Absently, Clara realized she had yet to release her grip on the cuff on his pant leg.
“If I had known it would be this easy, I would have killed them long ago,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone.
“You can’t!” she gasped and tried to sit up. He wheeled on her, grabbing her arm and yanking her to a standing position. She doubled over in pain.
“What did you do?” he asked, taking a hold of her chin and making her look at him.
“I shouldn’t have…”
“What did you do?” Parker asked again, roaring in her face.
“I emailed them,” she confessed with some difficulty as pain blinded her. “I used Mark’s laptop and sent an email.”
“I knew he couldn’t be trusted!” Felix shouted. He was a ways off, still standing near Tyson as if sensing he was the most dangerous.
“Please, Parker,” Clara begged. “Let them go! It’s my fault!”
“I am not a heartless man,” he said. “But you have forced me to do what I would rather not. Now, because of your stupidity, they will not live to interfere again.”
The stench of blood was thick in the air. There must have been twenty or more nets that shone in the starlight as the werewolves beneath thrashed in pain.
“You will watch them all die. Which shall be first?” he asked her casually. “Your brother?”
Felix’s dark laughter drifted to them. She could not make out his face, but saw when he cast down his net gun and removed the automatic rifle from his back, taking aim at Callan’s head. Clara’s wound must have been more serious than she thought because a strange sensation crawled up her stomach and made her vision blur.
“Stop,” she whispered. Her voice growled slightly. Parker laughed in her ear.
“Not your brother? Perhaps someone you haven’t known quite as long?” He nodded to Felix and pointed to Mesha.
Rage pumped through Clara’s veins and the strange sensation intensified when Tyson’s net thrashed then fell still. Anger was not a new emotion to her, but the anger that spread through her then was something she had never experienced. Her body burned hot as if she’d just become infected for the first time. Parker touched her arm when she moved toward Felix.
“I said to stop,” she warned, frightening herself when she growled louder.
“You do have a point,” Parker said and smiled. “We should save them for last.” He nodded to Felix and pointed to a net that had scruffy fur pointing from it. “Kill the other packs first.”
The darkness made it hard to see, but she knew the balding fur to be that of Rodger’s. Felix was all too willing to oblige and went to stand over the dark lump. He pointed his rifle and dread dropped through her. “Felix, please!” she cried. A shot thundered over the roof and the wolf uttered his dying yelp. Several of the nets wriggled and whimpers swept eerily over them. Felix no longer needed Parker’s permission and immediately took aim at another. The rifle fired and another wolf yelped.
Next to her, Parker chuckled cruelly. She jerked her arm from him, disgusted by his touch. Somehow she knew what she had to do before she understood it was possible. Parker’s eyes filled with fear, but she was no longer concerned about his puny existence. A deeper sense of black washed over her when Felix fired again and another wolf cried out. She leaped and there was such power behind the jump that Felix never had a chance to fight back. The air ripped through her hair as her body changed. Thunder erupted in her ears, but there was none. It was painful when every bit of her muscles, sinew, and bones were ripped apart then stuck back together in a different shape, but it was as though lightning had struck everything happened so swiftly. She landed on him, all fours extended and great paws sinking into his skin just before her teeth closed around his throat.
Everything came in a rush—the vibrant colors, the sounds, the smells. She could sense the rest of Parker’s men reacting to the new threat and moving to kill whomever they could reach first. Callan’s emerald eyes flashed in her mind when she reached down to rip the silver blanket off him and sprang at another of Parker’s men, all of which she did before even a second passed. She ripped the silver blanket off Mesha the next second. Callan attacked behind, stopping Parker’s wolves from burying her outright. Shots began ringing as she attacked in a manner she never imagined she could. Her mind was suddenly one with her pack. She could hear their thoughts, feel their emotions without touching them. She sensed her brother’s pain when he took a bullet to the shoulder. Jack’s pain blossomed bright red behind her sight when he accidently ran over one of the silver nets and his feet burned. Their thoughts and emotions flooded into her until she thought she would be weakened, but her new form allowed for it and even gave her strength, letting her attack with more precision.
Tyson’s thoughts and emotions were unlike the others. Each of theirs flooded forth as if they could not be contained by their minds alone, but Tyson was reserved and allowed very little from his mind unless it was in a fit of utter and complete fury. His thoughts turned to Parker and the heat of his emotions began to bubble forth. Distorted images flashed through her mind when he leapt upon his prey, ripping his head from his body. So much for immortality, she thought.
Slowly, the surrounding action began to die as Parker’s men fell or fled. The pack paced about when the final contending rival went down with a cry. They stood still a moment, listening. When no one offered a challenge, they came to her, pressing their noses into her sides and face. Relief washed over her and the rage dissipated. She fell back, suddenly in her human form without the anger to sustain the wolf. She reached out and grasped the nearest wolf snout, which happened to be Mesha. Pain blossomed through her torso and she fell back again. Callan appeared by her side in his human form, but his eyes burned golden and he could not keep control. He touched the blood on her stomach and stumbled backward, instantly transforming to a wolf.
The others paced and sniffed. Tyson appeared over her, perhaps the only one able to hold his human form. Clara snatched his hand as her vision darkened and her head felt heavy. “Infect me,” she gasped. He growled and his eyes turned vibrant yellow.
“Never!”
“You have to, I will heal,” she begged in a whisper.
His body heaved when he growled and breathed deeply. Mesha’s snout came between them and she licked the wound, shooting a glare at Tyson. The infection took effect right away and the wound healed. Even in her infected form she was weakened from the repetitive loss of so much blood over a long period of time. Callan approached, once again in his human form.
“There is work to be done here,” Tyson said and glanced downward.
“We will deal with it,” Callan answered. “Take her away.”
“Clara,” Tyson said gently. “Do you think you can ride?”
“Yes,” she answered, eager to do just that.
The ground was slick with blood as he helped her up. He morphed and crouched down. His emotions were black and his mind in a dark place. He hid it all from her and kept his exterior thoughts calm. He ran and she clung to him, trembling at times. She said nothing for the first while, still trying to absorb all that happened.
“You were stunning you know,” Tyson thought, breaking the silence after a time.
“Stunning?” she asked.
“Your wolf form—not that your current form is anything less.”
“Now?” she asked in shock. “You think now is the time to tell me you think I’m stunning?”
Guilt ate at him and his ears fell. “You don’t want to hear it…right?”
She buried her face in his fur. “Of course I do. It’s just…why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Things were complicated before.”
“Mark showed me your journal.”
“He…my what?”
“I think it was your journal. He said you killed Angela.”
“Maybe we should save that talk for another time.” Anger welled in him and he growled.
“I want to know…why did you do it?”
“I thought you read it?”
“Well, not really. I didn’t want to so Mark read out loud,” she confessed.
“And he only read my confession?”
“I wouldn’t hear more.”
“It’s a shame you wouldn’t, because the entire story was there.”
“I want to hear it from you. There are a lot of things I should have heard from you.”
“I’m sorry, I wanted to tell you.”
“Tell me then,” she insisted.
“Not now, I need to focus or I won’t be able to keep control.”
She could sense his temper rising each time he thought of his brother and knew he wasn’t saying it to avoid telling her the truth. She fell still and enjoyed watching the trees and plant life zip by instead. Her body had changed since she’d last ridden, her reflexes were faster and she could see the passing world in more than blurs and shadow. Her hearing, she noticed, was sharper as well. She particularly enjoyed hearing his heart thudding away as he ran. She knew her senses were nothing compared to his, but it was an improvement from a mortal’s standing.
Presently, she could feel the infection wearing off and she began to feel sleepy. Her grip lessened on his fur when her fingers began to tingle. He slowed and came to a stop not long after. She practically fell from him and landed in the soft earth of the forest floor.
“Clara,” he whispered, his voice strangled by emotion. He reached to take her in his arms, but stopped and stood suddenly. The air whipped around them when a corpulence of flesh tackled him from nowhere. They skidded in the dirt a few feet before leaping to face one another.
“You want to keep her blood to yourself, eh?” Felix taunted with an evil grin. He circled Tyson, his face screwed in demonic pleasure. “She is rather…delicious, isn’t she?”
Tyson snarled, his voice resounding powerfully through the night.
“You have to share, old man,” Felix growled back.
“Tyson,” Clara whispered, just able to stand. “He can have what he wants.”
He glanced to her and shook his head. “No one can!” His anger distracted him from sensing anything but Felix. His body was like stone, ready to fight. Felix laughed, enraging Tyson further. Leaves and dirt swarmed when two wolves attacked from either side, completely catching him off guard. Tyson was thrown to the ground again, this time losing a chunk of flesh.
“NO!” Clara screamed. Her chest shook when blood stained his shirt. The wound healed as the newcomers circled him. One was brown and the other a sandy color. In an explosion of black, Tyson rose up and took the brown one by the throat. The other pulled him off, throwing him to the earth with a shudder. The sandy wolf’s white teeth flashed when they met air as Tyson sprang to one side, avoiding another attack only to encounter the sandy wolf. Their barks and snarls were ferociously hateful and so loud that nothing else could be heard but the rumbling of the forest as they fought.
She was desperately searching to locate the wolf in her, but it had since gone. Felix’s evil laugh was one she’d heard too often and she longed to cleanse her mind of it. He was suddenly at her side, blocking her view of the fight as Tyson emerged after being buried. He yanked her back when she tried to run, throwing her to the ground. All the while, she could not locate the rage that fueled her wolf form.
“My father was a dog,” Felix said as he placed a foot on her abdomen to keep her still. He reached up and unpinned the gold eagle head at his collar. “Not a literal dog, but filthy scum. This was his.” He held the pin out to her and it shone in the starlight. “I suppose it was the one good thing he gave me. I wear it to remind myself to be more than my father was…more than a dog. Now I find myself in his debt, because if he had not given me this, I would have nothing to use to penetrate your skin.”
“You can have it!” she said and held her hand out to him. “Make them stop!”
“I will have what I want anyway,” he pointed out with a shrug. Behind him, the forest shook. They had moved away and she could only see them in shadow. Felix removed his foot and jerked her upright, jamming the pointed needle into the heel of her palm. He squeezed her flesh around the puncture and forced a large droplet to form. Before he put her blood to his lips, he pulled a gun from his belt. “Don’t try anything cute,” he growled. “Or I will kill Jo and he will not have a chance at life.”
His lips sealed over the wound and she shuddered again, her stomach rolling. He broke the seal and breathed deeply, then waited. The grip he sustained weakened. Clara tried to yank her hand back, but he wouldn’t let go. He clicked his tongue and shook his head, holding the gun tauntingly. He put her blood to his lips a second time and swallowed it down. When she pulled against his grip, she was able to break free.
“Where are you going?” he asked. She crawled backward and stumbled to her feet. Felix groaned and bent at the waist, overcome by the transformation. She ran in the direction Tyson and the other werewolves had gone, but the woods were still. Hoping to hear them, she stopped short. She only had moments before Felix evolved and she wanted to get ahead of him. A sharp bark sounded through the night and she ran toward the noise. The forest was dark and she couldn’t see where her feet landed. She listened intently and slowed when she did not come across them. Strong arms came around her, pinning her arms to her side. She screamed in shock and kicked back. “Looking for someone?” Felix asked in her ear. “It must be hard for you to see, shall we find him together?”
“No!” she protested, but he lifted her over his shoulder and began tramping through the undergrowth. Soon she gave up trying to break free from his iron grip. He stopped a moment later and let her fall to the ground. She sprang back up to find the brown and sandy wolves had Tyson pinned. His body moved like shadow as he struggled and she only knew he was there because of the brilliant blue glimmer that shone from beneath them.
“Don’t kill him,” Felix said as they tore a chunk out of Tyson’s shoulder. “I want to test my new abilities on Jo.” He pointed to Clara. “She’s all yours.”
The wolves released Tyson and slipped into their human bodies, one male, one female. Clara remembered seeing them going about doing Parker’s bidding. Their blue uniforms were spattered with blood. The sandy wolf had been the woman. She was on the short side for a werewolf. Her hair was the same sandy shade as her fur. They strode away from Tyson, intent on their chance to drink the cure. Tyson roared and attacked without warning. The sandy wolf was destroyed as Felix rose in challenge. Tyson knocked him back and made for the brown wolf who had tried once more to go to Clara. He landed on him and tore a bit of his shoulder and neck out again and again until he fell, never to rise again.
“It’s only you and me, old man,” Felix said. “Now that I’m used to my body, you will not catch me by surprise again.”
“I won’t
have to,” Tyson said, once again in his human form.
Felix growled when Tyson backed away, going to Clara’s side.
“Come and face me!” he snarled.
Tyson growled and seeing him do such a thing in his human shape was alarming. He shook his head and pointed behind his challenger. “I think they want you more than I do.”
Out of the gloom came four figures—Lobo, Lyca, Dingo and Griseous. They emerged in their human forms, but when they saw the man who killed their pack leader, their eyes glowed yellow. They morphed all at once, their bodies shredding and piecing back together in seconds. They fanned out and surrounded Felix. Tyson took Clara’s hand, drawing her attention away.
“Their wolf instincts have taken hold. We don’t want to be around when they finish with him.”
“Alright,” she whispered.
He picked her up and bolted from the fight. Felix’s torment screamed after them not long after. When they had gone a safe distance, Tyson found a small brook and put her down on the bank. He transformed and drank the water, his tongue working to expel the taste of blood in his mouth. She went to put a hand on his shoulder, standing ankle-deep in the stream.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“They tasted awful.” The reply came in desperation and he snapped bits of grass from the bank to chew in order to chase the flavor out.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wanted to help. I was trying to morph.”
“Clara—”
His words were lost when she withdrew her fingers from him. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
“Hey,” he said gently, no longer a wolf. The water splashed when he left the stream and his hands came on her jaw and neck, turning her to look him in the eye. “Everything’s alright. You’re infected. You can’t take on a wolf form when you’re infected.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, still in shock.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said tenderly, drawing her close. He held her for a few minutes before gathering her carefully in his arms. Her head came to rest against his shoulder. Under all the blood and filth, she could smell the familiar scent of pine, earth and fresh plants.
Bright Moon Page 25