by DJ Jennings
Oh, God.
They were going to rape her on DarkNight, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Hands. Hands began to touch her, on her breasts, her belly, and Harley prowled to her face, the inches closing in.
“Stop! No! Don’t do this! Jack! Help!” she finally said, but her voice was softer than the wind.
“This one likes to play hard to get,” said the guy she bit, his hand on her navel, moving down. “We can have some fun with her.”
The man’s hand moved down.
Then up.
Way up, so high he flew back, his mouth open, his neck snapping against the thick tree behind him, his face a mask of surprise.
Crack.
The sound of bone against wood made Mara’s vision double.
“Fuck!” someone screamed, branches shuffling, leaves whistling, and the distinct roar of a bear made Mara’s head ache, her ears go to copper bells, her mouth filled with metallic saliva and the taste of something ancient.
“She’s ours,” Harley yelled.
She looked up to see a bear slashing Harley, who shifted back to wolf form, fangs bared, teeth ready to bite.
And he was staring at her.
Jack stood on his hind legs, pulled all the way up to his glorious height, his head turned up, and he let out a roar that said Harley was sadly mistaken.
In later days, Mara would replay the scene over and over to remember who lunged first, but she could never figure it all out. A flurry of bear and wolf lunged toward her, jaws snapping, saliva and slime covering her face, the brush of tooth and bone scraping her skin. Thick, coarse, gamey fur gave her a brief moment of warmth before she smelled blood, Harley’s screams turning to gurgles before he fled into the bush, all the wolves gone, and the night went dark.
Just... dark.
DarkNight.
“Fuck fuck fuck don’t leave me, Mara,” Jack moaned, his shift to human form so abrupt he was nauseated, hands shaking, legs burning, words hard to form. He was going to become useless if he didn’t get a grip. Mara lay beneath him, naked and bleeding, her face covered with scratches. On her side, she panted hard, and she was cold.
Cold with shock.
Had those bastards defiled her? Gently, so gently, he began to turn her and she woke up, her skin flushed with a sudden sweat as she screamed.
His fingers felt her neck for a pulse, and then his stomach sank into his balls.
Oh, God.
He knew what was wrong.
“Your shoulder’s dislocated,” he said in a clinical voice, void of emotion. “You’re in shock, and if we don’t get it back in the socket, you’ll just get worse.” A thousand medial terms poured through his med student robot mind, the array of contingencies and complications pouring through him like a computer file.
And then there was his heart, which kept screaming “FUCK!” over and over, like a warrior’s drum.
“Jack?” she whispered. “You’re here?”
“I’m here, babe. I’m here all right. But babe, I have to do something about this shoulder, and it’s going to hurt.”
“No,” she gasped. “It already hurts.”
“I know, sweetie. I know. But once I pop it back in place, so much of the pain will be gone.”
“My wing. They broke my wing.”
“Not quite. Your shoulder’s dislocated. Wait—you were in owl form when they did this?”
“The wolf. One of the wolves jumped on the tree I was perched in. Pulled me down. Broke my wing.”
“Those fuckers. I hope I killed that fucking Harley.”
She faded, passed out again.
Clinical physician Jack seized the opportunity, rationalizing that the pain would be less if he could quickly pop the joint back in place while she was unconscious. Remembering the sequence, he got her arm and shoulder stabilized, braced himself for the scream, and—
“AAAAIIIIEEEEE!” she shrieked, the sound wrenching, Jack marshaling all his strength to pin her in place with his legs while using his upper body to position and pull, then push, the joint sliding with effort into place, the correction complete.
She writhed beneath him, their naked bodies filthy and cold, her horrified eyes meeting his.
“You hurt me,” she said before the whites of her eyes appeared and she fainted, out cold, limp and lifeless beneath him, naked in the woods on DarkNight.
With Mara’s life in his hands.
Chapter 26