Page 79 of Faerie Trials

The down side? There just might not be any Tavi left when I was done.

A small price to pay if it meant taking this monster down at last. I let my inner nature take over completely. For Coral, for Bronwen, for all the women he’d hurt.

When I looked down, I no longer saw the usual wolf paws of my normal shifter form. I saw a nightmarish conglomeration of fairy and wolf together. Because it had finally dawned on me that I wasn’t a garden-variety halfling, half human and half wolf. Rather I was half wolf and half Fae. With innate powers of both. It just took an extraordinary event to make me aware at last that I was not tapping, in fact had never tapped, my full potential of each at the same time.

A lifetime of hiding mytruenature no longer mattered. Even if I risked being exposed for what I really was—assuming I survived this encounter—I no longer had a choice.

I spotted the elemental dagger Coral had created from the mineral shards we’d collected in this Trial. Snarling, keeping eye contact with my opponent, I circled around until I could reach down to grab the dagger. It looked like a twig now compared to the size of my paw.

I attacked again and again. Ramming into him with my now-powerful body, slashing with claws and fangs, stabbing with the dagger anywhere I could reach. I grabbed the fur near his left ear and slammed him down into the ground with all my might, forcing his muzzle into the dirt, hoping to stun him long enough so I could get a few more slashes in with the dagger.

My fangs tore into the tendons at the back of his neck and I tasted his blood. The shifter let out a scream. Crimson pooled around him as I stepped back, panting, waiting to see what he would do next. He remained on the ground, barely moving, in obvious pain.

I should finish him now, I thought. Sinking the dagger into his chest should do the trick.

I wasn’t entirely surprised to see the fur on his arms begin to shrink, to withdraw back into his skin. His snout went next, shifting back into human form. Black fur turned to white hair.

My stomach dropped and roiled in a way that had nothing to do with the blood and gore. Fresh adrenaline shot through me, and I barely acknowledged it as my own body returned to normal form. I was in shock at the sight I was seeing before me.

“No.” The word sounded more like a moan to my ears.No, it can’t be.

Within seconds the half-shifter had returned to human, incapacitated in his agony. I knew this person. I knew him well.

Onyx.

His hands moved to his head, testing the back of his neck where I’d so viciously bitten him. Blood continued to gush from the wound and it looked even worse now. And suddenly a rush of regret filled me as I hoped I hadn’t dealt him a fatal blow.

“T…Tavi?”

Oddly, I didn’t hesitate. I knelt beside him, my friend.

A killer. Amurderer.

“I’m here, Onyx.” My voice shook and the rest of me wasn’t far from complete breakdown.

Onyx tried to move but his body didn’t want to cooperate. He stared at his hands and the blood staining them. A horrible sound erupted from his mouth. “What’s happening? Where am I?”

How could he not know? I didn’t know what to tell him, or what kind of an answer he expected.

“Shh, don’t try to talk,” I said gently. I took his hands and found them trembling. “Everything is going to be fine.”

His eyes met mine, wide and terrified, his pupils pure black. “I don’t understand. Where am I? I can’t remember. Oh God! This is the fifth or sixth time this has happened to me. Am I going crazy? I’m going crazy, aren’t I?”

And I wanted to cry.

His words clamped around me and made it hard to breathe, hard to do anything around the press of panic crushing my chest.

“Please, Tavi. Tell me what’s happening. Why can’t I move my head? My neck…”

I shuddered, pressing closer to him, listening to his hoarse groans as he tried to breathe through the pain.

“I’m really sorry,” I whispered. Calling my magic, I focused it on Onyx. I closed my eyes and said, “I need to bind you. Something—or someone—is controlling you with magic.” I knew it in my gut. “I need to make sure you won’t put up a fight for this next part.”

Onyx said nothing as the spell reached out, encompassing his body, his arms and legs and spine, and at the same time keeping his own magic contained. The same kind of spell the king had used on me, like his version of house arrest. If Onyx tried any kind of spell, I would know, and it would return to him times three.

When Onyx looked up at me, I didn’t see the beast who’d murdered all those Fae. I saw my friend, looking at me with terror in his dark eyes, covered in blood.

“It hurts,” he moaned.

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