Page 115 of Son of a Witch

Bottles storing fairies and water sprites, cut off their air supply, and dried them out. They needed water and the earth to keep them alive, but none was provided in their sterile accommodations.

Cages with no room for the creatures to move cleaved my heart down the center. Baby dragons with chained collars coughing out puffs of smoke unable to produce fire. Griffins growled from their cages, pawing through the steel, begging us for release. Mothman toddlers sobbing for the mother’s breast they were ripped from.

Fury blazed up my spine. They didn’t belong in cages. They weren’t commodities to be sold and traded.

Let me out,my beast roared.

No, stay put,I warned it.Don’t give our position away.

Talon grabbed my arm at the sound of staff bustling into the room. He dragged me behind a long French chaise lounge. I peeked around it at the two creeps dressed in suits, pretending to be classy when they were louts.

“This little specimen will go for a pretty price.” The man lifted the bottle with the frightened green fairy cowering inside. “This little bitch will grant its master’s wishes.” He tapped the glass and the fairy shrunk into a ball.

His companion huffed. “Not as much as a djinn will rake in.” He dragged a genie lamp across the table, the sound scraping down my spine.

I glanced Blaze’s way and he ground his teeth.

The second slimebag lifted the dull brass lamp tarnished under the dim light. “Your little fairy can only make flowers grow or a tree yield more fruit.”

The first man clunked the bottle on the table and the poor fairy went sprawling into the opposite glass wall. “Money’s money to me.” The bastard lit up a cigarette, blowing teams of smoke into the air, clouding the small space.

The other man rubbed the genie lamp as if activating it. “A djinn will make me as rich and fat as a sultan.”

They both laughed, a horrid, callous sound with no regard for the existence of another being. Disrespect for the life and prosperity of another creature, for Earth, the spirits, went against every value my mother raised me with. Heat flashed in my abdomen as my wolf snapped my transition into action. The taste of flesh and blood invaded my senses.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. No. Stop.

I fought to suppress him and shove him down. Spite laced through me, ready to tear these motherfuckers to pieces. I lost control of my beast, and he shook my skin off, tearing my clothes in the process. Huge, clawed feet elongated from smaller human ones. My muzzle sprouted from my nose and mouth. Saliva dripped from my fangs at my beast’s lust for blood.

“Fuck me!” Gable cursed, stumbling backward, giving me space to transform.

“What the fuck’s that?” the first man snapped.

Talon grabbed my arms and hissed, “Guys we have a problem.”

Five sets of wary eyes widened as the last of my wolf snapped into place and I climbed to full height at eight feet, alerting the men to our position.

“Who the fuck let him out?” Second barked, going for a gun.

I let out a low, threatening growl as I stomped forward, kicking the chaise lounge across the floor. It skittered along the marble and crashed into the first man, and he knocked his head on the wooden table, rocking the fairy and genie lamp.

Second pulled out his weapon but wasn’t fast enough. My claws raked against his throat and chest before he got off a round.

The throttled screams of both men encouraged more snakes to pour into the room. I dealt with another while the rest of my new crew picked off the others.

Harsh scents teased my nose. Copper and dirt. I dragged my attention to the flash of light in the adjacent room. Gantii spilled into the butler’s pantry. Tall, lanky vampires, strong despite their deceiving frames. The sight of my mortal enemy kicked my wolf into top gear.

“Where the fuck did they come from, and why didn’t the wolf smell them?” Gable battered them with dark magick, and they shrieked in pain at the light with the power of the sun.

I slashed at the closest to me and dragged a deep gash through his chest. Another slammed into me from the side and threw me to the dusty floor, knocking over expensive furniture and breaking it. I wrangled with him, biting into his neck at the same time his fangs sunk into my shoulder. Roaring harder, I split him open down his back, exposing his spine, ripping it out.

“There are too many!” Talon shouted, he and Blaze flanking Luna to protect her.

“Abort mission,” Blaze ordered.

No. I wasn’t leaving the captured gantii behind this time. It haunted me day and night, and I couldn’t live with myself.

Climbing back to my feet, I took out more snakes and vampires, my beast in such a frenzy it descended into a brutal frenzy that would leave no vampire or snake alive.

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