Page 20 of Secret Origins
“Not you,” I snapped, stomping towards the bull that was still on his knees. “Don’t you ever”—Jumping in the air, I spun around, kicking out and catching him in the head so hard his neck snapped back and he toppled over—“touch my hound again, you fucker!”
Moving faster than I expected, the minotaur was on his feet, his meaty hand wrapped around my neck. Lifting me off the ground like a doll, he chuckled gleefully, his fingers tightening until dark spots started dancing at the corners of my eyes. I clawed at his wrist with one hand, not willing to release my sword. I just needed to be a little closer to nail him with my weapon before I passed out. To my horror, the minotaur reached with his other hand and started yanking on the chain connecting me to the hound. Panic worse than his hand around my throat shriveled my lungs.
“You will never live to take your place,oighre air a ‘chathair rìoghail,” the creature hissed, his putrid breath melting the eyebrows off my face. I gagged, my vision tunneling. I could hear Fenrir shouting something in the background, but I couldn’t understand what. I just hoped he kept his word and protected the human. “Look at you,gun chuideachadh,” the minotaur spat in disgust.
“What?”
Gasping like a fish out of water, I was weakly kicking my legs hoping he would relax for a second before I couldn’t save myself. He watched me warily, so with great reluctance I uncurled my fingers and dropped the sword. It hit the ground below me with a thud, and the idiot grinned.
“I said helpless.” He was gloating as he brought me closer to his face. The cow must’ve eaten shit for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I was ready to vomit all over him. “She was right when she said you were unfit to rule. A human has more power than you.”
“Who is she?” Rasping, I hung limp from his hand. Just an inch closer, that was all I needed.
“Your sister, of course.” Everything in my head screeched to a halt, leaving white noise buzzing between my ears. “Oh, I see you didn’t know.” The shit eater chortled. “Dannu herself raised her. She is the one befitting the crown.”
“What … what crown?” My arms and legs were numbing, and the lack of oxygen was muddling my brain. The cow was talking shit out of his ass, because if he was looking for a royal of the Seelie or the Unseelie, he needed to go after Fenrir or those like him, not me.
“The Courtless throne will rise again. All will kneel before it.”
He was so passionate about it, his eyes filled with a manic glint as he shook me like a rag doll. That brought me as close as I needed to be. Wrapping both hands around his wrist, I swung my lower body like a pendulum, flipping it up and twisting my legs around his arm. With a surprised shout, he stumbled backwards, but I was already kicking back and piercing his shoulder with the thin heel of my boot. He roared, his fingers loosening around my throat. Wrenching his digits back until I heard them crunch, I lifted myself just as he started lowering his arm. Reaching over my head, I grabbed hold of his horns and flipped over to straddle his shoulders. With quick work, I wrapped the chain around his neck and dropped behind him, tugging on the metal with everything in me. Like a cut-down tree he went down, clouds of smoke wafting up when he hit the hard, packed dirt.
Still gripping the metal tight, I cocked my hand back and bent over him, punching him with all my strength in the chest. Fenrir said to kill him I had to rip his heart out while his head was still attached. That was exactly what I was planning to do.
The crunching of bone was like music to my ears, at least until the pain made me see stars. I was biting the inside of my mouth so I didn’t scream like a little girl when my whole fist shuttered. The minotaur released a pained grunt because I punched the air out of his lungs, but his heart was still very much operational under his ribs.
“Myst?” Fenrir huffed as he came up beside me, the General following right behind him. My eyes flicked towards my nose so I was seeing four of them. I giggled like an idiot.
“You lied!” I coughed, sputtered, then started biting my tongue just to redirect the pain.
“I beg your pardon?” Even with his hair sticking out all over the place and dirt covering him from head to toe, Fenrir managed to look down his nose at me.
“Rip his heart out you said,” I whisper-screamed at him, grinding my teeth.
“That’s the only way to kill him.” Fenrir looked offended while I wrestled with the chain one-handed to keep the minotaur down. The General’s eyes were as wide as saucers, as if he was watching an exciting tennis match.
“Have you done it?”
“Well, no.” A line formed that puckered his eyebrows, and I had to mesh my lips together not to scream. “I’ve never had a reason to wish to kill him … until now.”
My hand was already mending so the broken bones snapping back in place was worse than the original shattering. Acid burned the back of my throat as I swallowed the rising bile. Keeping my mouth shut so I didn’t hurl, I jerked my chin towards the sword to show the General I was in need of his assistance. It took him a moment, but he eventually snatched it and handed it to me hilt first.
“Take hold of the chain Fenrir, don’t stand there like a lump.”
“I was waiting for you to ask or you’d bite my head off,” he muttered angrily under his breath, and he almost lifted the barely-conscious minotaur off the ground with the strength of his tug.
Going for the sword with my good hand, I nearly toppled over the cow when the chain cut my reach short. Turning a death glare on Fenrir, I lengthened the chain at my side slowly while daring him to say a word. His right eyebrow crawled up his forehead as he did the same to me. Without breaking our staring match, I grabbed the sword and stabbed the minotaur through his chest so hard the tip of my weapon imbedded in the packed dirt deep enough to pin him like a bug for a science project. And just because Fenrir pissed me off, I twisted the sword for a good twenty seconds, keeping eye contact the whole time.
“We dispatched the others.” The General cleared his throat.
“At least you are good at something apart from spreading false information,” I told Fenrir before walking away to check on the hound.
Dropping on my knees, I ran my hands over his body, noticing the bones that were healing under his hot-to-the-touch fur. The horse hairs rasped on my palms and he whimpered weakly. He was alive and that was all that mattered to me. As soon as I pulled him back in the bracelet, he would be as good as new.
“The human killed one of the ghouls. I killed the rest.” Fenrir loomed over me, his shadow hiding the lights from my car. I might need a new battery for the SUV since it had been running all this time.
“How?” Not that I wasn’t happy that the General could look after himself, but I would find it trying to kill a ghoul without my strength or durability.
“It would appear that your human has a berserker gene in his veins.” My ass dropped on the ground and I craned my neck to gape at them. Shit just couldn’t get much worse for me right now.
