Page 75 of Knot What She Seems
A yell rips through my sense of self-preservation, making me turn from the stairwell and sending me barreling into the smoke…because I know that voice.
Sam’s hurt.
Tossing an arm up over my nose and mouth, I squint through the haze, trying not to make too much noise in my combat boots as I creep forward. I pass someone on the ground who’s not moving and debate stopping to check for a pulse.
But I hear Sam’s cough somewhere nearby, and I know just from the tone it’s him. He’s farther in. I’ll get him first and then come back to check…
“Please! Fuck, I can—” Spluttering noises cut off Sam’s words, and it’s as though I can feel him being choked. My own throat tightens in response, remembering how often I used to beg to no avail.
A burst of something—adrenaline, rage, divine intervention—catapults through my veins, and suddenly I’m flying forward into a sitting room at the end of the hallway.
Inside, one of the chairs facing a massive fireplace is overturned. Only the flicker of the fire itself lets me see two figures near the tall windows. A tall, stacked silhouette of an alpha has a hand around Sam’s neck. My roommate is up on his tiptoes, feebly kicking as he scratches at the hands choking him.
Pure, blinding rage strikes me like lightning.
Suddenly, every ache in my body is gone, replaced by raw, feral anger. Launching myself across the room, I jump on the alpha’s back and slam my bottle into his head. Iced tea splashes everywhere as the huge man bellows in fury, dropping Sam to the ground and reaching back over his shoulder for me.
Just from the red bands on the arm of this fucker’s uniform, I know he’s a Noth.
That makes something cruel and dark, something pitch black and boiling like tar, seethe deep inside of me.
How fucking dare they?
I reach around with my left hand and shove my fingers into this asshole’s eye socket, relishing his howl of pain.
Meanwhile, Sam scrambles backward across the ground, clutching at his neck.
Another explosion goes off somewhere, and the walls shake around us before the smoke gets sucked from the room, drawn toward whatever new hole has been blown in the building.
The bastard I’m riding stumbles sideways and then backward, yanking at my arm but unable to get a good grip because my suit is sliding all around my sweat-slicked body. He bucks like a bronco, spinning and moving until—BAM.
I slam backward into a stone wall. Oxygen whooshes out of my compressed lungs, and my ribs threaten to crack as pain slashes up my torso.
On reflex, I jerk the bottle in my hand so that it smashes into the wall too just as the fucker slams me back into the stone again with a grunt, this time throwing his weight into the motion.
Agony.
Pure. Fucking. Agony.
Red speckles line the edges of my vision, and I’m not certain I’m consciously moving any more. My legs feel limp, but my arm swings backward again, almost like it’s on autopilot. Like that one limb alone is fighting for my survival.
The bottle smashes into the stone behind me, cracking, tiny chips falling like ice. Leaving a brutal set of glass teeth on the tip.
Inhaling through the foggy nebula of my thoughts, the disjointed swirling, I swing my arm forward. And then, almost as if I’m watching someone else do it, I drag the bottle across the Noth’s neck.
His hands fly up, which makes me push deeper. Harder.
Red bursts through the air, a blast like canned hair dye. Unreal. Fake like Halloween.
Nothing feels real.
Not the ache in my back as I slide from the Noth’s back and he stumbles forward, trying vainly to staunch a wound that can’t be staunched. Not the blasts I can hear in the distance. Not the way that Sam is blinking up at me in terrified wonder.
The beta lurches toward me, circling far around the dying Noth, who’s now laid out on the ground, gurgling like a stream.
“Ted.”
He reaches me and shakes my shoulders, but he can’t shake off the stunned shock encasing me. Not until he says, “What the fuck happened to your hair?”
