Page 42 of Bizarre Bonds
The fox shifter cringes with a trickle of curdled-milk shame. “Not really needed, no harm done,” he says in his singsong voice as if to cover up the fumble.
Raze and the woman tumble over each other on the asphalt. In the first few seconds, I think the basilisk shifter might pin her down and end the fight just like that.
Then her tail whips out and batters his head with its jutting scales. A cry quavers up my throat.
Raze loses his grip. He scrambles to catch the woman’s limbs, but she’s already wrenched both of her legs up. She shoves him away with a kick hard enough to send him soaring into the crushed truck.
And basilisks aren’t meant to fly.
A louder yelp bursts from my lips. Pain jolts from Raze into me, sending my panic spiraling sharper.
The woman cackles hoarsely and bounds down the street. She rams her fist into every window she passes, shattering them so glass rains down on the street in her wake. It crunches under her feet like the sharpest of snow.
For the first few seconds, my legs stay locked in place. Then Raze groans as he pushes himself off the truck, and my concern for him overwhelms my terror.
I sprint down the road to join him, the other men following behind me. The being who attacked him is just hurtling around a bend in the road up ahead. Another metallic screech follows moments later.
I tune out her concerto of destruction as well as I can and grasp Raze’s arm. “Are you okay? How much did she hurt you?”
Before I’ve even finished speaking, I spot the smoky essence wafting from a few gouges in his back.
Raze shakes himself, emanating a mix of consternation and pain. “It’s not that bad. We can’t let her keep going. She’s bashing up the whole city.”
She is, out in the open for anyone to see. She’s that confident no one will stop her.
I have no idea what the mortals watching from their high windows over the road must think is going on. Are they really going to convince themselves that a regular human put on a fake crocodile tail to rampage through their streets?
As Raze spins toward the new series of smashing sounds, Riva and Zian dash into view.
Riva is already talking. “The rift sucked all those weird shadows back in, so that’s okay for?—”
She halts to stare at the broken cars and shattered windows. As she catches her breath, she sets her hands on her hips. “What the hell happened here? It looks like a herd of pissed-off elephants stampeded through.”
I point toward the road ahead. “There’s a higher shadowkind who must have come through the rift—she’s warping like the lesser creatures we’ve seen. And she doesn’t seem to care about much except wrecking everything she can. She… she’s part crocodile, not part elephant.”
“Not much better.” The shadowblood woman lets out a huff and glances at Zian. “Come on. We might need you in wolfman form for this.”
The big man grimaces, but then he rubs his hands together.
With a tensing of his form, his muscular body expands even bigger. More dark hair sprouts from his pinkish-brown skin—down his neck and across his shoulders under the collar of his stretching T-shirt. His nose and jaw protrude into a canine muzzle.
I knew the shadowbloods had their own supernatural abilities, but I haven’t seen them reveal anything so visibly inhuman before. Maybe a wolf-man will be enough to tackle a crocodile-woman.
A little relief trickles through me at the sight of them marching toward her, but it doesn’t wash away all my fear.
I motion to my marked men. “We should go with them, see if there’s any way we can help.”
Even if the possibility of pitching in feels increasingly absurd, at least for me.
We all set off, Raze pushing into the lead. When I look at him, I can’t help flashing back to the moment the being flung him into the truck.
My heart skips a beat, and Raze’s muscles twitch. The determination I sensed from him dwindles with a tang of his own nerves. “Maybe we’ll only get in the way. We shouldn’t press too close while the shadowbloods are dealing with her.”
Why is he saying that now? A moment ago, he seemed totally prepared to go at the hostile shadowkind alongside Riva and Zian.
Until I turned chicken about it.
My stomach sinks more than it already had, which means it’s about to hit my heels.
