Page 34 of Kings
“Then enlighten me,” Axel said, folding his arms. He didn’t like the idea of Bishop having some hidden knowledge he didn’t, but he was in Felidae, so he probably did. All Axel knew was that the first time he’d heard that word, it was being whispered between his mother and father as they conversed downstairs in the middle of the night.
Axel had been only five then, awoken by the sound of a car door shutting before the driver pulled out of their driveway. It was a rainy night and he remembered the sludgy crawl of the tires against the wet gravel.
His parents’ words, too.
“Do you think it was a feral?” his mother had asked hoarsely.
“What else could wipe out an entire neighborhood of humans?” his father had muttered before picking up the phone to dial a number. “I’m calling Felidae. They’ll send someone out to take care of it.”
When Axel had asked his mother what they were talking about the following morning, she’d told him a feral was a monster, and if he ever said that word again, she’d wash his mouth out with soap.
The moment he’d heard the word in the context of Ella, the world ceased to make sense. He knew Ella better than anyone, and she was no monster. A stubborn—at times infuriating—pain in his ass who could push him from zero to sixty in two seconds, but she didn’t have a malicious bone in her body.
Either Sterling and Bishop were wrong, or his parents were. All he knew was that regardless of what her blood results said, she was Ella, and he didn’t give a shit about anything else.
“You don’t know what they’re like. What they’re capable of,” said Bishop.
Axel snorted. “I know Ella. Apparently, you don’t if you seriously think she’s some kind of monster.”
“I don’t, but that thing inside of her is,” he said firmly.
Rage poured through Axel’s veins like liquid fire. Bishop could piss him off by breathing, but hearing him talk about her baby—hisbaby—was enough to drive him insane.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” he seethed, partially shifting so his claws could lengthen.
“It’s the truth,” Bishop said, his tone both sober and edged with fear, the only thing that kept Axel from tearing into him. “If this pregnancy continues, it will kill her.”
Axel was still straining to hold his tiger back, but the other tom’s words had him on edge. He didn’t want to believe it. No, herefusedto, but if there was even a grain of truth to what Bishop was saying…
“Five minutes,” he said, his lips curled back into a snarl. “You have five minutes to explain what the hell you’re talking about, and maybe I won’t kill you.”
Chapter 20
Ella
Ella kept running until she found herself in the hall of the classroom building, wondering how she’d even gotten there. Her heart was pounding and she had a hard time seeing the path straight in front of her.
She didn’t know what was happening. Time kept glitching, as if the shock of having her secret revealed to everyone had broken something and she couldn’t get it back together.
She didn’t register the fact that she had gone outside until she felt the night air on her face. She hadn’t felt the urge to shift into her other form this strongly in ages. Years of conditioning herself to resist the urge to avoid punishment seemed to disappear in an instant, but the beast clawing at the interior of her mind wasn’t the familiar one she’d always retreated into.
Something was wrong. There was something different about this time, something inside her that she wanted to escape and couldn’t. The fear that ran through her veins was raw and unnatural, like nothing she had ever experienced.
At first, her horror over what Bishop and Sterling would think eclipsed all else, but those thoughts were now far from her mind. Her thoughts were becoming less and less human, less cohesive, and as she wandered toward the woods, it felt as if her body had a mind of its own.
She tried to unzip her gown and ripped it instead. The silk slipped down her heated skin and she stepped out of it, leaving it in the dewy grass. It felt like she was on fire, but her movements were stilted, as if her body was turning to stone.
She ran into the arms of the forest with the desperate abandon of a child running to her parent, but the hanging branches cast sinister silhouettes against the silver moon that were far from comforting.
Ella could feel the electricity of danger in the air, but she couldn’t stop herself from moving forward. It was instinct, and as she slipped into the embrace of the darkness, she was overcome by the same sensation that had overtaken her when she’d sank below the water in the ritual chamber.
The shadows filled her lungs just like the water had then and she collapsed, knowing there was no one coming to save her now.
But she wasn’t alone. The beast had crawled from the furthest corners of her mind and it was breaking through. Its energy was so all encompassing that it left no room for her consciousness.
As it faded, the animal took over.
* * *
