Page 80 of Pack Ruin
A man stood there, waiting. Where the fuck had he come from? My mouth went dry as I felt his gaze rake me—an odd, clinical look, like he wanted to take me apart, piece by piece, tendon by tendon, and see what made me tick. He wore all black, and was medium build with brown hair. In one hand, he held a small silver blade. I could smell it from here.
“You,” he called, lifting a hand. The wolves formed a circle around me, ten of them altogether.
At first, anyway. Before I could take a breath to answer, ten more shifters, dressed in black—Enforcers, judging by their size and demeanor—had formed a circle behind them. My brain buzzed with panic, but I gripped my steak knife firmly in my hand, and tried to do what Del had taught me.
I scanned the area. There were no trees to climb. No storm drains or sewers to escape into. Nowhere to hide. I couldn’t run. I definitely couldn’t fight this many shifters.
Time to talk shit.I grinned cockily. “Yeah, me, asshole. You know how hard it’s been trying to get you alone… Torran?”
It was a lucky guess, though Del would have smacked me upside the head for even thinking that. He didn’t believe in luck.“Observation, preparation, and premeditation, girlie. Don’t ever think that luck will save you. Only training will.”
He hadn’t been wrong. I wasn’t certain I’d trained hard enough for this showdown. I was surrounded, and the way the other wolves and shifters kept glancing at the man, then at me, waiting for his signal, made it pretty obvious who was the head honcho. It had to be Torran.
The only thing that confused me was, if this guy was the big baddie, where was Grigor? There wasn’t anyone else at Southern with more power than Torran, or so I’d been told repeatedly. Even if he looked like a slightly undernourished, shorter-than-usual plain shifter, I could sense a swirl of dominance aroundhim that was a thousand times scarier when paired with the absolutely batshit crazy gleam in his eyes as he looked me over.
I couldn’t sense or hear Grigor in my head, even when I called out now. Had the Council Enforcers all ganged up on him somehow, or taken him by surprise with some sort of silver trap?
The small silver knife flashed as Torran began cleaning under his nails with it. It had to hurt like fire, but he didn’t flinch, just tilted his head and made a weird little humming sound. “So you’re the one we’ve heard so much about. Why would you be trying to find me, Florida?”
I had very fucking little to say that would impress this guy. I was closed in by dozens of enemy shifters. It was time to play my only card. “I mean, I kinda wanted to meet the fucker who’s been killing off my shifters. If you don’t get a grip, psycho, there won’t be anyone left for me to lead.”
The training ring was silent. “Your shifters? Lead? What could you mean by that? I am the interim Alpha, little girl. You are… well, not no one. But no one significant.”
“Sticks and stones, crazypants.” I shrugged. “I meant this pack is mine. I’m the most dominant shifter, and you’re about to find that out. I challenge you, Torran of Eastern, for leadership of Southern.” I raised my steak knife. “Fight me.”
I’d only half expected him to agree to fight me. I knew what I looked like: skinny, armed with a steak knife, and looking like five foot nothing of Southern trash. But I hadn’t expected him to put his knife into a small case, drop it in his pocket, and walk away without a single word.
Well, to me at least. I heard him give an order before he passed through the first ring of wolves. “Don’t kill her. I want to play, and our Alpha Mate would like to meet her. Bring her to the cell.”
The wolves circled closer, and I knew I was in for a world of hurt. Good thing I’d learned how to take a beating and get backup every time. But I needed some advantage. A weapon these wolves wouldn’t be ready for.
I dropped to the ground, grabbing a handful of dust, and using my other arm to cover my eyes as I burst into crocodile tears. “Please… don’t hurt me. Please. I didn’t mean to…” I had to dance around telling an actual lie, since they’d smell that. But I managed to make it sound like I was planning to come quietly. In fact, by the time I’d blubbered a bit more, half of the wolves had turned their backs. Only the main one, a big gray wolf that reminded me of Glen’s, came within striking distance.
So he was the first to die.
I shocked myself with the speed I moved. I jumped up from my crouched position just as the wolf was rising over me, and flung my handful of dust into his eyes. It wasn’t as effective as powdered cinnamon and ghost peppers, but it did the trick long enough. He wobbled mid-air, and I leaped upward, grabbing his neck. Pulling him down and to the side, I drew the steak knife in a long, bloody arc through his fur, and across his neck.
Blood sprayed me, but I was already gone, moving to the next wolf, who was staring at his fallen companion in shock. That only lasted a heartbeat.
Then the battle really began. In seconds, I was caught in the middle of a ball of raging wolves, my steak knife no match for the sheer number of claws and teeth that tore at my skin. Pain bloomed all over, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as when I’d been whipped as a girl. My wolf simmered under the surface, longing to sink her teeth into these beasts. But she was still trapped inside.
The attacks became more vicious, the teeth biting deeper, tearing jagged swaths of my skin. But somehow, I was healing almost as fast as they bit into me.
I heard shouts, and knew Luke and Glen were fighting the shifters in human form, trying to get to me. I stabbed and spun,doing impossible somersaults over the heads of the wolves, never losing my balance, landing perfectly in position to stab and weave. My knife sliced through fur, muscle, and tendons, leaving wolves unable to stand and fight. All I had to do was think of a move, and it happened. I was a good fighter, sure, but this was… something else.
Was it Brand, or Grigor, feeding me power? Or was this what had happened when I fought Van Blackside, all those months ago, and I was just aware of myself now? I didn’t have time to figure it out, and I didn’t care. It was working.
But the wolves kept coming. There had to be more than thirty of them already, and I could hear the guys fighting just as hard. For a second, the leading wolves fell back, a few whimpering, stumbling over the dead bodies I’d left behind, and the healing ones, who were still out for this fight anyway.
There was no way I could take them all on. Even with my new speed and my healing, I couldn’t fight this many.
I glanced over the wall of fur to see Glen and Luke, back-to-back. Glen was in a half-shifted form, like I’d seen Brand once, back at Northern. He stood on two half-transformed wolf legs, his clothing almost gone. His arms were furred, and his clawed hands soaked with blood. His hair was a mane of fur, standing out like a gold and gray halo around a face that was bloody and bore a long snout.Luke was still human, and held both paring knives, spinning them faster than my eyes could track.
Not that I should have let myself be distracted. The wolves around me were regrouping, working as a pack. Two of them moved in front of me, harassing me with concerted, consistent attacks. The rest massed behind me, and I knew they were about to fall on me like a tidal wave of pain.
Was this it? Was this where I died?
I kept fighting, trying to work my way closer to Luke and Glen, whirling with the steak knife, wishing I had brought thebroom handle now. It was far more effective for this kind of fight.
