Page 84 of Pack Ruin
Finally, the Enforcers nearby started moving around, though they didn’t seem to be doing much. “Looking busy,” is what Del would’ve called it. One threw a few more pieces of wood down by me. A heavy bit landed across my outstretched hand, and I peeked at it.
It wasn’t a mop or a broom. It was even better. An actual bo staff, one of the practice ones our Enforcers had always trainedwith, but broken to about two-thirds the normal length. This was a real weapon.
I shifted, trying to feel if my spine was healed enough to stand. It was, though the spot felt fragile. One good hit there, and I’d be down again. But I would die fighting.
“We’re ready to burn the corpses, sir,” a voice called out.
“Have you decapitated the rogue Heir?” Torran replied, his voice growing louder as he returned. “You know the traditional punishment for betrayers. Let’s not get sloppy just because we’re away from home. Mattias, hand me that machete.”
Glen was still out for the count. I didn’t have long, and if I didn’t time this right… Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the machete rise. In an instant, I had the broken staff in my hand and my feet under me, ready to throw myself at Torran.
But the blood around me made me slip. I fell back on my side, just as the machete came down with a hard thunk.
My mind began to buzz. Someone was screaming. Time stood still. When it started again, the world ran in slow motion as I found my feet.
Torran stood on the other side of Glen’s body, his head lazily turning toward me, though everything else was still nearly frozen. I couldn’t look down at Glen. If I did, if I saw what had happened, I might fall again. The buzz in my brain had done something to cut off the warmth where the bonds between me and my mates had been before.
Now everything was cold. Cold, dark, and razor-sharp. Something strange and malevolent—a beast?—slid into my thoughts. Into my core, where my spirit lived. Was it my wolf? Was it… Grigor? It felt powerful, magical. Evil. I didn’t know if it was. I didn’t care.
It pressed against my skin, filling me with power, pulling it into us until I felt bloated with it, then shoving it out into the world, into the air itself, holding everything still. The wind. Thelight. All of it. Particles of dust hung around me, like fireflies pinned to the air itself.
Somehow, my clawed hands already held the broken bo staff. It moved almost on its own, toward my enemy. Torran’s smile curled the sharp edges of his lips as he tumbled out of the way of my first strike.
“You,” he said, the word strangely elongated. Other shifters around us drew closer, circling me. “You’re alive.” My enemy snarled, showing blunt teeth. He raised his voice. “Kill her.”
Others leaped at me, four or five at a time, all in human form. The beast was pleased. It was so much easier to tear through skin than fur. It wanted—I wanted,wewanted—his skin, though.
His head.
The staff battered the others out of my way, and I sliced with claws at the few who managed to dart inside the circle. I slipped away again, allowing the beast to kill as it wanted. They deserved it. Deserved to die for what they had done to… to…
The beast wrenched my mind away from the pain.
Time skipped.
We stood in a pile of bodies, our true enemy out of reach. Enraged, we leaped over them, landing softly, like a dry leaf, like a spark. He bared his weak, small teeth, like he wanted to growl. All that came out was a whimper.
We breathed in the sound, tasting his fear, and batted three more shifters out of the way as he scrambled back. Did he think he could escape us? We would never allow it. We crouched to chase him, confident he would not elude us.
He barked a command, one word. “Now!”
Then, to one side, a hint of sulfur. A small flare of light. Fire. A distraction.
I fought for control of my mind. Fought to stay, rather than flee. Why? There was nothing here for… The beast clawed at my concentration as the enemy drew farther away.
“Flor.” The whisper of a name came at the very moment that the match was held up, to be thrown into the air.
Glen. He was alive. He was alive and…close to the fire.
The fire!
I wrenched control back from the beast, whose whole focus was on the enemy, and leaped back to my mate’s side. It took all my newfound strength and speed to drag him away as fast as I could, pulling him over dead bodies and away from where we had fallen.
Time skipped again, once more, and I was a hundred feet from the pile of bodies and wood when the fire caught.
The match had landed exactly where we had been, and the conflagration roared as high as the Pack House roof, then higher, forty feet into the sky. Small explosions went off, and a chunk of something came flying in my direction. I tried to run, but all the unnatural strength that had filled me before was gone, emptied out. I felt as weak as I’d ever been, before I’d shifted.
I flung myself over Glen at the last second, and felt the projectile hit me in the back, right at the spot that had been broken before. It didn’t make a sound as it broke, but I did. I screamed. Well, cursed. “Ratfucking, possum-jawed, toad-licking piece of snakeshit! That fuckinghurts!”
