Page 83 of Pack Rage
I snarled at Sergeant, and at the hundreds of shifters who’d begun to emerge from the shadows of the tall pines, backing him up. “Let me pass. I do not want to hurt you.”
“The witch put up a spell, behind a barrier, a salt circle. I’ve been trying to get in, but these damned tattoos…” He indicated the patterns all over his body that cut him off from his magical birthright.
I didn’t have time to pity him. Flor was there, whispering to me.I want you to know, I love you, Grigor Dimitrivich. Even if you killed half the shifters in the whole world, I’d still love you. Does that make me evil?
No, beloved. It makes you perfect.
I exhaled, the moon’s magic still pouring into me, my own rage giving the pure energy a sharp, bloody edge. My littlebehrserk, evil? Never. But evil was what I was prepared to do if these well-intentioned shifters didn’t get out of my way. I held out a hand and gently picked up the two Southern boys who had fallen and were still holding on, waiting for their grisly end.
“Your magic would never work. I’ll tear it down,” I promised, already moving. “Follow me inside.”
Hold on,I told Flor.She was now professing her love to the others, and I could hear her desperation in the silent words.
I leaped over the trees and landed at the edge of the dome, cloaked in shadows. The spell had been made with the witch’s blood, but was being fueled by the ones inside. The innocents, the Enforcers, the Alphas… and my bonded pack. Their strength flowed through the ground and sky and into the dome, makingit unbreakable. It was a diabolically clever, balanced spell, and would have worked, except for one thing.
Their blood was mine, too… as was Elina’s. And blood was the key.
I bit the palm of one hand savagely, then pressed it to the invisible surface, holding the other up to the moon. I opened up my tainted, murderous soul, let the moon shine her light into every dark corner, let it fill me… and then I let it flow through me.
The dome was there in one blink, and gone in the next. Without hesitating, I stepped forward into a world made of pain, none of it my own.
My bonds flared, and I was awash in sensation, my skin being scoured away by it, screaming in my mind at the intensity of it all. Brand’s physical pain at being mutilated. Glen’s grief for his parents. Finnick and Luke’s agony as they were held back by sheer numbers from Brand and Flor’s sides.
But my little queen was in the center of the pain, her soul bristling with courage, her heart thumping with a relentless beat.Hope. Hope. Hope.
I was at her enemy’s back before the next beat, freezing her in place before she could finish cutting into my beloved with her silver blade, and whispered a greeting worthy of the boogeyman of all shifters.
“Boo.”
The witch would have jumped, if I didn’t have her immobilized by the shadows I’d flung around her. Her fear filled the air around us, her whimper as I crushed the air from her lungs, a sweet, high sound in my ears that sailed over the roar of the crowd.
I disentangled her hand from my queen’s red hair. “It’s time to die, witch,” I hissed, as I noted the strands she’d ripped free,and the blood on my little mate. “I only wish I could make it last.”
Before I could kill her, my feet shifted, or perhaps the world did. One last, wispy cloud moved away from the face of the moon, and I was jolted by a wave of energy. Where had that come from? My answer came quickly.
Flor. She’d come into her power, and the moon was acknowledging Her daughter. Flor’s eyes glowed with bright amber fire, her hair floating around her face like she was holding onto an electric current, sparks of silver light racing along her skin. She was transformed.
She was a goddess.
In the next breath, my bonds with the other males went wild, the combination of power and pain almost overwhelming me as they drew on the power to heal and fight. I had to help them, but how could I leave Flor?This close to the witch, even with her trapped, I couldn’t afford to lose focus. I wouldn’t be drawn from her side again.
I tamped down the connections, tearing my gaze from Flor. “Time to kill a witch.”
“There’s no time. Leave her to me. Help Brand,” Flor gasped. “Save him.” She was absolutely right. The Mountain mate had closed off our bond, but here, I could smell his death on the breeze. I may have waited too long already.
“Yes, beloved,” I replied, sending a burst of healing energy through Flor before I popped up at Brand’s side. “You.” Instantly, I flung more shadows around the magic thief, Ivan, wrapping his limbs in dark cobwebs. He fell to his side, his jaw wide, silver teeth coated with blood. His entire body was soaked, and Brand… I swallowed hard as I kneeled beside my brother, who lay on his side in his wolf form.
I’d done worse to my enemies than what the silver-toothed fiend had done to Brand, but not by much. I blinked awaysomething—was it tears?—before I used my hands to try and fold his fur around him. His heart wasn’t beating, only quivering, and I had no idea how he was still alive. His blood was everywhere but inside his body, the dirt around his matted fur turned to mud with it.
I didn’t waste time on the magic thief, who lay struggling at my side, or on the others who milled around us in shock. I didn’t hesitate. I pressed my still-bloody hand to the heart of my beloved’s first mate, and sent my own blood into the wolf’s trembling muscle, pressing down gently.
My healing powers had never been as strong as my destructive ones, and I knew I might fail. But I had to try. I forced more blood from my body into his, extending my fangs and tearing into my lower lip to allow more to drip down into the gaping wound.
Live. Live, brother. Live for her, live for us all.
There was no answer. My beloved’s heart still beat with hope, though, and I let myself listen to that cadence as I squeezed gently, moving the fresh blood into the chambers of Brand’s heart. I fed her hope into my soul, and my blood into his body, and felt something in my own innermost spirit change.
There was always a price for great magic, a balance that had to be struck. Now, I sensed the price that was being extracted, one drop at a time. Brand might live or die; I still wasn’t sure. But to make this attempt, I would lose something I’d taken for granted. My immortality.
