Page 115 of The Tracker's Revenge
His little feline shape clung to the witch’s head like a vicious, murdering hat. He hissed and made a series of throaty sounds as he repeatedly batted a little paw at Mekare’s left eye, claws raking across her eyelid, drawing blood.
For a confused moment, Mekare stumbled about, trying to dislodge the feral creature, her magic forgotten in her instinctual panic. As clarity returned, she weaved a spell and, hands crackling, grabbed Blaze by the scruff of the neck. A bolt of power zapped through his body, and he went stiff. With a disgusted bark, the witch threw him to the ground where he crashed with athud, his body giving off sparks as if he were his own little thunderstorm.
I watched him through hazy eyes.
No, Blaze!
I wanted to reach out for him and caress his soft fur, but all I could do was look on as Mekare’s spell ravaged his tiny body.
“Infernal mage,” the witch spat, pressing a hand to her torn eyelid and muttering a spell that immediately healed her injury.
Who are you, Blaze?
As if in answer, his body flickered, and his gray fur fell away, leaving him looking like a naked, wrinkled newborn. Then his spine elongated, and his feline features morphed into something different... something human.
A shock of gray hair grew on top of his head even as he kept growing. His pointed ears disappeared and repositioned themselves on the sides of his head. His front toes lengthened into fingers. His tail vanished, and the joints of his back legs changed direction.
Fighting my pain, I stared intently as his round eyes became ovals and thick eyebrows sprang into place, and a very familiar face took shape.
Damien, Damien, Damien!
Blaze was Damien. Damien was Blaze!
How?!
He lay unmoving next to me.
No. No. NO!
My eyes roved over his body, desperately searching for signs of life.
Damieeeeeeen!
His name was alive inside my head.
Please, please, please, be alive.
I stared at his chest and his abdomen.
Are you breathing? Please breathe.
I thought I perceived a slight movement, but I wasn’t sure. My eyes were injured, and I couldn’t see clearly.
Mekare’s mouth twisted as she scanned Damien’s wasted shape. “How the hell? Did no one ever teach you to stay dead?” She shook her head. “You are all a pain in the ass.” Coming closer, she prepared two killing spells, one in each hand. “Two birds with one stone.”
No.
I had a power that no other alpha had and she could never suspect its magnitude, its capacity to kill, and if it had worked on vampires and hybrids, it would work on fucking Midnight Witches, too.
Before she had time to point her hands in our direction, I drew strength from the depths of my soul and sprang to my feet. Then, opening my mouth wide in a scream of agonizing pain, I locked my jaws around her thigh.
Releasing all my anguish and desperation for Damien, I pushed an onslaught of sensory signals into the witch. My body glowed as I did a perfect Christmas tree impersonation. Scents, sounds, sights, and even the pain that I felt like a million tiny flames scorching every cell of my body, everything, I poured it into her.
I hate you more than I’ve ever hated anyone.
With every ounce of who I was, I wished for her death, wished to obliterate her from the face of the earth so she could never harm anyone else again.
When a raw cry tore from her throat, I relished the sound, and, using it as fuel for my loathing, I clung to the edge of consciousness, mustering an extra ounce of energy to continue my attack.
