Page 78 of Shackled to the World
Knocking them out wouldn’t keep shifters down for long.
The shifter that went down slashed and clawed at the remaining opponent until he slumped over, his bulk threatening to suffocate the smaller man. Annora leaned over, quickly grabbing the unconscious guy’s shoulder and yanked, while the shifter beneath heaved. Together they were able to pull the nearly three-hundred-pound guy away.
Annora turned…only to find Vicki glaring up at her. “You.”
“Me.” Annora gave her a crooked smile, then offered her hand. Despite the she-wolf hating her since she’d showed her up the night of the party, Vicki hesitated only for a moment, then grabbed it.
Once on her feet, Vicki stepped back and shook out her hands and arms, scattering blood and tissue everywhere. Worry tightened Annora’s gut as she watched the battle, wondering if they could even win. They were massively outnumbered. She hadn’t realized how many wolves would come to Erickson’s aid and fight.
She must have said it out loud, because Vicki snarled. “They don’t have any choice. They must obey their alpha. If the wolf doesn’t have a strong enough alpha to hold them, Erickson rips them away and forces them to fight for him.”
Horror sliced through her while she looked across the battlefield again—so many innocent people were being killed.
And for what? More power?
She watched the battle with new eyes…and realized what must be done. “We need to get to Erickson.”
“Be my guest.” Vicki waved her arm, indicating the far side of the battle, a whole field of wolves and shifters between them.
Annora glanced up, then watched in sickening fascination as Erickson picked up a kid half his size, cracked him open by nearly snapping the kid’s head off and drank his blood like the kid was a wine cask. Blood and gore spilled down his face and chest in a red wave, and she gritted her teeth against the need to vomit.
He grabbed another kid, then another, seemingly at random, uncaring what side of the battle they fought.
After her uncle sold her blood, she’d done a bit of research. A few people actually believed they could steal the strength of their opponent by drinking the blood of the defeated. She’d discovered that the magic in her blood usually broke down quickly, so she didn’t think much about it.
Her blood must have driven Erickson insane.
While the guys said shifters normally couldn’t get diseases, she wondered if ingesting too much had rotted his brain.
And her guys were heading straight for him.
Her insides turned to stone—none of them would stop until the other was dead.
Sorrow turned her heart heavy when she realized what needed to be done. The afterworld called to her, instinct warning her that time was running out.
She needed to act before it was too late.
The phantoms were coming.
She could feel someone searching the afterworld.
Determined to make the rest of her time matter, she gathered the few dark particles that were struggling to heal her, then turned toward Vicki with a trembling smile. “Tell the guys I love them.”
Vicki’s head snapped up, her eyes widening. “Wait—what?”
Without giving Vicki a chance to stop her, Annora allowed her body to dissolve and reform a few yards away from her target. As she landed, Vicki’s cursing cut off abruptly. The afterworld clung to her, and her hands shook with the need to absorb the swirling mass.
Fuck it.
Her father was coming for her either way.
It was only a matter of time.
If accessing the afterworld was going to get her killed, she was going to make it worthwhile.
Annora tore down every wall she ever built to keep herself safe—and darkness welcomed her with open arms.
Her back arched as power slammed into her with the force of jumping out of a plane without a parachute and hitting the ground. The world around her vanished as her vision darkened. Her injuries stitched together in a vomit-inducing second, the pain lingering under her skin for just a moment before the adrenaline took over and sloshed in her veins.
