Run, Run, Run
Renard
A chill runs down my spine as the five of us watch our girl take off into the night. Everything that has happened tonight has me spiraling, as long-buried memories spring from the depths of my mind. Hooded figures, ancient magic, and taboo rituals are secrets I left behind when I was exiled to Apex. The resurgence of the past is making my gargoyle rage inside.
Why is this happening again?
“What in the name of Anubis just happened?” Aubrey mutters as he runs a hand through his hair. His sentiment echoes across the group as we look at one another in shock.
“The world is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper,” I murmur under my breath.
“Poetry is not helpful,” Felix mutters. “We need a plan.”
Aubrey flexes his wings, scrutinizing the center of the circle from a healthy distance before squinting up at the moon. He looks at me, and when I nod, he turns to the felines with a grimace. “What Rennie is struggling to say is… he believes our girl isn’t just a rabbit shifter. She’s got magic in her blood.”
“Bullshit. Magic users don’t mix with shifters anymore,” the tiger replies, crossing his arms over his chest. “Whatever… happened… is some kind of trick using science to fool us. This kind of shifty behavior is why shifters separated from magic users centuries ago.”
A roar echoes off the treetops, and we all startle, turning to the most likely culprit in the group. When Fitz shrugs, we spin again, only to see Chess’ spotted tail disappearing in the direction Delores ran.
Oh, fuck. His animal is pushing him to find its mate, even if they haven’t completed a bond.
I sigh, noticing the talisman on my neck flaring in retort to Felix’s statement. Aubrey is old enough to remember when magic users and shifters existed in harmony. He knows magic is no more dangerous than any other weapon, if wielded properly. “Magic is not why she went hopping off, Felix. Whatever happened tonight revealed a part of her she wasn’t aware of and probably triggered her fear of rejection like the first night she shifted. Something bigger is at play than simple Council politics, but we can’t waste any more time talking about it now.”
“What do we do?” Fitz yells, throwing his hands up in the air. His eyes are wild as he looks at me, and I can see the fear for Chess and our girl flickering over his features.
“You two need to shift and hunt down the hooded figures. Aubrey and I will take to the skies and find Dolly.” They protest, but I shake my head. “We can cover more ground quickly from above and there will be fewer obstacles to cloud our vision. Plus, your noses are infinitely better than ours.”
Finally, the rightful Raj nods, seamlessly shifting to his tiger form. Fitz stalks over to Aubrey, poking him with a clawed hand. “Find her.”
“We will. See if you can corner one and capture them alive—they may be the key to keeping Dolly safe,” the dragon responds reassuringly. “I can’t be sure if they are behind the murders, but they saw what happened here tonight, and we can’t allow our girl to stay on their radar.” Throwing his head back and howling in rage, the enforcer shifts and joins his brother as they head into the woods as one.
A sudden thought worries me. “Do you think Chess is attempting to corral Dolly on his own?” While I wait for the dragon to answer, I look around, then close my eyes and allow the shift to my true form to begin. I feel his eyes on me as he considers my question—Aubrey has always loved watching the pulse of magic flow over me when I fully shift.
The light from my talisman glows with the same electric blue as my eyes, crawling over my body until I’m completely enveloped in its power. Obsidian covers my skin and my normally lithe frame expands up and out until I tower over my friend. My wings and tail stretch, while my fangs and claws sharpen with the full effect of my transformation.
It feels good to let the beast out.
“If he did, he’s in for a nasty surprise. We have no idea if our girl can retain higher brain functions fully shifted, much less if she has magic to wield,” my companion finally replies as he follows my lead and transforms into an enormous blue dragon.
I nod, hoping Chess doesn’t allow his emotions to lead him into doing something reckless. Since my exploration of the tunnels with the cheetah, he’s been driven to help protect our girl and I worry it will override his common sense. He’s not an alpha animal and can’t react with both the animal and human sides of his mind.
“Are we saving our girl, or are you going to brood at the moon all night?” the dragon growls, small puffs of smoke escaping his nostrils. “The longer we wait, the further away she gets.”
I chuckle softly at his prickliness. He’s worried as fuck about her and has no idea how to handle it. “Alright, Flames. It’s time to fly.”
Enhanced night vision is a blessing when you’re searching the night for your missing magical rabbit girlfriend.
Aubrey and I have made several passes over the forest, and now we’re headed towards the east side of campus where the training ring is located. I’ve had to coax my old friend out of simply burning the entire place down—despite the obvious drawbacks of that solution—at least four times. He’s belching fire and billowing smoke like a volcano, and if the campus didn’t know there was a dragon in their midst before, there’s no mistaking it now.
My fear for her safety, and the safety of others, is all-consuming, but Aubrey needs my calm support right now.
Suddenly, a flash of white appears in the corner of my eye, and I adjust my course to get a better look. A column of flames rockets past the tip of my wing, and I whip my head around to glare at the infuriated dragon. “Careful! I saw something. Let’s take a closer… without scaring her off.”
I’ve barely finished speaking when Aubrey dives for the ground like a heat-seeking missile, and I groan under my breath. If it’s not our girl, he’s likely to fry whatever unfortunate shifter distracted him from his search. Flexing my wings into position, I angle myself toward the snowy fur, intent on hitting the ground before he wrecks havoc with his anger.
My landing isn’t particularly graceful given my speed, but at least I’m close enough to intervene before he goes berserk. “Aubrey, we have to be calm; Dolly may be frenzied. She needs us to help her gain control of her animal brain, and you, mon fougueux ami , need to find your zen to help me follow this trail.”
Sliding into a half-shift, he glances behind me before smirking. “You mean the trail of blood behind you?”
The scent finally registers and I turn in the direction he’s staring. My hands tighten into fists as I see the haphazard drops and splatters leading across the field toward the Shird. I close my eyes for a brief second, taking my advice, then nod at Aubrey. Together, we follow the trail in hunting formation as more blood and… what looks like entrails… appear in our path.
“Troubling,” the dragon rumbles softly.
“More like… curious...” I reply as the gore leads us through the patio area behind the arts building and towards the edge of the lake.
Aubrey snorts, his reptilian eyes full of the worry he’s trying to get a handle on. “Curious? Aren’t you concerned that Dolly’s in trouble? Look at this fucking massacre, Rennie.”
I think about it for a moment, realizing that as we’ve prowled along this trail, my worry for her safety has actually lessened. My concern for everyone else, however, is rising by the second. This trail of fluids and fleshy chunks is not our girl—it’s someone who made the mistake of crossing her path. I just hope it wasn’t anyone she’d regret ripping limb from limb when she emerges from whatever headspace she’s in.
“No, actually. Ma petite has transformed into a shifter who can truly take care of herself from now on—once she learns to control it. The how and why this happened are vital to understanding the events of tonight. However, at the moment, our focus has to be on locating and helping her through what had to be a terrifying realization.”
“Not to mention cleaning up this fucking mess,” he grumbles. “Let’s not forget the paperwork involved in an accidental death on campus, either.”
Barking a laugh, I look over at my companion. “Nothing trumps your bone deep hatred of paperwork, does it, mon ami ?”
He pauses for a moment, turning to look at me seriously. “Humor aside, Rennie, how do you propose we get a newly changed magical shifter to leave the primal hunger phase and come back to reality? It’s not like we’ve ever met one. What are we going to do—tie her up until the moonlight fades?”
“As fun as that might be, I don’t think shibari is the answer you always seem to think it is.” He gives me a fangy grin and shrugs as I tilt my head. “For now, we need to figure out who these pieces belong to, subdue her, and strategize from there. I’m uncertain how strong the magic part will make her—we’ll need to research that later—so let’s proceed with caution.”
“Got it. Identify leftovers, pin her down, and then decide how to calm her,” Aubrey repeats as we move again.
The trail is heading towards the Tower, and I’m fairly sure that at least one shifter is dead, if not more, based on the detritus on the ground. Something in her brain, even as animalistic as it may be at the moment, sent her running towards our home. That bodes well for our mission to soothe her until she shifts back.
I hope.
Winding our way around the base of the Tower, we approach the courtyard carefully. Aubrey sucks in a breath, pausing as we take in the sight in front of us. I stop as well, muttering softly, “ Until at last, serene and proud, In all the splendor of her light, She walks the terraces of cloud, Supreme as Empress of the Night .”
Standing in the center of the courtyard, bathed in moonlight, is a rainbow haired rabbit shifter. She’s surrounded by swirling magic and holding the head of Professor Abel in her clawed hand.
Our girl whips her head towards us, ears twitching as she roars an unmistakable warning through elongated fangs. The sound makes my eyes flash and my tail flick, although not in agitation—my gargoyle likes it. A blast of smoke fills the air as my dragon companion chuckles to himself, despite the seriousness of our situation.
The white fur around Dolly’s mouth is stained like a sociopathic clown did her lipstick. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why we’ve been dodging chunks of flesh as we tracked her down.
She stumbled on her least favorite professor and tore him to bits.
Shaking my head to dispel the primal urge to chase her until she submits, I slowly move towards our girl, keeping my voice level as I speak. “ Ma petite , drop the head. You’re done for the night.”
“Tasmanian devils are stringy and tough anyway,” Aubrey offers as he follows me. “And the hairballs are murder.”
Her furry face twitches with what appears to be a fangy grin, but she doesn’t let go of the gruesome trophy.
As I reach the edge of the courtyard, I try again. She seems to recognize us at least, as she’s not attacking, and that’s a point in our favor. “If you drop it, perhaps we can dance again? The moonlight is?—”
A roar echoes off the stones of the surrounding buildings, and I have to bite back a sharp retort. I don’t dare look away from the rabbit to see why Aubrey lost his temper, but as the blur of scales passes me, I know our luck just ran out. “You will calm down!”
The fully shifted dragon grabs her in his talons, and he pushes off the ground as his enormous wings propel them into the sky. Delores drops the head, and it bounces off the ground at my feet, causing me to grimace and back away.
So much for being the older, calmer shifters who can talk her down safely.
I watch the two of them soar high into the atmosphere. Moonlight glints off his midnight blue scales as he swoops and dives with her clutched against his chest. She must be fighting him—unsuccessfully—because though he throws his head back in pain and shoots fire across the starry sky, he doesn’t drop her. I consider heading into the Tower so I can get the height needed to join them, but I can’t take my eyes off of the scene unfolding above.
Another column of flames shoots through the air, and twin growls pierce the night as Aubrey lands on the roof of the Tower with a deafening thud. His form changes to a half-shift in a blink, and as I watch from the ground, the wererabbit does the same. My lips curve when my old friend yanks our girl closer and kisses the living shit out of her.
Well played.
Shifting back to human form as I walk towards the Tower entrance, I smirk at the raccoon guarding the door. “Have the Captain dispose of that...” I point at the head and then gesture at the trail we followed. “... and the rest of the mess immediately. Nothing we did tonight can be traced back to us.”
The crew member salutes and takes off toward the lake to inform the others, and I step inside my home, wondering what the Khans found on their hunt. Though the danger of her true nature may be abated, Dolly still isn’t safe until we find out more about what happened tonight.
Especially when everything in that circle felt so fucking familiar…
If she’s not really dead, we’re in a lot of trouble.