Chapter 40
Arax
The gun hadn’t a chance to recoil and Dorian had the man wrestled to the ground. The firearm went flying, out of reach of its owner.
The perverse side of me I didn’t know I possessed cheered on the guard who had put the man in a chokehold, his thumb and middle finger gripping his neck, intent on the kill.
Engrossed by the show of brawn, I didn’t see him pull out a large, serrated knife until Dorian’s breath caught in his throat, the blade partially lodged in his abdomen.
Dorian’s free hand cuffed the wrist of his foe, halting the weapon from penetrating farther. The two were trapped in a waiting game, the outcome to be determined by who would break first.
Penelope was tending to her mother, examining the bullet wound.
Callista lay still, her eyes open but vacant, and on her side, her head lay in her daughter’s lap.
I saw her chest expand and fall as she made every effort to keep breathing but grew more tired and weak in her fight to stay conscious.
Her daughter was torn between not wanting to leave her mother in her hour of need and assisting Dorian, who was showing signs of being overpowered.
His injuries, old and new, were turning a diseased shade of black, sapping what reserves of strength he had left.
In my arms, Eleni squirmed and whimpered. I shushed and set her little body down, whispering to her to make herself invisible, and I rose to my feet without a sound.
Konstantine’s shirt, billowing and ten sizes too big, was shrink-wrapped to my perspiring back. My plan, assembled in a split second under duress, had a slim chance of success. I rolled up my sleeves, scouting the room.
The gun was somewhere too far for anyone to retrieve. Cyrus was still unconscious, the chains discarded around him.
I stalked forward, the pain in my ankle present but abated to something bearable.
Insofar I had gone unnoticed by our attackers; therefore, I had an upper hand.
Inch by agonizingly slow inch, I pulled the end of one of the chains toward myself, afraid to breathe or move too quickly and cause the metal to clang against itself.
Shortening the length, I held it tightly, my knuckles turning white.
It was heavier in my hand than before, whether by its change in purpose or because it knew that one small noise from its length could end Dorian’s life.
Maybe it was carrying the weight of my own fears about what could come in the next few seconds.
I breathed deep, and timed my swing with Dorian, whose legs buckled at the exact instant the links made contact with the back of the man’s head.
The man staggered, and both his and Dorian’s holds gave way.
After pushing the wounded guard back, the man whipped around and set his sights on me.
He grabbed the end of the chain, and my reflexes, dulled by fear—my senses dimmed, not knowing if my plan had had any measure of value—prevented me from letting go.
He yanked me toward him, his fist in the air, poised to deliver a hit.
But it never came; his body suddenly jerked and arched.
The hand he’d held in the air dropped low, and I saw the handle belonging to one of Dorian’s daggers protruding out of the man’s forearm.
He released his grip on the chain, and I wobbled on my bad ankle, my ass meeting the floor.
Weighed down by relief, I felt the assailant’s eyes on me, and though I couldn’t see them through the cover of his mask, I knew they were locked on mine, analyzing the whole of my form.
I tensed, cowering, not knowing what he’d do.
In the seconds of silence that passed, the man stood still, debating his next move.
Would he attack me? The ailing guard clutching his side? The luna? And where was Penelope?
The boom of Dorian’s voice shattered the quiet, bellowing at me to get out of the way.
On instinct and adrenaline, I beelined for Eleni, whom I’d left on her own. I cradled her, hugging her in my contrition as we awaited what was to come in the wake of Dorian’s warning.
A scream of terror shook my innards. I covered Eleni’s ears, and the sounds of flesh and bone being ripped apart permeated the air.
I pivoted my body to look past the corner and saw a wolf, enormous in size, its coat of stark white tinted sanguine red, pummeling the body of the last remaining attacker into the ground from on its hind legs.
His shoulder was clawed to ribbons, the protective vest he wore slashed and diced, and blood spurted from the gaping wound, spraying the walls and pooling on the hardwood.
The man tried to find his footing, and the wolf turned, taking the back of his neck in its jaws.
I noted the cerulean eyes, stoked flames of vengeful blue.
Down the right side of its head, bisecting its eye, ran a vertical stripe of dark fur, an homage to the one that would have been brown.
Penelope.
I’d wondered if her cries of frustration had led them to our location. Should it have been she who was guilty of us being found, the fury of her fight was her absolution.
She bit down, crushing the top of the man’s spine.
Blood garbled in his throat, and he writhed, dragging himself on his stomach and extending an arm, seeking what?
A getaway? Mercy? The wolf had none. Her jaws closed around the man’s skull.
I watched with morbid fascination as her canines cracked through bone, splitting his skull in half, and his brains, soft and exposed, exploded into wet mush and splattered on the floor.
His cries died with him as the matter dripped from between her teeth, and Penelope tossed his body aside to expel the blood and bone and pureed flesh from her mouth.
I doubled over Eleni, not wanting to vomit all over the child. My stomach, uncooperative, greedily kept the contents for itself but roiled in turbulence nonetheless.
Her wolf, the name of whom I hadn’t been told, gazed at me and her daughter and sat on her haunches.
Her fur retreated, and her snout sank into her head.
A series of snaps and cracks later, of bones realigning and muscles stretching and reshaping to their previous form, her wolf shifted to human, and the Penelope I knew knelt before me in the buff.
She was covered in blood, her usual perfect coif matted and frizzy.
Yet she was still beautiful, powerful, and savage, a mother wolf protecting her young.
She gathered her hair to one side and revealed a mark of some kind on the curve of her neck.
Not quite a tattoo or a scar, but something in between. I had never seen it before today.
Eleni freed herself from my grasp and ran to her, and my fingers automatically went to my buttons to offer Penelope my shirt.
She coasted to me on her knees and grasped my wrist. “I told you before. Nudity is not a problem for our kind.”
I hung my head. “I’m sorry I left her.” I nodded at Eleni. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You bought me time. That’s what you did,” she replied, her voice especially firm and authoritative, then kissed me on the cheek. “We’re at our most vulnerable during a shift.”
She smelled of blood and sweat, scents of war.
“That was…”
“Necessary,” she said, finishing for me matter-of-factly. “You walk into a wolf’s den, it’s kill or be killed.”
I nodded, and together we emerged from the wall. I stepped delicately, avoiding the carnage and dead bodies, one of them scarcely resembling the man he had once been.
Dorian had picked himself up to see to Callista, who had become pale enough to rival Penelope.
“Silver bullet,” he mumbled, his brow furrowed. “She needs immediate medical attention.”
“What about you?” I asked, his injuries still just as black and sickly as they had been.
“These are shallow. They’ll heal.” He shrugged. “The blades were coated in silver but didn’t go deep enough to enter my bloodstream. Not like the luna’s.”
A groan had Penelope and I swerving to look. Our bodies were so on edge, we hadn’t noticed that in the middle of the room, in the midst of the heyday, Rostam had finally shifted, and Cyrus lay facedown in his place. Penelope breathed in a sob. Eleni as well.
“Why is he still unconscious?” I asked Dorian.
“Lots of trauma,” he answered shortly. “I’ve checked him already. It shouldn’t be much longer before he wakes.”
He gently lifted Callista, holding her upright as she could barely stand, and I gasped. The bullet hole on her shoulder was spewing blood, thick and tar black. Veins bulged radially from the wound, darkened and spreading the silver poison they carried.
“Pen, you four need to go,” I said, facing her. “I’ll stay with Cyrus until he’s awake.”
“Are you crazy?” she shouted. “We can’t leave you here alone!”
I gritted my teeth. “Penelope, your mother needs help, and you need to get that little girl out of here! She’s seen enough!”
As if she were on my side and listening, Callista’s body sagged in Dorian’s arms. Penelope’s eyes were wild with indecision, and I pressured her to listen.
“Go,” I whispered. “Dorian said it should be any minute now.” I pointed at Cyrus. “But your mother may not have that much time.”
“Goddess.” She moaned. “Stan is going to kill me when he finds out.”
“Better him than one of these masked assholes,” I replied.
We did an exchange, Eleni to me, and Callista to Penelope, so Dorian could carry Cyrus’s body to behind the wall.
“I’ll send someone for you,” Penelope promised, and Dorian volunteered readily.
“In the meantime,” he said, handing me one of his daggers, “tungsten all the way through.”