Chapter 12 Avery #2
I thrust the rapier upward with all my strength, ripping a huge gash in the bear’s stomach as he came down on top of me. He roared in agony. Unfortunately, while I was strong enough to toss Ranger the large human over my shoulder, I could not say the same for a 900-pound bear.
His bulk smashed me, and I fell under him, my sword still buried in his gut. The impact knocked the wind from my chest, and I felt a rib crack. Still, I jammed that sword into the bear with everything I had.
“Avery!”
That was Ian again. I hated how scared he sounded.
Barrett didn’t enjoy being impaled on my blade, so he quickly rolled off me, staggering and bleeding on the grass. I sucked in a shaky breath. Adrenaline surged, my beast pumping an overload of aggression and rage through my body. I rolled to my feet and launched myself onto the bear’s back.
With a mighty heave, I drove my blade through his spine. He roared a cracked, terrible sound and collapsed.
“Get a healer!” Rip shouted into the crowd.
I limped away from the bear. I was breathing hard, and it kind of hurt. I pointed my rapier at Rip. “Fuck you. He’ll regenerate in an hour if he just lies still.” A thing I wished I could do to heal all my fun new aches and pains. “Had enough?”
The dark-haired guy stepped forward. He held a dagger in each hand, which meant he was going to fight me in human form—at least to start.
“I challenge you, new girl,” he said, twirling the knives in his hands. “I might even slip up and cut your fucking jugular. They’d probably expel me for that, but I bet my parents can take care of it.”
Good to know that killing in a challenge on campus meant expulsion. My parents definitely did not have the kind of fuck-you money it would take to buy me back in.
“My name is Avery,” I said. “Not ‘new girl.’ What’s yours?”
“Victor,” he replied, his lip curling like it was beneath him to have answered me.
“You’ve got this, Avery!”
That was Mallory. Her bright orange hair was easily spotted where she huddled next to Ian, looking concerned, to put it mildly. Allen watched somberly behind her, and Ash was there, too, her tattooed arms crossed over her chest as she glared at Victor.
“You hear that?” I said to Victor. “The crowd thinks I can take you even though I’ve been smashed by a giant bear, while you’re standing there looking fresh as a daisy.”
“You talk too much,” he snapped, and then he struck.
He slashed the knife in his right hand right at my throat in a fast backhand.
I leaned out of the way, so he swiped through empty air, and then I thrust my rapier at his stomach.
I managed to stab him, but he shoved me off before I could bury the blade deep.
He came quickly at me then, one hand then the other, and I parried just as fast, moving my sword to block each strike and wishing I had my two wakizashis instead of Brody’s toothpick.
I blocked and stabbed and sliced as we danced across the lawn.
My ribs hurt. The deep gouges where Barrett had slashed my shoulder stung even as I could feel them beginning to close. My arm was sore from taking the bear’s weight onto my sword.
But I was also very pissed off. The nerve of these assholes, all because they couldn’t hack it in the Guardians.
Not only were they trying to humiliate me, they were also trying to force me to shift.
The Ashton Quad were old-school bigots, the type that believed the Moon had deemed females were unworthy of a beast soul and cursed those of us who had one because of the White Tiger’s “betrayal.” They wanted to goad me into showing my animal both because it would paint me as an “undesirable” female and because they assumed she was something unimpressive.
They wanted to prove to the school that not only was I an abomination but a weak shifter who had no business playing with Primes.
I sliced into Victor’s bicep for the fourth time, finally causing him to lose the ability to use his arm properly. He bellowed in pain and frustration, tossing his knives to the ground.
A pulse of aggression pierced the air. His tall frame stretched, and his skin rippled.
Oh shit.
His body morphed into a giant black panther. A Prime panther was substantially larger than one found in the wild, almost a foot taller at the shoulder and a hundred pounds heavier.
My beast slammed against the bars of her cage. She wanted out. My skin tightened, but I pushed back with everything I had.
The panther leapt, snarling, claws extended. I slashed his chest with my sword, then dove out of the way.
I hit the ground, rolling onto my back. The panther pounced again, blood dripping from the deep gash in his chest. He swiped at me with his claws. I blocked him with my sword, but his teeth were next, and he buried them in my side with a guttural snarl.
I screamed. It fucking hurt. Someone else was screaming—sounded like Mal. Ian was shouting, and Brody and Allen were shouting back at him.
I managed to twist, yanking my body away from his teeth, then twisting again to bring my elbow down on his head. He yelped, staggering, and I scrambled to my feet.
My vision tunneled. I’d been this injured before, and I’d been fighting fucked-up shifter spirits who could eat my soul if they managed to incapacitate me.
This asshole couldn’t kill me even if he wanted to—I wasn’t going to let it get that far, but I sure didn’t want to blow my cover on the second fucking day of school.
I dug deep and took a running leap at the panther, slashing Brody’s rapier in a downward strike. The panther snarled, bracing like he was going to pounce, but my sword sliced through his neck.
Students screamed.
I stopped, yanking the blade out before it could hit the spinal cord. I’d have to really hack away with this thing before I could actually take the beast’s head off, but it was still a devastating hit. He’d be out for hours healing that in his beast form.
The big cat fell to the ground. I staggered away and knelt in the grass, catching my breath.
A few yards away, the bear still lay in his healing sleep.
Ranger had shifted to heal the head injury I’d given him with my fist. He was a nasty-looking canine thing—a jackal, maybe?—and he sat silently at Rip’s flank.
Ian shook off Brody and Allen and sprinted to me. He slid to his knees next to me in the grass. “Aves. Fuck, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’ve had worse.”
He glared. “That does not make me feel better.”
“But I’m kicking ass, Ian,” I said, gesturing to the carnage on the field.
He fought a smile. “You totally are. Prime quads aren’t shit, are they?”
“You, fox,” Rip barked. “Get the fuck out of here. We’re not finished.”
A harsh wave of shifter dominance slammed into us. Ian winced, and a shock of rage blasted through me. I climbed to my feet and pointed at Rip. “Don’t you dare bark at my brother, asshole.”
“You’re dead, you little bitch,” he snarled. “This challenge isn’t over until I say it is. You should’ve just gotten on your knees and fucking taken it like females are supposed to.”
“Ian, go,” I pleaded. “He’ll bring his brother and Moon knows who else into this if I break the rules of the challenge.”
“I don’t give a shit, Avery,” he snapped. “You’re torn up, and this challenge is bullshit.”
Rip tore his shirt off. Fur rippled across his skin, and then a large gray wolf tore from his body. An Alpha, but only just.
He howled, preparing to attack.
I raised my sword.
“Enough,” a deep voice boomed.
Heath Blackwell stepped in front of me.