Chapter 27 Avery
AVERY
The guys dealt with the swarmers without even breaking a sweat.
They set Wyatt up to be a human guillotine and herded the monsters at him.
The next phase sent four Rippers at them, and as expected, Wyatt went furry to batter the wraiths while Heath and Aiden took turns slicing heads off with their sabers.
Elijah remained a mostly casual observer at the edge of the floor, occasionally slashing a dagger at the wraiths if they strayed too close to him.
When the magic conjured a Giant, accompanied by more Ripper mutants, I finally got what I wanted.
Aiden tossed his saber to Elijah, ripped off his shirt, then let his jaguar burst free.
Ian whistled. “Damn.”
Damn was right. Aiden was exceptionally large for a jaguar, Prime or not. His fur was a rich brown, dotted with darker rosettes all over his lithe, muscular feline body. Blue-green eyes glowed as the jaguar snarled at the Giant. He and Wyatt’s bear were preparing to attack it together.
My beast’s ears perked up, and she stretched languidly within me.
Yes, yes, he is a very majestic feline.
Aiden’s jaguar was as impressive a fighter as Heath’s wolf or Wyatt’s bear, but he had the agile feline quickness that the others lacked. It was of particular use against this Giant—a twelve-foot-tall humanoid monstrosity with a bird head and three spiked tails.
Like how Wyatt and Heath had worked together in animal form to take down the Giant on my first day of training, Aiden and Wyatt were able to topple the wraith after a long and brutal fight.
Heath was there with Wyatt’s ax to chop off its head, while Elijah had been forced off the sidelines to decapitate a faltering Ripper that Heath had taken down earlier that looked like it was about to regenerate.
When all was said and done, they were awarded thousands of additional points, both to their quad and to them as individuals. No one would be touching them in the top spot, and they deserved it. They were far and away the most talented group in this program.
Talent that was wasted in a magical simulation. At least they’d be let out of this cage in a few short months and allowed to put their skills to use protecting people outside the warded walls of the school.
Aiden and Wyatt padded off the arena floor to shift and dress, the shadows obscuring my ability to check out Aiden’s naked body.
I’d already seen Wyatt’s multiple times, but I wouldn’t have said no to another viewing.
“All right, Mahoney is up next!” Cash barked. “Three minutes.”
Ian patted my shoulder. “Stay sharp and don’t trust any of them to have your back.”
“Right.”
I stood up, shrugged on my swords, and made my way down to the arena floor. Kace Mahoney waited near the control booth with the other two members of his trio—Blaine, a big burly bear, and Drew, a lanky panther.
No one spoke to me as I took my place next to them.
“Nice of you to join us, Baxter,” Cash said. “I’d tell you all to play nice, but that’s not how shit works in the real world, is it? Get your asses out there.”
I trudged to the center of the floor behind my temporary teammates. As the lights dimmed and the magic flooded the arena, I reached behind my head to unsheathe my blades.
“Just stay out of our way, bitch,” Kace said, still not looking at me.
Off to a great start.
I didn’t reply, keeping my focus on the periphery of the floor, where the first wraiths would appear.
Heath was there, lurking and grinding his jaw, his attention squarely on me.
Aiden stood behind him, glasses back on, eyes narrowed at Kace.
Wyatt was nearby, too, arms crossed over his shirtless chest and his amused smile nowhere to be found.
Elijah slouched against the wall of the bleachers behind Wyatt, his posture relaxed, but his mouth was set in a tight line instead of his trademark breezy smile.
A dozen catlike wraiths with bat wings flickered to life on the northern edge of the arena. Each was the size of a Rottweiler and flashed us double rows of needle teeth. They screeched in unison, formed a swarm, and attacked us head-on.
We had no battle plan here, of course, except to just hack away at whichever monsters ended up in each person’s general vicinity. Fine by me. The little cat bastards were spry and fast, but their necks were spindly, so lopping off their grotesque heads took less effort than it could’ve.
By the end of the wave, I’d killed eight wraiths, while the rest of my team had managed the other four.
Blaine was limping with some kind of simulated injury.
Maybe he’d ended up with those nasty teeth in his leg—the guy was lumbering and slow in human form and only slightly less so as a bear, so he wouldn’t have been hard for a swarmer to catch.
“I’m not impressed, Mahoney,” Cash spat through the speaker system. “A female is getting more kills than your entire trio. Act like fucking Primes.”
I received three hateful glares for that comment. Thank you, Cash.
“We all share the points,” I told my teammates, gesturing above us with my sword as Jared, the quiet tablet-wielding trainer with a bad case of resting asshole face, loaded our scores onto the jumbotron. “So, you’re welcome.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Kace snapped. “You’re an embarrassment to this program, this school, and to shifter females in general.”
I sighed. “If you have a small dick, just say that, Mahoney.”
A few snickers sounded from the gallery.
His eyes flashed silver, and a growl ripped from his chest. “You fucking dare—”
Two Rippers materialized in front of us, tearing Kace’s attention from me. He charged the wraith on the left, sword drawn for the kill. Blaine shifted into his bear and loped off after him. Drew ran into the fray, shifting into his panther mid-stride.
That left me to deal with the second wraith alone. Thanks, guys.
This one was as big as my dad was in his wolf form, but it had a horselike body, its dark-gray flesh twisted in knots like tree bark.
A triangular head sat atop its abnormally long, thick neck, and a mass of antlers sprang in gnarled branches from the top of the head.
They looked extremely sharp. Its void eyes glowed with the soft blue magic holding it together.
The wraith snorted, pawed the ground, and then charged me.
I braced myself, keeping my body loose and my blades at the ready.
It tucked its head, ready to spear me with that tangle of antlers, so I ducked low and slid to my knees, arching my back.
I sacrificed one sword, burying it in the creature’s chest as it trampled over me.
It roared and stumbled away, my sword still embedded in its rotting gray flesh. I climbed to my feet and sucked in a harsh breath. One of the wraith’s thick legs had slammed into my side, and I was being subjected to a magical simulation of at least a couple cracked ribs.
The wraith circled, ready to run at me again. In the periphery, Blaine’s bear reared on his hind legs and then tackled their wraith to the ground. Drew’s panther slashed at its face, while Kace, still a human, began hacking away at its neck with his blade.
My wraith lunged at me again, this time with its teeth. I slashed with my remaining sword, keeping it at bay. My ribs screamed at me.
It’s not real, I screamed back internally.
The wraith snapped at me again, and again I slashed. It was moving slower, though it wasn’t exactly sluggish. It had to be feeling the sword impaled in its chest, gray sludge oozing from the wound.
The right move here was to hold—continue this dance with the wraith, letting it attack and bleed and slowly lose energy, until my partners finished with their kill and could jump in for an assist. It’s what I would’ve done if it’d been my dads or Ian on the floor with me now.
But it wasn’t. I had to assume I was on my own.
On its next attack, the wraith lowered its head, switching back to trying to spear me with those antlers. The move protected its face from my sword, but it also meant it took its eyes off me for at least a few seconds.
As it charged me, I dropped to my knees again, ducking the thrust of the antlers and sliding to its side. As I went, I swung my sword upwards into the wraith’s neck in a two-handed slash meant to inflict maximum damage.
My blade cut deep into the thick, gnarly muscle. The wraith gurgled a horrifying screech and staggered.
It was enough.
I sprang from the floor and rammed my sword straight into its ribs, shoving its body with everything I had.
The wraith stumbled again, squawking like a flock of dying barn owls, and it tripped and fell onto its side.
I ripped my sword from its ribs, grasped it with both hands, and sliced through the wraith’s neck in a vicious downward strike.
Cleaved from its body, the head hit the floor with a disgusting thud.
Kill managed.
The wraith flickered and disappeared as the magic released. My chest rose and fell in a harsh rhythm as I fought to catch my breath. I bent to pick my other sword off the padded floor.
As I stood up, I caught sight of Aiden pacing on the sidelines, his frustrated stalking still executed with feline grace. Elijah was with him, his hands shoved casually into the pockets of his athletic pants, eyes glowing yellow and focused only on me.
Kace’s team must’ve finished their kill about when I did. Their wraith blinked out of existence, surrounded by the beasts in the group, who heaved big panting breaths, and Kace, who cradled his non-sword arm.
Cash didn’t waste time. The magic pulsed, and two Giants appeared on the floor.
“Fuck,” Kace barked.
I agreed. Two Giants were a bitch, but so was one Giant with a handful of Rippers. They liked to change it up at this stage.
These wraiths were ten-foot-tall humanoid werewolves, bipedal with clawed feet, even larger clawed hands, and thick muscles rippling under dark-gray fur.
Ribs were visible where chunks of skin and fur were missing.
A stripe of porcupine quills ran the length of their spines, their wolf eyes lit up with the white-blue of the magic.
Since Drew and Blaine were still in beast form, they elected to charge one of the werewolves as it took its first steps. Kace tossed his sword to the floor and ran straight for the second wraith as it let loose an eardrum-shattering shriek.
He rounded the backside of the wraith, then turned and sprinted toward me, his eyes sparking and white fur rippling down his arms. He was inviting the Giant to chase him in my direction.
Looked like our team leader had finally wised up. We needed to take these insane wraiths in teams of two if we had any shot at killing them both.
He streaked toward me, the wraith hot on his heels.
I braced, readying my blades. Ten yards from me, Kace completed the shift to his big white wolf, landing on four paws and continuing his sprint.
Ideally, he would complete another circle behind me, and then we could attack this thing head-on together.
Except he didn’t do any of that.
Kace leapt straight at me. I’d been so focused on the monster behind him that I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t expected to have to defend myself against the large Alpha wolf, who was supposed to be my teammate.
I moved too slowly, raised my swords too late.
He tackled me to the ground, and my back slammed into the floor, knocking the air from my lungs. I fought, but my swords were pinned under his big wolf body. Kace snarled and bit down on my shoulder, tearing at my flesh, his teeth hitting bone.
The pain was excruciating. White light shot through my vision.
This wasn’t part of the simulation. This was fucking real.
I screamed.
In a flash, the wolf was gone, darting out of the way of the wraith as it pounced on top of me.
Huge clawed hands held me down.
My beast roared and slammed against the bars of her cage.
And then I lost her.
Icy pain spiked in my chest and radiated through my limbs. I couldn’t move. Everything was heavy. I blinked and blinked, but the room began to darken.
The magic is forcing my body to feel the wraith consuming my soul.
My head rolled to the side. Ian was at the edge of the floor, thrashing in Wyatt’s hold and screaming words I couldn’t hear.
Then everything went black.