Chapter 36 The Forest’s Chosen #2
He howled, more surprise than pain, spinning faster than anything his size should have been able to manage. His hind paw caught me in the ribs, lifting me off the ground and hurling me across the clearing like a broken doll.
I hit one of the standing stones hard enough to crack ribs, vision graying at the edges as pain exploded through my chest. Blood filled my mouth, copper and salt and the taste of mortality drawing closer.
But I was still breathing. Still moving. Still holding the knife that had become my lifeline in a world gone mad.
Calder approached with deliberate slowness now, savoring the moment before the kill. “You should have stayed in the city, little photographer. Should have kept taking pictures of things that couldn't fight back.”
“Fuck you,” I spat, struggling to my feet despite ribs that grated against each other with every breath. “And fuck your philosophy about strength and weakness.”
His laugh was rich and dark, the sound of something that had learned to find humor in pain. “Such spirit. Your mother had that same defiance right before I tore her throat out.”
Rage exploded behind my ribs, hot and bright and cleaner than anything I'd ever felt. The knife in my hand seemed to grow heavier, more solid, like fury was giving it weight and purpose.
“You don't get to talk about her,” I snarled, and suddenly I was moving again, not away from him but toward him, driven by something that transcended survival instinct.
Calder met my charge with casual brutality, but this time I was ready for it. I flowed around his strikes like water, finding the spaces between his attacks and exploiting them with silver that bit deep into flesh that had forgotten what it felt like to bleed.
My blade opened his muzzle from nose to ear, then found the joint where his leg met his shoulder, then traced a line across his ribs that matched the one he'd given me. None of them were killing blows, but they added up, made him cautious where he'd been confident.
“Impossible,” he snarled, shaking his massive head to clear blood from his eyes. “You're human. Weak. Breakable.”
“Yeah, well,” I gasped, dancing back from another swipe that would have decapitated me if I'd been a half-second slower. “Humans are stubborn like that.”
But I was running on fumes and fury, and both were finite resources. My vision kept going gray at the edges, and my left arm still wouldn't respond to commands. The knife felt heavier with each passing second, and Calder's wounds were already beginning to close.
Supernatural healing. Right. That was a thing.
His next attack came without warning, faster than anything should have been able to move. Claws raked across my throat in a line of fire that stole breath and voice and the ability to do anything but collapse.
I hit the ground hard, hands flying to my neck in desperate attempt to hold together what he'd torn apart. Blood seeped between my fingers, warm and slick and far too much to be survivable.
This was how I was going to die. Not protecting anyone, not making a difference, just bleeding out while the people I loved fought and died around me.
Useless to the end.
The moment my body hit the ground, Evan's wolf dissolved mid-fight. The shift happened so fast it looked like golden light exploding outward, fur and fangs melting away to reveal the man beneath. He didn't even seem to register the transformation, too focused on the sight of me bleeding out.
“Nate!” His voice cracked like breaking glass, raw with terror and anguish that cut through the chaos of battle. “No, no, no, fuck, no!”
He was running before his feet fully touched the ground, stumbling over his own legs in his desperation to reach me. Tears carved tracks down his face, mixing with blood from his own wounds to paint him in shades of grief I'd never seen before.
“Stay with me!” he shouted, dropping to his knees beside me hard enough to crack bone. His hands hovered over my throat, shaking so badly he couldn't decide where to touch, afraid to hurt me worse but terrified to do nothing. “Please, baby, stay with me!”
Blood bubbled up when I tried to speak, spilling down my chin in patterns that looked like abstract art painted by someone who understood that beauty and violence were often the same thing. The sound I made wasn't words, just a wet gasping that scared us both.
“I've got you,” Evan whispered, voice breaking on every syllable. “I've got you, you're okay, you're going to be okay.” But his eyes told a different story.
His hands pressed against my throat, trying to hold together what Calder had torn apart. Warm blood seeped between his fingers, and I could see him counting heartbeats, calculating how much I could lose before there wasn't enough left to keep going.
Behind us, Calder's laughter was rich and dark, the sound of something that had learned to find humor in pain. “Look how he weeps,” he said, circling our position with predatory patience. “This is what love makes you. Soft. Weak. Distracted.”
“Shut up!” Evan snarled without looking away from me, one hand still pressed to my throat while the other cupped my face with devastating gentleness. “Just shut the fuck up!”
But Calder was right, wasn't he? Evan's attention was completely focused on me now, leaving him vulnerable to whatever came next. His wolf was gone, replaced by a man who cared more about keeping me alive than protecting himself.
“This is what happens when you love humans,” Calder continued, each word designed to cut deep and draw blood. “They break so easily. They bleed so prettily. And when they die, they take pieces of you with them.”
I tried to tell Evan to run, to shift back and fight, to do anything except kneel here watching me die. But my throat wouldn't work properly anymore, and consciousness kept trying to slip away like water through cupped hands.
“Don't you dare,” Evan whispered, reading the resignation in my eyes. “Don't you fucking dare give up on me. We've been through too much for you to quit now.”
His tears fell onto my face, warm drops that felt like absolution for sins I hadn't known I was carrying. Because maybe dying wouldn't be the worst thing, if it meant Evan lived. Maybe being useless at the end was acceptable if being here had mattered somewhere along the way.
“I love you,” I managed to whisper, the words barely audible even to my own ears. “Tell Dad... tell him I'm sorry.”
“Tell him yourself,” Evan said fiercely, pressing harder against my throat as if he could force my blood to stay where it belonged through sheer willpower. “You're not going anywhere. I won't let you.”
But we both knew he couldn't stop this. Couldn't fix what Calder had broken, couldn't undo the damage that was spreading through my system with each passing heartbeat.
My vision grayed at the edges, but I couldn't let go. Couldn't leave Evan to face this alone, couldn't abandon the pack when they needed every advantage they could get.
That's when my fingers found the earth beneath me, desperate for something solid to anchor myself to.
Not like this, I thought, pressing my palm flat against ground that had witnessed too much violence. Not useless again.
And something answered.
It started as warmth, spreading up through my palm and into my arm like electricity made of sunlight and growing things. But it grew stronger, deeper, until it felt like the forest itself was reaching through the earth to touch something I'd never known I possessed.
The ground beneath my hand began to tremble, and I felt roots stirring far below the surface, ancient networks that connected every tree in the forest to every other living thing.
They pulsed with life that had been flowing through this place since before humans learned to make fire, and they were waiting for direction.
Waiting for me.
Thick, gnarled roots exploded from the earth around Calder's feet, wrapping around his legs and chest with enough force to crack bone. He snarled, thrashing against bonds that held him with implacable strength, but more surged up to replace any he managed to tear free.
Wind whirled through the clearing, howling like the voices of every wolf that had ever died defending this territory. The sound made the rogues falter, spooked by whispers they couldn't understand but felt in their bones.
I lay there in Evan's arms, one hand still pressed to the earth while the other tried to hold my throat together. Blood seeped between my fingers, warm and thick, but underneath the copper tang of it, I could taste something else. Something wild and ancient and absolutely fucking impossible.
My voice, when I found it, was layered with harmonics that didn't belong to human vocal cords. The words scraped out of my damaged throat like they were being carved from stone, each syllable carrying weight that made reality shiver at the edges.
“You don't belong here,” I said, and the forest around us responded like it had been waiting centuries for someone to finally speak its language.
The forest answered with a shuddering groan, branches cracking overhead as ancient trees leaned in to witness judgment being passed on someone who'd violated their sacred space. Leaves fell, and the very air seemed to thicken with disapproval that had been building for decades.
At the edge of the clearing, Gideon went pale as marble, magic flickering around his fingers as he stared at me with something that might have been terror or awe or both.
“Impossible,” he whispered, voice shaking with implications that rewrote everything he thought he knew about the world. “Druids are extinct. Have been for centuries.”
But I wasn't thinking about impossibility or extinction or the way everyone was staring at me like I'd just performed a miracle.
All I could focus on was the rage burning in my chest, the fury of someone who'd watched the person he loved most get torn apart by a monster that thought violence was the answer to everything.