58. Quin
“SIMON! What have you done to Simon?”
Izzy’s frantic screams drag me away from where I’ve been tearing literal strips from both of my parents. I spin around, my tail lashing with agitation, but the horror unraveling before my eyes is something I never thought to see—Simon lying on the grass in front of the house, body torn to ribbons, blood flowing like a river as he convulses uncontrollably, red-tinged foam frothing from his mouth.
Izzy kneels beside him, clutching Arina in her left arm as she paws at Simon’s torso with her right. Catherine hovers above them both, gun forgotten, her eyes glued to the scene occurring at her feet with lurid fascination. Corbin and L?nnberg are both frozen in surprise, as are my parents. I use their distraction to bound over to my blood brother, looming over his supine body protectively, nudging Isobel and Arina closer to me with one enormous paw.
When I search for the bond tying us together, the one that is supposed to be as strong as titanium, I can’t find any trace of it. This isn’t like when I was drugged, and my bonds had been muted and almost non-existent. This is so much worse.
“Please, Simon, don’t leave us like this. Come back to us. We need you—Quin needs his brother, I need my mate, and Arina needs her second daddy. Please, wake up!”
The anguished begging falling from my mate’s lips wrenches my gut, and I silently urge Simon, or even Tálstrom, to get up, to move, to shift. I don’t care what he does, as long as he’s alive.
I should have been more careful when making that wish.
Simon’s body blurs as his humanity melts away, reforming into the intimidating and completely mad shape of Tálstrom. His shift is so fast and fluid it would be impressive—if it wasn’t caused by such devastating trauma. The lion stares right through me, no hint of recognition in his eyes as he rolls to his feet almost drunkenly, shoving Izzy into my side as he lurches toward the two lion hybrids. By the time he reaches them, he’s hit his stride and is steady on his feet.
Tálstrom is a silvered blur, moving so fast that it’s only as blood sprays through the air, and Corbin crumples to the ground—in pieces—that any of us realize that Tál is completely unchecked.
There’s nothing left of Corbin’s throat and his head only remains attached thanks to his spine. Blood pumps out from the gaping wound in slowly dissipating spurts, the surrounding flesh shredded and torn. Corbin weakly tries to stem the flow, but he no longer has hands on the ends of his wrist. The lion paws of his hybrid instead lay discarded on the ground. Blood-coated coils snake out of the gaping wound in Corbin’s torso, the organs steaming in the cool morning air.
Tál turns his feral attention to L?nnberg next, his massive claw-tipped paws raking down over the hybrid’s face before tearing into his torso. Each slash reveals white bone—that of the hybrid’s rib cage—before Tál mauls L?nnberg’s lower torso. The shrieks and screams erupting from the hybrid’s ruined face are bloodcurdling, but they don’t last long. They quickly peter out in a wet, choking gurgle.
Silence descends over the yard, a blend of horror, shock, and awe overtaking each of us as we stare at the gruesome scene. The sound of rending flesh and feral snarls, along with the dense, metallic tang of blood permeates the air.
We’re all on edge thanks to the atmosphere of unhinged and unrestrained violence. While I don’t believe that Simon or Tálstrom would ever harm me, Izzy, or Arina, the way Tál is currently behaving makes me believe that neither of them are truly present at the moment.
Apparently done with the shredded remains of both L?nnberg and Corbin, Tál lifts his head, noticing he has an audience. The momentary truce between us all suddenly ends as my parents and Catherine snap back to reality. I brace myself just above the ground, curling my body protectively over Izzy and Arina as the three of them dart toward where we’re standing. Neither of my parents can defeat me, not even when they gang up together on me, but there’s something inside me that prevents me from finishing them off completely. The same with Catherine.
Growing up, I was taught to obey and accede to my parents’ wishes without debate. Somehow, I’d also grown up loathing the idea of ever raising a hand—or paw—to a woman in violence or anger. My mother and Catherine are relatively safe from me, and they both know it.
Tálstrom is an entirely different beast.
Blood coats Tál’s muzzle, clots of gore clumping in his mane from where he’s torn literal chunks out of Corbin and L?nnberg. His massive paws are similarly coated with the crimson fluid, and rivulets of it drip from the gaping wounds littering his hide, loudly pattering onto the ground in the quiet. I wince at the sight, an angry snarl rumbling in my chest as flashes of bone appear beneath the exposed muscle as he moves.
How the FUCK is he still alive?
Tál’s eyes meet mine, a startling clarity appearing in his gaze for a split second. So much pain, anguish, and sorrow fill them before disappearing, feral absence taking the place of such harrowing emotions.
One moment, Tálstrom is rocking slightly on his four paws in front of the eviscerated bodies of Corbin and L?nnberg, the next he’s launching himself forward, aiming directly at where I’ve got my monstrous feline form curled protectively around my mate and daughter. I tuck them farther under my legs, drawing them tightly against my belly in an attempt to protect them from harm. Tálstrom leaps, soaring over my body instead of landing on it. Droplets of blood patter down over me like rain, staining my fur with the remains of two of the men who only cared for their own selfish desires.
Twisting my head to the side, I follow the progress of Tálstrom as he lands between my crouched body and those of my approaching parents. The movement tears open his wounds again, and the scent of Tálstrom’s blood fires up my own parents’ rage and fury. Despite their own obvious injuries, they launch themselves at him, claws extended and mouths gaping.
The impact as they both collide with Tál is so powerful that the shock waves ripple through the air. Brutal thuds and slaps are punctuated by pained yowls, but none of them are leonine in sound. No, they’re all tigrine.
I ignore the brawl going on beside me for a moment, darting my gaze around to try to spot Catherine. While she may be only human at this point in time, she’s already proven to be a sly and dishonorable foe, and I don’t want to give her any opportunity to stab—or in her case, shoot—either Tálstrom or myself in the back.
I find her slowly edging away from us all, fumbling with the gun in her hand. She’s shaking so hard with either fear or fury that her movements are jerky, which does nothing to aid her in reloading her weapon with whatever projectiles she has.
I glare at her and snarl, the sound a low rumble vibrating through the air. Catherine freezes, her eyes wide and staring at where I’m crouched over Izzy and Arina, but a crunch and wet gurgle draws her attention back to the fight between the other cats.
I can’t lie, it makes me turn and look as well.
Eyes glazed over in death, my mother’s tiger has fallen on her side, the once-white fur of her underbelly now stained crimson from the blood pouring out of her eviscerated throat. My father’s tiger dangles from Tálstrom’s jaws, his injured hind leg lying several feet away on the grass, having been torn from his body. Somehow, Tálstrom has managed to crush my father’s tiger’s skull in his jaws, an impressive feat in and of itself. He drops the limp body to the ground, then staggers away from the carnage, each move causing more of his blood to spill to the ground.
I reach for him through our bonds, but they’re gone. There’s nothing left at all, not even a faint scar or trace that they ever existed. Whatever poison was in those darts seems to have worked, and my heart drops as the realization hits me—Catherine has, once again, been the cause of Simon and Tálstrom losing all their bonds. Except this time, he doesn’t have any others there to help stabilize him.
The nauseating sound of bones cracking jerks my attention back to Tálstrom, who is making his way unsteadily toward the only remaining intruder. I pull my own tiger back, needing to be in my human form to help my brother, when another, most welcome sound rolls through the air—tires swiftly making their way up the graveled drive.
Reinforcements have arrived.