Chapter 21 What the Moon Demands #2
Alaric howled. Pain and defiance and the stubborn refusal to die that seemed written into every wolf's bones.
I moved without thinking.
The silver blade cleared its sheath as the fourth corrupted wolf turned toward me. Its eyes fixed on my throat, my chest, the places where blood ran closest to the surface. It lunged, and I brought the blade up, felt the impact jar through my arms as it impaled itself on silver.
It screamed. A sound no living thing should make.
Two more emerged from the tree line.
Alaric was still fighting. Three corrupted wolves circling him now, taking turns darting in to bite and retreat.
His beautiful dark fur was soaked with black blood and his own red.
One of his back legs was dragging, torn nearly to the bone.
But he kept fighting. Kept killing. Kept buying me time to run.
I didn't run.
The fifth corrupted wolf wasn't aiming for me.
It was aiming for Alaric.
He was down. I hadn't seen it happen, too focused on the blade in my hands and the thing dissolving in front of me, but somewhere in the chaos one of them had gotten past his guard.
He was on his knees, blood pouring from a wound in his side, trying to get up and failing.
His wolf was fading, fur receding in patches, the shift breaking apart under the weight of too much damage.
The wolf lunged for his throat.
I moved without thinking.
My body slammed into Alaric's, knocked him sideways, put myself between him and the thing that wanted to kill him.
Jaws meant for his neck closed on my leg instead.
Claws raked through denim into muscle, and I went down hard.
Pain exploded white-hot through my calf.
Blood soaked through torn fabric, spreading across frozen ground in patterns that looked almost ritual.
“Michael!” Alaric's voice, ragged with horror. “What the fuck are you—”
The wolf released my leg. Drew back. And I saw the others emerging from the tree line. Four more. Five. All of them focused on us now, on the blood spreading beneath me, on the wounded wolf trying to drag himself upright and the stupid human who'd just made himself the easier target.
They circled. Patient. Hungry. Taking their time because they knew we couldn't run. Couldn't fight. Could only wait for the end.
I closed my eyes.
And something spoke.
Child of the old blood.
The voice was everywhere. In my bones. In my blood. In the spaces between heartbeats where time stretched thin enough to see through.
You carry what was forgotten. What was promised. What was owed.
The warmth in my hands ignited. Not gradually. Not gently. It roared up through my arms, through my chest, through every cell of my body like I'd swallowed lightning and it was trying to get out.
Rise.
The world went white.
Silver-green light erupted from my palms. Not like a flashlight.
Not like anything I'd ever seen. This was liquid moonlight made solid, a force that poured out of me with the weight of centuries, with the echo of voices I almost recognized, with power that tasted like my grandmother's stories about stars and the sea and things that watched from the dark.
The corrupted wolves didn't have time to scream.
The light hit them like a wave. Like a cleansing fire. Like judgment rendered in silver and salt. They flew backward, bodies twisting, dissolving before they touched the ground. Shadow and rot and the last desperate shrieks of things that had been dead long before I killed them.
But the power wasn't done with me.
It kept pouring out. Kept building. The light spread from my hands, traced lines across the frozen ground that glowed like veins of molten silver.
It reached the corrupted ward stone and wrapped around it like healing hands, like prayer made visible, like something that had been waiting a very long time to be asked.
The corruption screamed.
I felt it more than heard it. That hungry, patient wrongness recoiling from the light, fighting against the cleansing, trying desperately to hold onto the magic it had been poisoning for years.
Dark threads stretched and thinned and finally snapped, dissolving into the same shadow-rot that had consumed the wolves.
Well done, the voice whispered.
My vision went gray at the edges. My legs buckled. The frozen ground came up to meet me, and I didn't have the strength to catch myself.
“Michael!” Alaric caught me before I hit the dirt. His hands were shaking, his face pale beneath the blood and grime. “Michael, look at me. Stay conscious.”
His face swam in and out of focus, streaked with blood and dirt and something that looked almost like fear.
I touched my face. My fingers came away wet. Crimson.
“That's probably bad.”
“You think?” He was pulling off his shirt, pressing it against the wound on my leg, his hands shaking badly enough that he had to try three times to tie a proper pressure bandage. “You stupid, brave, idiotic human. You threw yourself in front of me. Why the hell would you do that?”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“It was a terrible idea.” But his voice broke on the words, and when he lifted me, his arms were gentle. Careful. Like I was something worth protecting. “The corruption's in your blood now. I can smell it. If we don't get you to Gideon—”
He didn't finish. Didn't need to.
The forest blurred around us as he ran. Human form but moving with wolf speed, branches whipping past, his breath coming in harsh gasps that said he was pushing himself past any reasonable limit.
“Alaric.” My voice was barely a whisper. “Your side. You're hurt.”
“I've had worse.”
“You're going to make it worse carrying me.”
“Then I'll make it worse.” His arms tightened around me. “You just saved my life. You think I'm leaving you in that clearing after that?” A sound escaped him. Half laugh, half sob. “Daniel would never forgive me. And I'd never forgive myself either, so shut up and let me return the favor.”
The darkness was creeping in now. That gray fog at the edges of my vision spreading inward, turning the world soft and distant and unreal. I could feel the corruption in my wounds, feel it trying to reach my heart, fighting against whatever the moonlight had done to push it back.
“Just stay with me, okay? Stay conscious. Talk to me.” Alaric's voice cracked.
“About what?”
“Anything. I don't care. Tell me about Daniel. Tell me why you'd throw yourself in front of a wolf for someone who's been nothing but an asshole to you.”
“You're pack. Pack protects pack. Isn't that what Daniel says?”
Alaric was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was rough. Thick.
“Yeah,” he said. “That's what he says.”
So I kept talking. About Anna. About the first time I saw her, laughing in a crowded room, and knew with absolute certainty that I would love her until I died.
About Nate as a baby, how he never cried, just watched the world with those serious eyes like he was cataloging everything for later use.
About Daniel, the way he made me feel safe for the first time since Anna's death, the way his hands felt on my skin, the way I wanted things with him I hadn't let myself want in years.
Alaric listened. Kept running. Kept his arms locked around me like he could hold me in the world through sheer stubborn refusal to let go.
“You really love him,” he said finally. “Daniel. I can hear it in your voice.”
“Yeah. I really do.”
“Then don't die.” His arms tightened. “Because watching him grieve another person he loves would kill him. And after what you just did for me...” His voice broke completely. “I'm not letting that happen. Not on my watch.”
The garage appeared through the trees. Gideon's place, with its smell of motor oil and hidden magic and the faint hum of wards that still held strong.
Alaric kicked the door open.
“Gideon! GIDEON!”
Gideon was there before the echoes died. Moving with speed that shouldn't have been possible for someone his age, taking one look at me and going pale.
“What happened?”
“Corrupted rogues.” Alaric laid me on the cot in the back room, and his hands were shaking so badly he could barely let go. “He fought them off. Silver-green light, poured out of him like moonlight. But the wounds are tainted. I can smell it. Gideon, I can smell the corruption in his blood.”
Gideon's hands pressed against my leg. Golden light flared, and pain ripped through me like someone had poured acid into the wound.
I screamed.
“Hold him down,” Gideon said. “This is going to get worse before it gets better.”
Alaric's weight settled across my chest. His hands gripped my shoulders. And somewhere in the haze of agony and fear and fading consciousness, I heard him say something that cracked my heart wide open.
“I've got you, Harrington. I've got you. You're pack now, whether you wanted it or not. And pack doesn't let pack die.”
Time became meaningless.
Pain and light and voices that swam in and out of comprehension.
Gideon working steadily, golden power flowing from his hands, burning corruption back every time it tried to advance.
The garage lights flickered. Burst. Left us in darkness broken only by moonlight that shouldn't have been visible through the afternoon clouds.
“The corruption's affecting reality,” Gideon said from somewhere far away. “It's not just in his body anymore. It's bleeding into the space around him.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means his awakening was violent. Too much power, too fast, with no training to channel it.” Gideon's voice went grim. “The moonlight saved him, but it also marked him. He's not just human anymore, Alaric. He's something else now. Something the corruption wants.”
“Can you stop it?”
“I can slow it down. But to stop it completely, I need an Alpha. Daniel's the only one who can burn this out of him without killing him in the process.”
Alaric's hand found mine. Rough. Calloused. Holding on like he could anchor me to the world through sheer force of will.
“Hey. Harrington. Michael. Stay with me.”
“Trying.” The word came out slurred. Wet. “Everything's... gray.”
The moonlight pooled in my hands. Warm and present and absolutely certain that I wasn't done yet. It pulsed in time with my heartbeat, silver-green threads winding through my veins, fighting the corruption from the inside while Gideon fought it from without.
I closed my eyes and focused on breathing.
In. Out. In. Out.