Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Irefuse to cower.
Refuse to back down if Grayson decides to use those claws on me. I hold my ground with an unsteady heart and hands shaking. With fear and regret.
This isn’t the way I thought it would go.
He towers over me with saliva dripping from his maw and reaches up, bringing his claws down. They drop steadily and without hurry, tearing through thickened air, through frozen water, through cement.
My shoulders hunch forward but I hold his gaze.
“I’m sorry, Grayson.”
The whispered apology leaves my lips and an Ironwood wolf at my side leaps away from an attacker in slow motion.
I’m sorry we didn’t have more time.
I’m not ready to lose him.
I’m not ready to die.
We’d come to an understanding, both monsters.
Time catches up to us and I return to my body and the heaving sob as Grayson’s claws connect.
They bury themselves in the shoulder of another moon-mad wolf instead of my skull. One I hadn’t heard sneak up behind me.
The creature screeches and snaps its teeth at Grayson, tearing itself free of him.
Grayson yanks his arms back, dragging the creature with him, and I jump out of their path, and stumble on the way down when I lose my balance. My joints scream when I hit, bones jamming together on impact.
There’s no time to indulge in pain.
He throws the creature off and roars through his lunge to tear out its throat.
The other moon-mad wolf falls still and Grayson stands, working his claws, blood dripping from his teeth.
His eyes flash across me before he drops to all fours and leaps past me, attacking another one of the moon-mad who’d gotten close.
My breathing hasn’t evened out. Will I ever breathe steadily again?
Because it looks like he’s fighting with me, at my side. Hope, a horrible and delicate thing, flares to life. Maybe he’s not fully gone.
Maybe a miracle will land in my lap and Grayson will come back to me.
I stow the thought, the hope, and race after him, ignoring the dizziness spinning my head.
Bending to grab the makeshift bat on the way, I bludgeon past several moon-mad wolves on their knees.
The pack races around us, quick to scurry out of Grayson’s way. He’s the bulldozer to the center of the room, the wrecking ball making sure none of the others get within a few inches of me.
Until one does.
Teeth bared, I face the threat but this one is smaller, quicker than the rest.
When it drags its claws across my already injured thigh, pain sends my vision into a white haze.
The hit slices through muscles and heat sizzles in the wake of the wound, an agony around my leg.
White fades into black along the edges and I lift the wood, swinging it.
I make contact but the wolf heaves itself on top of me and takes us to the floor.
I’m going to puke.
I’m going to die.
I teeter between the eventualities and the wolf snaps for my face. A yip punctures its throat and its legs still shredding the air as it is yanked off me by Grayson’s superior strength.
I roll out of the way and catch myself on my elbows. Using the ground for support, I push myself to my knees, gritting down when they threaten to collapse.
Someone howls.
Glancing over my shoulder, Grayson fills my vision as he tosses the smaller moon-mad creature aside. Then I see a flash of a familiar pelt.
Jrue dashes past us, circling wide to avoid Grayson. His expression is clear even as a wolf, like he can’t believe a creature like that is protecting me.
Our gazes lock for a fraction of a second and I let him see me, fully. The face of a woman who could have run and didn’t.
Then Jrue takes off with claws curling over carnage and I refuse to follow where he went.
Pain and heat and voices rush over me. I push off the floor and brace against the wall.
My leg refuses to hold me.
I jump out of the way when the smaller moon-mad throws itself at Grayson, who catches it with a flash of fangs. His bulk blocks the rest of the room from entering our circle, like the boundaries of it are for some kind of sacred sacrifice.
I lean on the wood instead of using it as a weapon, limping toward the epicenter.
By the time we’ve made it through the throng, my heart races too fast and I’m covered in sweat. The madness.
I’m going down.
Grayson blocks another attack and I put my full weight on my good leg and swing. My arms shake so the hit lacks the power to bring the other wolf down.
It snarls at me and stands to its full height, fur and shadows dripping off its muscles.
It’s harder to exist when I catch a glimpse of Dad just beyond. At the dead center of the room.
Right where I thought he’d be.
Bodies of the fallen surround him and shift back to human with each death.
He fights as the largest wolf in the room but that also makes him a target.
“Dad!”
The call splinters the wolf’s attention. It glances over its shoulder and I bring the wood up underneath its jaw, snapping bone. It growls and clutches his skull, giving me enough time to dart around it.
Dart is generous.
I walked away from my family, washing my hands of this pack and his crap. Now everything inside of me aches to get to him.
“Grayson, we have to help Dad!” I yell out in hopes it will make a difference, but Grayson shakes his head, snapping the neck of the wolf he’d bitten.
He lifts higher on his feet, slow enough to cause another gut-wrenching wave of anxiety, and I stop. My trembling fingers curl around the wood before he cranes his head to the side and drops to all fours again, bounding off toward another moon-mad wolf.
There are dozens of them and all closing ranks around my father. He’s their target.
If Mom got Holly out, then I don’t have to worry about them. I have to focus on him.
No matter what happened, he’s still my dad.
Hobbling, I crack the wood against anyone who stands in my way. Which pisses them off more often than it does any damage.
Another moon-mad wolf fixes me with glowing red eyes, leaving skin and fur a trail on the floor in its wake.
Is there any way to come back from this? Once the damage is done?
There has to be.
These creatures were all people. Shifters. It’s not their fault any more than it’s mine.
Where does this end?
There’s no headway made between my pack and the dozens of moon-mad. But I keep Dad locked in my sight and push forward, swinging the bat until my muscles screech in protest and my ruined leg gives out.
The ragged whispers of voices circle the inside of my skull like vultures.
So close.
I’m so close.
You’re not strong enough to take on these wolves as a human.
Sweat burns when it drips into my eyes and I duck, avoiding the long-reaching swipe of claws. No, I’m not strong enough and I know it. But Grayson is right there leaving a trail of bodies behind him, and Dad is ahead.
The more Grayson fights, the harder it is to recognize the boy I’d lost inside of him. He loses more skin, his roars sharp and guttural and heartbreaking.
“Dad!” I reach my father, wondering if he’ll accept me or snap his teeth.
His eyes widen and his gaze lands on something past me. A low whine tears free and he jumps forward and nudges me out of the way in the same beat, forcing me behind him where my overworked body threatens to give out.
I drop, screeching when my injured leg falls on something sharp. But there’s Grayson and Dad, staring at each other, one heartbeat spanning into the next. Mine stops entirely.
Dad growls and his hackles lift, his tail a wide bristle of threat. He lifts a leg and takes a step toward his enemy.
My leg won’t move.
I try to drag it up, to move myself, to get between them. “No, Dad. No. He’s helping me. He’s protecting me!”
Dad doesn’t know Grayson is on our side. Like before, he doesn’t hear me, or the words don’t penetrate.
He doesn’t understand—
Dad bellows out a warning but leaps at the same time, Grayson’s arms opening wide to grab his opponent midair. Or accepting the end.
They both fall when Dad’s hit takes Grayson to the ground. The floor vibrates with the impact before Grayson rolls and lands on top of Dad.
My father kicks up.
His back claws shred through Grayson’s stomach hard enough to open the skin like a split pinata.
It’s terror like I’ve never known. An ache. A calling.
An inevitability.
The scream is inside my head but it’s everywhere.
Grayson howls in pain and lurches to his side before pinning burning coal-red eyes on Dad.
I push toward them, dragging myself on my stomach.
Dad snaps, makes contact. Severs tendons.
Grayson shoves Dad aside and angles on his arm to rise but the lines in his stomach flap open. Blood and gore rush from the wounds.
Dad lifts his hackles higher and his keen gaze marks every point of weakness.
Not Grayson.
Ignoring the pain, I push up to a crouch, my leg shaking and pooling blood. I’m exhausted. There has to be an end to this. To the curse and the violence and the loss.
I have to have a chance to save him. It will be one of the first good things I’ve ever done, for me.
For him.
Losing him isn’t an option.
Dad snaps again then tenses, hunched and ready. Grayson is unsteady on his feet.
So I jump between them. Eyes open.
An ache spreads from my heart through to the tips of my fingers. A droning howl in my head blocks out the rest of the room and the fighting. My insides go fluid, then tense, hot and coiled and warping in unnatural ways before I hit the ground again.
The pain is gone. So are the whispers, and the silence stretches so vast it hurts.
I try to spread my arms to block Dad from making contact with Grayson, but there are no arms to spread.
Nothing but silken white fur thickening with the passing seconds.
Then the first splatters of pain, the cuts in my face and my jaw cracking and lengthening with a growl. My eyesight sharpens, sense of smell keen enough to churn my stomach at the reek of decay and spoiling blood.
But I lock my eyes on my father and step closer, claws lengthening, digging into the wooden floor and leaving holes. Evidence.
My wolf seats herself firmly in my head and in my chest and we move together as one, taller than Dad. Larger than Grayson.
I catch a glimpse of my reflection in Dad’s eyes, the enormous white wolf.
An alpha.
Grayson moans behind me and a dull thud spreads like ripples in a pond when he collapses.
This ends now.
Dad breaks eye contact first, glancing toward Grayson like there’s any chance in cold hell I’ll let him get past me.
I twist my head to track the movement and my growl is louder. An impossible sound to ignore, to the point where other members of the pack closest to us pause their frantic fights.
Even the moon-mad pause with an uneasy fascination. Whatever happened snagged their attention.
I recognize Jrue with the darker stripe of chestnut fur along his spine. His friends surround him, limping and battered.
If any of them come for Grayson, I’ll show them exactly what has been hidden in my blood all these years.
A sense of rightness settles and I bare my teeth, a gesture of dominance.
There’s no going back.
There’s no going forward unless Dad makes the right choice, because my wolf and I both know how this will end if he doesn’t.
I stare down at him and can see each individual strand of fur on his muzzle with my enhanced vision.
Seconds tick by before he deflates, his shoulders slumping forward. Slowly he bends his legs and settles before rolling onto his side to bare his stomach. Showing me the exact spot where he’d tried to tear into Grayson.
Forced to submit to me.
It takes human me much longer to understand the adjustment in dynamics.
My wolf isn’t sated yet, nose crinkling, senses spanning the room and taking in every erratic heartbeat we’re now claiming as our own. Including those moon-mad creatures still alive.
Shock ripples through the crowd.
It’s an energetic change in the air I pick up like a cloud passing over the sun.
I lift my paw from the ground, stepping toward Dad, to accept his surrender, then a yelp at the door fractures my attention.
“Holy shit, this is going to be harder than I thought.” RJ’s sarcasm bleeds through her concern before a blast of her power takes the remaining moon-mad wolves down.
A chilling breeze from the ruined doorway heralds the arrival of the vampires. Lacey and Colt use their swords against any of the foolish creatures who dare to stand against them.
My heart gives out, my legs demanding to do the same.
“Looks like we’re a little too late to help with the fight.” Aimee picks her way gingerly over dead bodies in her path.
“We’re not late,” RJ corrects. “We’re right on time because we have the cure.”
Her gaze scours the crowd and skips me entirely.
I cast a final deadly look at my father, peeling my lips up in a snarl before breaking away and slinking toward Grayson.
His eyes have dulled, a haze falling over them as he rests on his side, breathing heavily. I nudge him with my nose and some unnamable instincts assuring me he won’t attack.
Then I settle at his side and bark at the witches to grab their attention.
Aimee is the first to realize who I am, what’s happened. Her eyes go marble round and she huffs out a laugh. “Mandi? Damn!”
“What? Who is…Mandi shifted!” RJ claps her hands and runs toward us while the vampires secure the rest of the room. “It’s about time.”
Aimee helps inject the moon-mad wolves to quash the last of the fighting while RJ heads my way.
She takes one awed look at me before drawing a syringe from the pocket of her jacket.
“I have the cure. It’s time for you to heal, buddy. This should be exactly what you need. And if it works the way we think it will, then you won’t be alone.”
She jabs the needle into Grayson’s neck and pushes the plunger down, sending the vile-looking green liquid inside straight into his veins.
My focus stays on him when he collapses. I curl around him, impervious to his heat, my own body no longer feeling any of the impacts of the curse after my change. And with my eyes closing, I let out a huff, melding myself to him.
It’s all going to be okay.
The survivors will be cured, and the Ironwood pack will be in an uproar until Dad and I have our next reckoning.
But…
I curl tighter against Grayson as a shudder passes through his unconscious form.
He’s alive. The others have a chance at a life now, free from curses and wars and bloodshed in the guise of rightness. We have a cure.
I’m free.