Chapter 38
LAINSZ
There was no thought process. I didn’t think at all when I saw the rotten, hideous hag grip Sadie by the throat. I watched Sadie’s boots create furrows in the mud as she was dragged closer to the mouth of the well, and something in me snapped.
Leander and Verne were right behind me, and I knew they had my back, so I leapt across the clearing in wolf form, slamming my whole body into Sadie’s.
The collision rattled through my body, snapping my teeth together.
Hard enough to knock the infuriating woman out of the hag’s grasp, but not to throw the hag back into the well.
I found that out the hard way when long fingernails raked through my fur and punctured the back of my neck. The sudden flash of pain was enough to stun me for a second—stupid, sloppy—and the hag used that second to sink her jagged teeth into my neck.
Her bite burned, and I had to lock my jaws together to trap my yelp, wrestling and bucking against her grip. I managed to rip myself free, but the momentum pulled the hag from the well, and we both hit the ground.
The burn in my neck became a fire, a blaze. It made me weak, and I wasn’t quick enough to stop the hag latching herself on top of me. Trapping me in the dirt. Grinding her teeth, gnashing in my fur and skin and muscle.
I expected the furious growls from my pack, but not the way Sadie yelled my name, more than a hint of her wolf in the cry. It sounded as if she had shifted…
A dark wolf rammed her head into the hag, hard enough that arm bones snapped, with enough brutality that the hag’s head snapped back, her jaws parting to free me. Fuck. Sadie had shifted.
Able to breathe again, even if pain tore like fire down my neck, I climbed to my feet and made a quick assessment of the clearing. The hag was crawling away on all fours, the movement of her body completely unnatural even for a vampire.
Don’t let that bitch escape, I sent down the link to Verne and Leander.
Lainsz, Leander said, horrified. She bit you…
I’m fine, I barked, shaking off the pain and already turning towards the other threats.
Two slayers were bound in ropes that stunk of vampire magic.
Restrained but for how long? Worse: two others burst from the tree line and raced to their tied up friends, one with deep skin and a fierce expression and one golden, but clearly terrified.
Neither attacked us—clearly, they were shit slayers—but they shot wary looks at me and my pack mates.
And Sadie. The golden one's eyes kept returning to Sadie.
A low rumble began to build in my chest before I crushed the life of it. But Sadie had been exposed. Which means no one could leave this clearing alive.