Page 4 of Muted Voices (Broken Ashes #1)

I shrug, “Well, for a few reasons, they still deserve to be treated with respect, and they are not animals.” I practically growl. I have always hated the prejudice humans have against the supes and the fact that they view them as lesser beings who deserve fewer rights; it makes me spitting fucking mad.

Ransom’s eyes are full of intrigue as he asks, “And the second reason?”

“That one is pretty simple. It might not have meant to hurt the person, instinct might have taken over, and it might not have been experienced enough to fight it,” I explain, although I know because of my own instincts that it very much wanted to kill me, in fact, it wanted to hurt me as bad as it could, just because it could.

“Not many humans think that way,” River points out a sadness in his tone that seems so out of place that it makes me frown.

“Most humans are assholes,” I retort quite a matter of fact.

“I can’t argue with you there,” River agrees.

Deciding that the atmosphere has gotten a little bit too melancholy, I tease, “Wow, I think I should be offended.”

River’s eyes widen dramatically as he practically stumbles over his own feet in a rush to apologise, and I hear both Griffith and Ransom try to stifle their laughs from where they’re walking next to me.

“No, no. I didn’t mean you. You’re lovely. Well, I mean, not in a creepy way, but in a complimentary way. I really didn’t mean to offend you. I’m so sorry,” he rambles, and as he carries on rambling, my eyes widen in shock at the sheer amount of words coming out of his mouth.

Holding my hands up in the hopes that it might stop him, I say, “Whoa, whoa. It’s alright; I was messing with you. Shit, man, take a breath.”

My words send Griffith and Ransom into booming laughter as they can no longer hold in their amusement, and while Ransom’s laugh is long and rich, Griffith just lets out one short burst of laughter, gaining surprised looks from the other two.

When I glance over at him, he’s smiling, and the change it has on his face makes him seem younger and more carefree; this means that I, of course, can’t keep my mouth shut, and I blurt out, “Ha! I knew you had it in you. Fucking gorgeous smile you’ve got there, my giant friend.”

Griffith’s eyes widen slightly, but I’m grateful that my words don’t immediately make him drop his smile; it stays for a moment longer before disappearing again.

“You should come with a warning,” Ransom mutters.

I grin at him, proud and not wanting him to clarify what that means, I retort, “You know, I have always thought that, but short of walking around with a label on my head, there’s not really much that I could do.”

“That wasn’t meant as an insult,” Ransom reassures me.

“Oh, I know. I didn’t take it that way.” I reply and then turn back to a still, slightly shocked Griffith, his smile now gone, “Don’t worry, you're sexy without the smile as well.”

“Alright, Neith,” River chuckles, “maybe we should change the subject before Griffith starts blushing.”

Griffith grumbles under his breath before he replies, “I do not blush.”

“Sure you don’t,” I tease, earning a growl that makes my smile grow even bigger.

“You’re a weird one,” River starts watching me closely.

“And you sure know how to give a girl compliments,” I retort with a teasing smile, which he thankfully understands this time and doesn’t go on a rambling tagent trying to apologise.

He flips me the bird, which I reply to in kind, and then says, “What I meant by that is that usually humans are wary around us, and yet you don’t seem to be at all. You’re quite happy to poke and prod Griffith and most people wouldn’t, just from the sheer size of him. Yet, you smiled like you were amused when you managed to make him growl.”

It seems that I am so strangely comfortable around these men that I’ve shown a bit too much of the real me, not enough to get me in trouble but enough to make them curious, and I don’t want them to get too curious. So, once again, I decide to answer somewhat honestly.

“My best friend when we were growing up was supernatural, and I spent a lot of time with his family,” I explain, thinking of Van with the usual pang of sadness and regret, “I don’t think I will ever have the usual level of fear that most humans get around supes, purely because of that.”

And for a couple of other reasons as well, but that would be far too complicated to explain and isn’t something that I wish to share with relative strangers on a dark road in the middle of nowhere.

River watches me closely and nods, “Yeah, that would explain it. Griffith is still a scary motherfucker though.”

I chuckle, looking up at a still frowning Griffith, and reply, “Nah, he’s just a big teddy bear. He just wants you to think he’s a scary motherfucker.”

Shocking the absolute shit out of me, which is a nasty saying if you really think about it; by the way, Griffith glances down at me out of the corner of his eye and winks at me, the corner of his lips tilting up into a tiny smirk.

My smile is huge, and I feel like I’ve been let in on a secret that no one knows; it feels pretty fucking amazing.

“Er, is this the way you walk home?” Ransom suddenly asks, the laidback air gone from around him.

Looking around just to make sure that I haven’t led them into a field while I was distracted, which has happened more than I’d care to admit, I reply, “Yeah, this is the way home.”

The guys share a look as River asks, “Are there many houses out here?”

“Only a few,” I reply casually.

I know they’re fishing for information, but I didn’t realise how far we actually managed to walk, and we’re getting close to the stretch of road where I always feel uneasy and where the wolf shifter attacked me, which means I need to stay on guard. I don’t know how much information the guys got from this mysterious source, and I don’t know whether they know that it’s this specific spot that someone got attacked or if they just know that it’s along this stretch of road and that’s why they’ve gotten all serious again.

River is still walking backward and crosses the line before the rest of us follow quickly after; a shiver of apprehension runs down my spine as the feeling of uneasiness that I usually get here blazes into a full-blown danger alert.

“Neith, stay between us, please; this is where the woman was attacked,” Ransom says quietly, his fingers gently sparking with magic as his eyes glow ever so slightly.

So he’s a warlock then, and a fucking powerful one too. He used absolutely no incantations or trigger words, then; that’s pretty impressive.

I do as I’m asked just because I really don’t want to get eaten by a fucking shifter today, or any day for that matter, but especially not today. Plus, I’m intrigued to see what these guys are made of and if they’re going to let me see their supernatural sides because I always love that and although I know that they’re all powerful and River is most likely a shifter of some kind I don’t know for sure what they are, and I am curious as hell.

I have to admit that I’m at a loss for what River could possibly be when one of his hand's lights with purple and blue flames and his other one sparks with lightening; I would be tempted to say that he was an elemental, but when I think about it, that doesn’t seem right. I am insanely curious, and I barely stop myself from asking him; I mean, we are in a life or death situation.

Instead, I try to distract myself from my question as I glance at Griffith to see if I can guess what he is. I get a hint of fangs, big fangs before they disappear again, and his skin ripples. Frustratingly, I have no fucking idea what he is, either.

“Whatever happens, Neith, we need you to stay calm and don’t run,” Ransom tells me firmly.

I roll my eyes and don’t catch my words before I reply, “Duh, what do you think I am, new? I’m hardly going to run and entice the Hunt in the growly fucker. This isn’t the kind of predator and prey game I like to play; my version is less deadly and more naked.”

As soon as my brain catches up with my words, I sigh heavily; for fuck sake, Neith, you really should learn to shut the fuck up.

Predictably they all freeze, River stumbles and nearly ends up on his ass, Ransom’s head whips toward me, shocked heat in his gaze and Griffth growls quietly, his eyes glowing.

Well, I have to admit, that’s the first time my accidental words have caused that reaction. They clearly suddenly remember that I’m human because they immediately tamper down their reactions. Which makes me sad, for some fucking reason, that I can’t quite put my finger on and decide for my own sanity not to dwell on.

“Well, okay then,” River mutters, gaining confidence again and watching me even more astutely than before.

“You might want to be careful who you say that to Neith,” Ransom warns, “someone might take you up on it.”

My clit twitches at the heat he’s trying to hide in his words, and I can’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth, “Is that a promise?”

Thankfully, before anyone can reply to my runaway mouth that would clearly like to run away all over all three of them, we hear a low and menacing growl.

Okay, so maybe thankfully was the wrong choice of words. The guys are surrounding me within seconds, their backs to me as more of their supernatural sides make an appearance. River shocks the shit out of me when he looks over his shoulder, winks, and then transforms within a split second into a goddamned mother fucking Kitsune. I don’t know much about them; I know they’re rare as hell, and I know that there has never been one with more than six tails.

Which is why despite the situation I can’t help but mutter, “Nine, fucking nine.”

River’s Kitsune head whips around to face me, momentary panic on his face before he looks at his tails, and then his eyebrows dip in confusion instead before we hear the wolf shifter growl again, and he turns his head back to face out.

“What did you just say?” Ransom almost demands.

It’s then that I realise I’ve seen something that I shouldn’t, and when I look at River’s tails now, I can see that the three that I can see, that I shouldn’t be able to, are faint and glowing slightly. Either he hasn’t got them yet, he lost them, or they’ve been hidden. Kitsune tails are worth a fucking fortune, and it wouldn’t surprise if he lost a few. The only reason why I think that’s not the case is that he would be in constant, unbearable pain. It’s like a wound that never heals when a Kitsune loses one tail, and he would’ve lost three.

A nine-tailed Kitsune isn’t just rare; it doesn’t exist, so I would be willing to bet that he’s somehow managed to hide his extra tails. Why I can see them is a mystery, and I’ll just add it to the weird supernatural but not supernatural because I’m human, things that I can do that I shouldn’t be able to.

Ransom doesn’t bother waiting for me to answer him, which is a damn good job because I couldn’t answer him anyway, and I’d have to lie, and knowing my luck one of them can probably tell when someone is lying or not, and then my sexy new friends become my sexy deadly friends, and I really don’t want to ruin any future alone time with my B.O.B and images of them.

Kitsune’s are surprisingly big, and I can only just see through River’s pointy-tipped red and orange ears; that’s enough to be able to see the approaching wolf shifter, whose eyes are focused on me.

Oh yeah, he wants a second bite out of me; I narrow my eyes; bring it you hairy ballbag.

Without warning, the shifter lunges, and River rushes forward to meet it head-on as Griffith, in all his gargoyle glory, flies past me as well.

A fucking gargoyle!

I can already sense a theme with the guys; they’re all really fucking rare, like they shouldn’t really exist rare. I’m ridiculously impressed and strangely turned on, but we’re not going to look too much into that last one.

“Stay here, please,” Ransom tells me, hanging back, his eyes almost pleading that I do what he asked.

“You got it. I have no desire to go up against a shifter. Thank you very much,” I reply happily.

He looks at me like I’m some kind of complex puzzle that he can’t work out, and I realise that most humans, or even supes, would be terrified in this situation, and I’m not. I couldn’t even fake it because he’d be able to pick up on the fear or the lack of fear and most likely question me about it or assume that I was working with the shifter or something else as equally insane.

Thankfully, he’s got no time to say anything else or question me as the shifter seems to double his attack and launches River across the cracked asphalt. I only have a second to be fearful that he’s actually hurt because he quickly hops back up, shakes his fur, and then jumps straight back into the fray, his happy yip signaling just how much he’s enjoying himself.

Griffith is circling the shifter from the sky as he dive-bombs it every now and again. From the looks of it, he’s trying to get a good grip on it so he can knock it out or put it down. A rogue shifter that attacks a human unprovoked is put to death, they say, unless there’s a very good provable reason, but rarely have I seen any evidence on the shifter's behalf genuinely being taken into account.

I can feel the intent coming off this shifter. I don’t know how, but I know that he’s intent on killing them and then killing me. There is no mistake and no other reason than the fact that he wants to kill us, and that’s it.

He’s a tricky fucker too, the guys can’t seem to get to him, and they’ve had a few close calls with the teeth and claws now, it won’t kill them or turn them, but it will hurt substantially more than most other things would. He’s also got a surprising amount of stamina considering that he’s not tired yet and is fighting so many strong supernaturals who are trying to take him down without killing him, which I’m assuming is the only reason that he’s still alive.

Either that, or he’s on something that he shouldn’t be. There are drugs out there that are explicitly made for shifters and different kinds of supernaturals, too. Something that a wolf shifter can take and get a serious high off, a dragon could take and feel no effects whatsoever, or a fae could take and it could kill them; it’s extremely risky as drugs are with humans, but the effect of a PCP like drug on a shifter who is already incredibly strong can be catastrophic and deadly.

The more I think about it and study the wolf, moving slowly so that I can get a better look at him while they fight, the more confident I am that he’s under the influence of something, whether that’s a spell or drug remains to be seen but this is the second time now that he’s tried to kill me and there’s no mistaking the fact that he wants to kill me specifically, and the guys are just a bonus. He’s fighting his way through them trying to get to me, and I’d be curious about his motives if it weren’t for the fact that he scratched me and, therefore, marked me yesterday, and that means that his instincts insist that he kills me.

The guys are magnificent when they fight, and I’m actually genuinely enjoying watching them, that is until the shifter becomes uncontrollable, enraged because he hasn’t been able to kill any of them, and his efforts to hurt them increase. He’s definitely on something, that much is obvious as he jumps, grabs Griffith’s ankle and swings him around before letting him go, the force of the throw making Griffith tumble through the air, unable to find his balance and catch the wind with his wings, making him smash into the floor with a hard thump, he groans, and I swear that I hear something snap as he lands, and that assumption is given traction when he tries to get up and fails, falling back down again.

He's a strong supe, so he should heal a lot quicker than a human would, but how quickly all depends on how badly he’s broken and if it’s more than one bone that he’s broken.

Judging by how much he’s struggling to get up, it’s a fairly bad break.

My attention goes to the others as he charges Ransom, knocking him over and making Ransom’s head smack on the floor, dazing him, although not knocking him out completely. Terror floods me as the wolf’s jaws head straight for Ransom’s neck, intent on tearing out his jugular. Thankfully, before he can get too close, he’s knocked off of Ransom by River; the wolf is so fired up that he instantly spins, swiping out and catching River’s flank, making him howl in pain.

My heart jumps into my throat.