Page 243

My eyes shot up to see a transformed Noah hunched over me. His lips were pulled back from his teeth, becoming bigger, sharper somehow.

“Now, Flick!” he hissed, picking me up and shoving me when I didn’t move fast enough. His body transformed from long and lean to somehow bestial as he stood before me.

“You’ve gotta get back to the watering hole. Get to the boys and don’t look back.”

And that was the last thing he said before transforming into a perfectly white giant wolf.

I hadn’t had time to really process the Tirian form when they’d first shown it to me, having just woken up from a mini coma, but I got to now. Because not one but two stood before me. Down the path was a semi familiar sight—a black wolf sitting there panting, its red eyes glowing like hell fire.

Is that you? I asked my beast.

No, and you need to do what your mate says and run , came her terse reply. There is nothing good for you here, only pain and death.

What?! You’ve got to be shitting me. That’s just a dog.

A really big dog that was padding closer with every second, whose eyes burned into mine, whose muzzle wrinkled up to show its very white teeth. Who spoke to me, mind to mind, as I stood there like a bloody stunned mullet.

We’re coming for you, Felicity , it said, the voice inside my head the sound of animals shrieking and houses burning, of whimpers of pain and sadistic smiles. And that boy of yours. Of ours, really. We’ll transform him from that soft little creature…

I was treated to a rapid flicker of images, some stuttering, showing the same few seconds over and over in a loop.

Kade with a transformed Rick, his hair close-cropped, a large squarish scar on the side of his head.

Kade screamed at the start, trying to get away from Rick and back to me, then he just screamed.

My answering one was caught in my throat, the muscles as frozen as my body’s, unable to let it out nor let oxygen in.

Rick brought him animals, the cuter and fluffier the better, his grin growing as they wagged their pathetic little tails or arched their backs, expecting to be treated well.

They were quickly disabused of that. They screamed, Kade screamed, everyone did but Rick, who sliced them up with a methodical interest in making them hurt as much as possible.

What had been a petty tyranny with me had bloomed into so much more.

It continued, on and on, until my eyes ached from watching it, until Kade’s screams stopped and he became a dead-eyed nothingness that transformed when Rick put an older Kade’s hand around the knife handle.

It was the long howl that woke me from my nightmare, my vision snapping to the present day to see the moment the black wolf dropped down into a crouch, right as Noah lifted his head to send up the howl.

“No…” I whispered, that old habit of keeping my cries to myself for fear of being heard as easy to slip into as an old pair of shoes. He was going to take it all away. He couldn’t let me go, let me find happiness, give my son everything I’d hoped for. He was going to come and keep on coming.

“NO!” I shrieked as the black wolf leapt.

I heard the sound of footfalls behind me but couldn’t look away as the black wolf’s jaws closed around Noah’s beast’s neck.

Slamming him down to the ground close enough I could feel the impact, the black beast straddled the white wolf’s body and then thrashed his head, tearing at his throat.

Blood bloomed obscenely on the white fur, but he refused to cry out, Noah’s whole body bucking and writhing as he struggled to throw him off.

Then a massive black beast, so much bigger than any of them, slammed into the red-eyed wolf’s side and sent it spinning, a grey and a white one following hot on its heels.

Noah struggled to his feet, the movement an ugly combination of scrabbles and leg waving, but he got up, head hanging low and blood dripping with frightening regularity on the thirsty soil.

“No, Noah,” I pleaded, reaching out and touching his wisping fur when he turned to join the fight, now a scrambling, snarling mass of animals. “No, you’ve done enough.”

But he whined, pressing his nose into my palm, and then started to run towards the fray.

You stupid fucking bitch!

The echo of David’s words smashed into me as I just stood there, my eyes blurring with tears, but nothing could take the brutal sound of animals killing each other away.

You stand here while they die.

He’s coming for Kade, and you can do nothing.

They’re fighting for you. You. What a fucking waste.

You’ll never escape him. Never. All of this has been just a pretty interlude, but he’s gonna strike so much harder for escaping him.

Enough! my beast snarled. You let the beasts in your mind tear you in two while he does the same to your mates! We are strong.

No.

We will tear the interloper in two!

No.

He threatens the cub, the pack. Our strength comes from our number.

And as if she was sick of talking to insensible me, I felt myself shoved to one side.

My body grew hot, so very hot for a moment, burning until I screamed, but what came out was not from a human throat.

We howled, to alert those around of the danger, to throw our spite in the interloper’s teeth.

Teeth that were wrapped around the throat of one of my mates and closing inexorably, despite the others tearing chunks from him.

My paws struck the ground hard, the powerful muscles of my haunches coiling which sent us sailing forward, tearing at the earth as I went and building up speed to a lightning pace, before I sent my body crashing into the red-eyed wolf’s.

I pulled up, panting, listening to the wild music of my heart as the beast went spinning in a wild flail of limbs.

No, Flick! one of my mates called.

Yes, Flick , was my reply as I stampeded on, keeping the momentum up as I landed on the still struggling wolf and my teeth sunk into his flesh.

The burning taste of his blood was the sweetest thing, and I had to have more.

I ripped at him, effortlessly avoiding his answering snaps, and the best came when I caught his leg in my teeth and whipped my head, the teeth spearing straight through his flesh and into the bone, and the thin lengths snapped moments later.

I saw the wisdom to this when he finally managed to get to his feet. While four-legged animals can get along with three legs, a recently broken third was enough to give me an advantage.

Imagine if we took out the second , an alien thought slid into my mind, revelling in the mental image of the beast that had threatened my mates, pinned to the ground by his own pathetic body.

I saw his tail wagging furiously, his ears pinned to his skull as I stalked up to him, my burning venom dripping on the ground as I?—

“Flick! We’ve gotta go!”

My head whipped around to see my men clustered around a fallen Aidan, the strangled sounds drawing my attention.

Pathetic. You’ll never make the killing stroke. You’ve not the strength , that monstrous voice snarled inside my head.

“Flick!”

There was something to this decision. I could feel that, even in this instinct ruled brain, one misstep could send us crashing through the ice to drown.

But which? This beast was a creature of malice, pure and simple.

He knew me, Rick, Kade, and was prepared to do whatever he could to make us suffer.

He was a threat, and threats were to be put down.

But my mate… That was no natural sound. He was… My mind refused to make the words, which decided my next action. I came loping back to them, saw that Sen and Peter were in human form, Noah still a wolf.

“We gotta get him to doc, now!” Sen said as Peter cradled Aidan to his chest. And my love, he fought for every breath. I could hear it through the bloody mess of his body. There were holes where there shouldn’t be, blood dripping from him, and an awful whistle of his lungs. “Let’s go!”

We went as fast as we could, but jostling Aidan seemed to only make things worse.

I shifted when we got into the car, pulling a blanket over me, but Noah stayed in wolf form, sitting up in the front as Peter and I held Aidan still.

His hazel eyes, wide and staring, were the only indicator we had of what he was going through.

He couldn’t cry out, groan, or even breathe, only stare, tears trickling out the sides.

“Hang on, mate,” Peter said, taking his hand, my own tears coming thick and fast. “You have to hang on. We’ll be there soon. They’ll make it better, I promise.”

“What the hell happened?” Ophelia asked as we ferried Aidan into the doc’s surgery.

“None of that now,” Hobbes said, bending over my love, scanning him with an expert eye. “Bloody hell. Get the midwives in here. I need anyone with healing experience in here, right now.”

She moved frantically around the room, pulling out equipment and supplies with wild abandon, but I saw the shake in her hands when she pulled on gloves with a cool kind of detachment. I reached across, slapped a hand on her arm, and stopped her from moving, then said, “Take a breath, then proceed.”

She nodded, then moved. My gaze shifted to the proceedings, where she took the wreckage of my mate’s body and tried to put it back together, but all I could see was her tensed shoulders, her teeth digging into her lips, her little sobs of breath.

None of which I could make.

My mind couldn’t, wouldn’t accept what was going on.