Page 71 of WitchBorn

I waited, the alpha relaxing into my hold, his exhaustion and blood loss getting the better of him. Once he dropped to his belly, I let him go and stepped away. A moment later he began to change, a long painful process not nearly as fast or beautiful as what either Odion or I could do. The others followed suit, changing, their whines of pain filling the evening air with grunts and groans.

I waited until they stood around us in human skins to make my change, one form to the next in a heartbeat. Odion’s taking only a touch longer. They all stared at us in awe and horror.

“What are you?” The alpha demanded. “You are not wolves.”

I snarled at him with my human teeth. “This was my land before your curse fell upon it.”

The alpha met my gaze, confusion in his eyes. “I’ve been a wolf for nearly a hundred years.”

Odion stepped to my side. “And he is the terror of the northern woods that your ancestors have whispered about for centuries.” He spent more time among the humans than I ever dared, learning their languages and ways, finding things to trade, and listening to their stories. Without Odion I’d have lost myself in the shadows much like my sire had. Perhaps become a raging monster hunted by all. And I didn’t understand their ideas of time. The sun rose and set each day giving way to the moon, endlessly. Why count them?

“The beast?” The alpha whispered, his gaze turning to his pack.

I shifted again, wings expanding and towering over them as the demon things I was. Odion unphased by the change, the others dropped to the ground in fear and submission.

The alpha met my gaze but dropped to his knees. “We didn’t know this was your land.”

“You attack any who enter?” Odion demanded.

The alpha flinched.

“And the humans that the nearby village claim are missing?”

“We sought to expand our pack, adding strong males to our number. Not all of them survived the change.”

I snarled, which sent them all into quivering puddles huddling on the ground, but shifted to my human form. “You forced them to change?”

My anger over being cursed by one of their number never truly ended despite my years of learning to control it. Something about the blood curse flowing in my veins disrupted my control over my other half. Twice I’d lost myself in the dark, waking weeks later to Odion’s prodding and begging me to return to myself. The aftermath of whatever destruction I delivered often meant smoldering forests and blood.

“Humans hunt us,” the alpha said.

“And you hunt them,” Odion growled. Even as a human male, his size outmatched mine. He towered over me and the other wolves, glare filled with rage. “No more.”

“We need to eat.”

Humans. They were eating humans. Even my other form didn’t do that.

“There isn’t enough food in the forest to sustain us,” the alpha said.

“And yet you sought to forcibly expand your pack,” Odion reminded him.

Something dark flipped through the alpha’s gaze, a wriggle of power and lust for control. I’d seen that same expression a thousand times in the faces of men dying beneath my fangs as they’d tried to kill me. He lunged,wolf talons where human fingers should be, swiping for my throat, and midsection as the human form was fragile.

The pack gasped, half holding their breath, likely waiting for me to die, but I deftly evaded the attack, caught the alpha in mortal hands and snapped his neck, dropping his lifeless corpse to the ground. His partially changed hands returned to their human form. Bloodied, as I realized he’d caught me, tearing thin gouges in my flesh.

I turned toward the others, scratches on my stomach seeping with blood as they resealed and healed in a few heartbeats. The other wolves bowed.

“We do as you bid, Alpha,” one of the wolves said.

“Yes, Alpha,” the others followed.

A surge of energy flowed through me, the pack becoming mine as I could sense them all, hear their thoughts, filled with fear and worry. Would I kill them, too? Their strength added to mine, allowing my grip on my power to tighten.

Odion met my gaze. “No more killing humans.”

“No changing anyone,” I said, voice low and harsh. My pack, my rules. Odion and I had never infected any with our curse, and I wanted to stop its spread, even if it meant the wolves would die out. I stared at my new pack and decided any wolf crossing our path would obey or find its end. The nightmare stories trickling through the countryside from town to town would fade much as mine had, and we’d remain in the shadows until none remained to cast the world in flame.

Forty-Seven