I abandon my post, pull myself away from Carmen, and high tail it after him, finding my feet and fire once more and making good ground in his wake. Carmen and Sierra follow, hot on my heels as I leap a fallen log into a clearing and realize my mistake immediately that I fell for his trap like a complete idiot.
He’s waiting for me over the first mound, and as I fly through the sky, I’m caught with a clawed swipe that thrusts my momentum downward, and I’m powerless to avoid it. His nails pierce my thigh in excruciating agony as I’m dragged out of the air and into a violent roll as he hauls me through the undergrowth with the weight of my body crashing against his. My delicate human frame against a hot hard wolf, his fur smothering me. His claws are flailing around to get a proper hold of me. I’m too small like this, and he misses me completely with those long bulky arms.
I’m winded with the fall, and we roll apart as we collide with the forest floor and rake through bushes and debris. The intense burning puncture wound on my leg causes me to stifle a cry as it’s opened further on impact, and I try to jump up to face him before he regains his posture and comes again. My powers don’t fail me, and without turning around in time, I manage to sense his lunge and throw him over the top in one easy maneuver.
Colton’s huge form is tossed up and over me in a magnificent show of power, my hands throbbing with effort as my energy expands and blows him into a rolling fall. Thrusting him thirty feet in front of us, he crashes face-first into standing trees, and I cringe and shrivel at what I just did to my mate. My two femmes clear the log between us and land nearby to shield me again by flanking me on both sides. Panting from the chase, I realize how far we had come with what just happened.
Your leg, you’re bleeding
Sierra’s words ring in my head, pulling my aching heart from seeing him back to my physical pain, and I try to ignore the hot, warm mess rolling down inside and outside my clothes. The pain makes me wince as I try to carry on. We don’t have time to stop and deal with it. He won’t stay stunned for more than seconds.
Colton isn’t down for long, and he turns and comes right back at me with the speed of a blink. Angrier than before, I extend my hands to throw him back, pulling everything I have in me to make sure he travels three times as far with my next blow, only …… nothing happens.
Hands out, energy building inside me, yet it fails to release and instead feels like it deflates and fizzles away like a punctured balloon before it even reaches my wrists. I have to plunge sideways to dodge his furious attack, my two femmes scattering as Carmen tries to push me away from him with one paw, and I roll into the undergrowth.
Carmen pounces on him from behind, but she’s no match for his strength, skill, or speed. He catches her by the base of her neck and slams her to the ground. Right over a rock, a crack vibrates through the air around me, and she howls in sheer agony. Sierra latches onto his arm desperately, aiming to protect Carmen, sinking her teeth in while trying to encompass him in a blue glow, and I have no idea what she’s doing.
Whatever it was, it failed, and Colton throws her off effortlessly. Like tossing away a rag, roaring aggressively so the trees around us shudder, I try to pull myself back together and get back in the fight. I try to breathe through crushed lungs, breathless and sweating. I try to center my frantic thoughts and figure out what happened to my powers.
Your other gift….. absorb, deflect…. You can do it. Use the wolf in you. Those gifts might still be stronger.
Sierra’s words filter in, a moment of hope rising inside me that she might be right, and I still can take him. I still have that untapped resource in my arsenal as my hybrid side fails me. I recoil as he turns this way, ignoring the blood loss and weeping pain from my leg as he comes right at me once more, still intent on getting me. Knowing that to absorb, I have to take from him by getting close enough. I have to let him get near.
I muster enough of my dwindling energy to stop him short, but I can feel it failing even as I grasp it and tug it into my palms. There’s no building, no ball or orb, and I feel like I’m clawing at the air, and nothing materializes as it should. I feel like I’ve returned to that time in the woods when I didn’t know how to pull or control it, but this is all wrong. My powers are failing me, and I don’t understand how or why or…….
What the hell are the fates doing to me?
It’s faster than I thought. The witch said they would weaken in time, not completely die the second I needed them, so this can’t be the babies. This isn’t the goddamn plan. I can’t have come out here to be a useless deadweight and stand in the face of a mate so he can strike me down.
I stumble backward as both femmes tag him, sensing something is wrong with me. One each side, teeth to throat, bravely surging in and latching on. Trying to help me by dragging him down between them and giving me time and space to move away. I have no other option but to turn and run as I fail to muster anything at all, so I make a move, but weariness and dizziness start to kick my ass, and panic floods my body with the knowledge that I’m completely powerless. It’s like being human. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I try to mind-link them; even that seems impossible as I’m met with darkness, and I wonder if the fog has started affecting me too.
I need to recover my power before turning back on him because I’m useless and practically pointless in this state. I stumble, trip, and roll into a ditch, my hand instantly damp with how I fold into myself and end up in a bedraggled heap. It causes me to look down to see why I’m so wet, and it dawns on me why my gift is failing.
The pain in my leg is nothing compared to the reality of the injury I can see through torn fabric and torn skin. Judging by the amount of blood seeping through my clothes, staining the ground where I just landed, I’m bleeding to death… fast. My skin is pale. My hands are trembling as icy coldness sweeps through, and I panic as I look out, hoping Sierra is close enough to help me. My inner wolf is restless and scraping inside my head, trying to turn me, and I have to fight myself to remain as I am. Her inner need to heal me, my survival instinct suddenly ferocious, now I realize the depth of my injury, yet I hold it still. If I turn, they die, so I can’t sacrifice them, even if I’m this close to death. I calm my breathing, focus all I have left, and put all my energy into one little mind link.
Sierra… I’m dying. I need to be healed.
I call to her, but the chaos of wolves rolling around and adding more to what I left makes it hard to tell who is who, and Colton seems to be surrounded by multiple grey wolves hauling him down. It’s no longer one against two like it was a second again, but many are subduing him - on top of their own Alpha.
I blink as I realize the pack of wolves swarming him and coming to our aid, taking down their own to protect the Luna, are the land dwellers and our most peaceful. They heard Carmen’s cry to shield me, and they did what a pack is meant to do. Protect the heart! I want to cry with the swelling it causes inside my chest.
I’m here. I’m here.
Sierra startles me from behind as she lands in the ditch beside me and instantly turns into a naked human, pulling my leg to her and gasping at the crimson clothing that tells her all she needs to know. Her hands shake, her face pales, and she takes a moment to collect herself before instinct kicks in.
“Jesus Christ, Lorey. You would be dead in a few more minutes, maybe even seconds. This is why you should never have come. This is too dangerous. He’s too strong for you this way.” She yanks my thigh into her abdomen, her hand glowing blue as soon as she touches me, and places her warm palm flat on my leg where his claws made multiple incisions. It’s only now I see he got my femoral artery with a nick, and that wound is killing me. My powers were fading because I was losing all the blood I possessed. Vampire and wolf alike, so neither was prevailing.
The gentle healing power works quickly, and I watch in fascination as skin closes up like reversing in time, and my pain dims. Sierra may have been losing her gifts these past months, but she heals me with speed as though she has re-found her abilities.
“I wasn’t careful enough… I lost focus…. I won’t make that mistake again.” I tremble the words out as my body heals fully, relieved as my low internal temperature starts to warm and the invading darkness of my vision begins to retreat. Sierra grimaces at me, though, not looking as relieved as I am.
“The blood loss takes longer; we need to stay low while I recover all you lost. You are not going to be stronger until then.” Her words fade out fast as three wolves come trundling through the undergrowth, swiping us out of our hole accidentally and sending us both flying across the ground in shock as I try to regain equilibrium. We were run over and thrown apart by our own side. Such is the chaos of what’s happening around us. Sierra turns and flies to me with a leap, transforming back to a wolf, and shoves me into another ditch with her nose before rounding on a suddenly invading brown Lycan as it leaps at us.
Pressed into a hollow that caught my body snugly, still weak but slowly regaining my energy, all I can hear are howls, wails, and ripping of wolves on wolves. The stench of their blood in the air catches in my nostrils, and the cries of distant battles as we try to control our kind without killing them. My heart shatters as the pain of my pack filters through, and the loss of many rips up through my stomach and into my soul. I can feel their life essence leave as it happens, and as the mother to all, their passing breaks my heart.
I take a deep breath, organize my thoughts, and push down the emotion the best I can because I know it will only hinder me. A tug in instinct pulls my mind left, sensing Colton through the dark and misery… somehow, I can feel him coming closer, knowing he’s looking for me. For some reason, I’m the target he wants.
I don’t know if it’s because I stick out as a human and the alpha wants to be the one to take it down, or if somehow our bond is the reason. I’m the one he wants to kill most. A craving in love to be together is like an urge in hatred to rip me apart. Maybe on some level, as the leader of his side, he senses that I am the leader of mine, and maybe it’s only instinct that pushes him to be the victor. To take down a Queen when he seems to know he’s King of the opposing side.
I peek out and see him sniffing the air where he stands, looking for my scent in the many, and I gasp and recoil back, holding my breath as my heart rate increases. Suddenly afraid, because I know like this, I am no match, and until my strength recovers, my gifts are all but gone. I frantically panic and push myself into the snug of this space, looking to find something as a weapon while concealing myself. My body is trembling, reminding me I was never worthy of leading this fight. I was too stupid to realize when I had the chance to stay back.
He’s pushing debris and rocks aside, searching for me, ignoring the ongoing battle between Carmen, Sierra, our pack, and his wolves between him and me. Covering the space between us, yet his focus goes beyond them and through. He seems uninterested in the fight, and as I zone out the world, the noise, and the chaos, I lock onto that imposing figure, turning my way as he seems to find what he’s looking for.
He catches the scent of my blood; I see it in his changing expression, the sudden pause, his growing taller as he latches on, and my skin goosebumps. My body is freezing as my gut tells me I have nowhere to run, and I know deep down he has found me. From where he’s standing, from a drop of my red fluid I must have left in my trail. He’s locked onto me now and knows exactly what to follow. He stops to inhale, like savoring the moment, and a snarl of pure menace crosses his face, increasing the sheer terror on mine.
He’s a predator who knows he’s onto a win before looking up and spotting me easily. As his eyes lock onto mine, I swear he smiles and licks his teeth in an almost excited gesture.
Shit….