Aching Silver (House of Wolves Book 1)

by Amber Naralim

  Fists, elbows, and the flash of silver. Abel got his hands up to block, yanking away from the knife. Isaak kicked out at his knee. Abel swept his leg. Isaak grabbed him by the thighs and shoved them several feet before driving him back first onto a low coffee table.

  The knife came down on an arc that Abel barely dodged away from. He blocked the next blow with a candlestick. Abel kicked at his thigh buying him space to get up.

  Abel hammered the candlestick into Isaak’s foot and jumped at him. They slammed into a hutch, broken glass raining over them. Abel sent hook after hook. Isaak reacted to them every one but he sure kept coming. Isaak grabbed him by the back of his neck and threw Abel in between the couches. Abel hurled a book, a picture frame, and other decorative items. Isaak walked through all of them. The sharp edge of his blade swung through the air in front of him.

  Abel’s kick sent Isaak sprawling into the wall. He spun around with the knife at the ready. Isaak slashed and thrust missing Abel by millimeters. Another thrust but this time Abel was waiting for it. He ducked into Isaak, hooked his arm under his shoulder, and drove him into the wall. His knee came up and again crashing into Isaak’s solar plexus.

  “She was mine. Lorie loved me,” Isaak cried.

  “Shut your fucking mouth. Don’t you say her name. Don’t you dare say her name.”

  His assertions dredged up a relationship full of doubt. Things Abel couldn’t ignore no matter how he looked away screamed at him. Their time together was so sudden. Everything all at once. He slathered hope over far too much of it to be sure now.

  Every halting smile and faraway look he glanced over so easily then came flooding back to him. It left him questioning everything he knew. Shaky ground to stand on with Isaak’s claims. The possibilities ripped the stomach out of him. His imagination wove a thousand different histories together but they all followed the same path.

  Did Lorelei ever belong to him? Did the baby belong to Isaak?

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  Johnny led the way. He had at least ten more people with him, most were Folk survivors. One was an old man who even with his healing probably won’t last the night. He had a nasty gut wound that he held in place by his left arm. Johnny all but carried the man toward the aid station. Conner grabbed more bullets and went about refilling his magazines. There was still no sign of Zoe and Johnny was getting antsy.

  Alex took his cues from the kid. He almost didn’t recognize him at first. John Merrick was a fable parents told their children about. He was an elemental of rage. He slaughtered every Folk in the Culling cage as well as two full Kin who went in after him. He was only ten. Alex didn’t ask questions on how he managed to turn this fight around.

  John barked out orders like he’d been through this a hundred times. Alex admired that a little bit. He’d grown up around kings, never once did any of them command the way this outcast pup did. From the front, with care and forethought for the few men he had at his command. He was a natural leader. That boy was everything Nora needed him to be. Everything Vic wanted him to be.

  “We’ve got seven good men,” Johnny said.

  A Folk women interrupted him. “Eight.”

  Johnny smirked and nodded. “Eight good men. We’ve got them on the run on both the South and East side of the square. All we’ve got to do is take out the few hanging on at the dais.”

  “Last I saw, Jack had him on the ropes.”

  “Jack is one wolf. He’s tired and he’s got no ammo. We can’t just let him fight alone,” John argued.

  “Maybe not but I won’t follow a Lunatic into battle,” A Folk man of savage bearing dressed in biker leathers and sporting a massive gauge on the right side of his face that lost him his eye tonight. He spit, coming to his full height. “That’s right I know who you are, John Merrick. What you did.”

  “That was a long time ago, old man,” Conner defended his brother.

  Johnny looked down at his feet. All it ever took is one memory. A single spark to drag him back down beneath the ocean of his guilt with pockets full of stones.

  “He’s still a blighted Lunatic.” The biker argued.

  His voice of decent didn’t so much bother Conner. There is always an asshole in every group. What had him worried was the murmur it stirred among the very people John had just risked life and limb to save. Ungrateful bastards.

  Conner opened his mouth to argue, but a voice from the back of the crowd beat him to it.

  “If he were a Lunatic then how did he keep it together enough to save us from the Metri he killed?” Alex asked.

  The biker turned all puffed and ready to threaten. Instead, his eyes went wide with shock and recognition. He stepped back automatically, dropping his gaze to the blood-spattered gravel.

  “Prince Alexander, forgive me, my lord, I did not know it was you.”

  “You saw him shift and back and never once lose control. I know you did because I was there. I saw it too. My Grandfather’s wisdom and foresight strikes again,” Alex said jovially draping his arm around John’s shoulders. “He knew at the Culling it was a matter of maturity and not Lunacy.”

  “Yes, your majesty,” the biker agreed, his eyes shifting. He shrank back to size and blended back into the crowd.

  “Your Majesty is too kind,” Johnny mumbled working hard to not make eye contact. He gave up on pretense and hit him with the full weight of his urgency. “You need to rally these men together, my lord. Or a whole lot more people are going to die.”

  “When was the last time you saw Nora?” Conner asked.

  “At the dais, I got dragged one way, she disappeared in the other direction. My Grandfather was with her.” He closed in hushing his voice. “This is bad right?”

  Conner nodded. “We have to find your grandfather before Isaak does.”

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  An elbow shattered her nose. It healed over in seconds. The bones forged and the skin mended like it was never there. Her claws sank deep into the flesh of his chest. He wrapped his arms around her back and flipped her over his head, driving her into the pavers beneath their feet. They cracked a few.

  Zoe curled in on herself moaning. Pain went off like a firecracker. What shreds of her human intelligence she managed to hold on to marveled at it. She was sure nothing could hurt like that. Agony radiated through her with alacrity.

  It was her muscles in control. She kicked at his knee and he crumpled in on himself. Zoe came up with a vicious head-butt. The Lupine staggered back. Zoe rolled and flipped her way past the distance coming to her feet facing the opposite direction. She came back with another head-butt and screamed. The bones in her legs cracked and splintered. Her spine detonated. A dozen explosions as it snapped and it shifted.

  Her opponent took full advantage. Wrapping his arms around her, he pinned her arms to her sides. Zoe whipped from back and forth fighting his vice. One arm free she slammed his torso and twisted his wrist with the other.

  Her pronounced animalistic features grimaced with each thrust. She spun and dropped, kicking with both feet at his head. She caught herself on the paving stones and kipped right back up again. The wolf inside her had liquid grace and furious power to match. The Lupine barreled into her. Knuckling against the ground on all fours he crashed into her.

  Zoe collided with the stall doors. Her head snapped back and spread shooting stars across her vision.

  Neither human consciousness could be heard over the warbling pitch of the lunatic cry. Wolves don’t kill maliciously. They kill to eat. And even among animals cannibalism is something that everyone shuns. Werewolves already muddied in those waters. Hungry the wolf was though it did not crave the blood and flesh of their own kind. She was down, that’s all that mattered.

  The Lupine sniffed the air, a trickling growl falling from his long snout. There was meat that smelled a whole lot sweeter this way.

  Zoe moved slow. The caustic ache left her hesitating. She came to her feet fully shifted.

  Her fur wa
s black with golden tips, lighter tawny at her armpits and breast. Her eyes were molten amber, luminous as honey. Claws like hooked scythes, she dropped down on all fours. Stable on the balls of her feet she ran toward the trees.

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  Tense and hyper-vigilant Johnny jogged toward the barn. Out of breath, he stopped to scope it out. What heaving breaths he gulped for hung in the air heavy and opaque. He turned toward the entrance ignoring the whinnying of horses and boy he had to work at it.

  The lingering scent of sweat and hay had memories of a tangy blackberry glaze lingering on his tongue. Their dread spiced those flavors. Johnny was a starving man. His beast hunted with his senses. That left Johnny with just enough human consciousness to keep looking for Zoe.

  The stall doors on this side rattled with the rearing horses. Johnny gripped his prayer beads. The hope they lent was his lifeline. Johnny didn’t hate what he was. Even if the rumors were true. The sensations were singular, and the history was beautiful. What he hated was the loss of control.

  But Johnny was learning. A monk, he worshiped at the altar of discipline. Still, his faith was tested with every passing moment. That was his eternal struggle. You know, that and the guilt. He had to find Zoe. Had to know she was all right. He would spend the rest of his life in penitence for what he did to her.

  He kicked himself for guarding the secret. It was all too much. Zoe didn’t begrudge him the other atrocities he’d inflicted upon her. This was the straw. The final sliver would crush her under its weight. This secret would cost him that loving look in her eyes he’d come to need over the past month.

  Blood sparkling on the ground had him running toward it inner turmoil on the back burner. Teeth and claws spill a lot more of it than you might think. He looked up and down the sides of the barn. There was nothing else here. He stood up and light refracted from something in the corner.

  Johnny reached for the moonstone and silver of the amulet. He closed his aching fist around it and the background noise died away leaving him with blessed peace.

  “No,” he said aloud.

  Where could she have gone?

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  A snuffling growl turned Izobel toward it. The Lupine stood upright in the next room. He sniffed the air. Her eyes went huge. Its fur was grey and brown. She didn’t think it was Zoe. But there was no way to be sure. The possibility stunned her.

  Abel and Isaak tore the house down around them with their punches and kicks. Izobel pressed her palms together facing opposite directions. A chant fell from her lips. Magic lit up the air sparkling like glitter. The charge built with the ballet of her moving hands. She was almost there. Colors wove their way around Abel tying knots in the armor and protection she worked so hard to conjure.

  But turning a fatal flaw into an immunity took time and materials she didn’t have to draw on. Didn’t matter, every slice of that blade had her heart hammering out a rhythm tied to what it would do to her to lose him.

  Isaak blocked or dodged each attack. Abel did the same. They were evenly matched despite the thrashing arms and vicious grappling. Isaak pressed his one advantage. The sacrificial blade caught the light at its zenith and ripped across Abel’s side. He yowled with the pain it caused.

  Izobel couldn’t pull the spell together fast enough. A roar snapped all of their attention toward the Metri barreling toward them. Izobel didn’t have time for anything bedsides standing her ground. He sent her flying with an enormous sweeping arm.

  Izobel smacked into the wall with a meaty thud. Her head snapped back pulverizing the drywall. The spell died away fizzling out because her casting was so brutally interrupted. The ringing ache washed the last vestiges of magic away and she had to start over. But first, she had to get the room to come back into focus.

  The Metri wrapped his arms around Abel squeezing and biting. Isaak stepped back utterly awestruck. He’d made a few Metri this past month. But this he would recognize anywhere. Dull brown fur, an emaciated waist, and long arms, it was Rousten.

  The Folk engineer begged him to make him a Metri. And the monster he became did not disappoint. Feral and lost to the call of the lunatic cry, was it just chance that he found his way here and chose Abel to vent his madness upon? Or did the Folk have a chance at controlling it?

  Either way, Isaak used the distraction. The King was dead. He had to find his men and rally them to finish this. Izobel climbed to her feet a little unsteady, blood dripping from her scalp. She cupped her fingers into a C shape and they kindled with flowing red light.

  Rousten gasped, unearthly eyes bulging out of his head. He hurled Abel as he fought for control against an unseen force that choked the breath from him. Abel and Isaak collided. Abel was just a little punch drunk, a dozen punctures opened his shoulder and stomach; streaming red ribbons flowed down his bruised flesh. The Metri’s teeth were just as big and sharp as daggers.

  Isaak smiled as he slipped the blade between Abel’s ribs. “Now we’re even for what you made me do to Lorelei,” he hissed.

  Abel gasped. Grimacing, he curled in on himself. The thrust of the blade was nothing compared to the shock of it being rent-free. Blood sprayed the wall. Isaak walked away satisfied. Abel stumbled and dropped to his knees. Nora cried out reaching for him.

  This had to be a nightmare. Deklan took off across the ocean of hardwood. Reaching in his pocket, he grasped a handful of salt. He sprinkled it over Abel and each grain flared with light.

  “Keep him alive Bells!”

  Izobel wasn’t sure the reason for the order but the one thing Deklan had the way no one else in her life truly did, was her trust. Her arm shot out wide and the Metri reacted to the hit, the rest was invisible. His arm shot out just the way hers did, but he fought it tooth and nail. He lost. A blue light chained his arm to the spot. Her left arm lashed out and again his followed suit. She lifted her arms and Rousten Myers, newly minted monster, floated into the air by a few feet.

  She couldn’t hold him for long.

  Pain is a universal truth. It cannot be denied. You can run from it, but it won’t do you much good. The only way to deal with pain is to suffer through it. And that is why Essence magic was so feared and yet so necessary. Deklan’s hands moved in intricate positions. He directed the pain that would shatter Abel into the Metri Izobel held captive on the other side of the room. Small knicks and cuts opened like angry red mouths on Rousten’s arm. They knit and mended for Abel. Nora threw her arms around him, cradling him gently.

  Abel healed everything. It all knit back together eventually. But this was different. Cold when he was used to a soothing warmth radiating from his core. This seeped into his veins and dribbled down the back of his throat. His eyes fluttered and he smiled at Nora. Abel always rather figured this was how he would go out. He sucked in a ragged breath that hurt like a son of a bitch. He tightened his grip around her hand.

  They had a conversation that no one but them heard. Tears dripped from Nora’s lovely green eyes. “Don’t you leave me,” she begged.

  A bead of blood rolled out of her nose and over her razor straight lips. Izobel held on with everything she had and still the chains on this monster were slipping from her grasp. Prime built up with every passing moment. It sparked on the air.

  Her back ached, muscles pulling and screaming. Oh, magic has weight. Spells have a physical presence, ghostlike and spectral. And it was pushing her ever closer to that edge. Rousten’s right arm broke free. He slashed and sliced at her straining for every ounce of leverage. Izobel’s brow failed first signaling the end of this high stakes game of tug of war.

  Deklan drew the Metri’s life essence funneling the golden cloud down into Abel. The wound in his side began to shrink and smooth. Redness leaching back, drawing each cut to a close with it. The Metri broke free and Izobel collapsed to her knees along with the spell. Her shoulders heaved. Staggering around, Rousten rushed at Izobel. Blood dripped with its heavy footsteps.

  Once more Izobe
l cupped her fingers into a C shape kindling a red glow that danced and seethed like water. She dragged her fingertips across her thumb and the sound of shattering bones rang out. Rousten twitched and his head spun around nearly a hundred and sixty degrees. His monstrous body fell to the ground shifting and when he landed he was barely five foot seven. Drab eyes and dull brown hair, he didn’t look like much.

  Izobel huffed out a breath and hung her head. She climbed to her feet and staggered over to them. Abel sucked in a breath that didn’t hurt and marveled at the all but healed wound in his side. He owed the Sorcerer a debt of thanks. But it wasn’t until he saw her face that he was glad to be alive. Abel was sure to give Nora a reassuring squeeze as he came to his feet. She shared with him a broken but relieved smile.

  Izobel cupped his face. Tears sparkling in her eyes. She threw her arms around him. They kissed. Deklan wanted to be happy for her. He really did. But it stung to watch and he couldn’t hide it. Nora reached over and took his hand. Her smile was lovely, and a little uncertain.

  “You saved his life. Thank you,” she breathed.

  Deklan let her warm honeyed smile ease the caustic hurt of it though.

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  He was halfway back to the square before the details of the carnage he tromped through began to paint a picture. Isaak counted a few too many dead that belonged to their side along the way. It had him doing the math. And so far he did not like the numbers.

  The Metri were a sucker punch at best. They made a statement poetically. It was part of his penance to Lorelei. Her activism on their behalf was such a part of all of this. She should have been his queen. It was only right he honor her.