“Crystal?”
“Watch out!”
Wolf grabbed me from behind, holding me tight against his chest, arms crushing me to him. Fucker lifted me.
“Get off me!” I kicked at him, driving my heels into his shins, calling for my swords.
Getting free. Cracks in the wood. Not long now.
“Settle down,” he growled into my ear.
“Let me go, let me go, let me go!”
“Akira!” Alpha again.
“Fuck off,” I seethed. “Fuck you and fuck all of you.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re wrong.”
“Me, Akira?”
“Yeah. You. All you furry bastards. Want me to save you, eh? Want to laugh and sing and be merry? Ha! Merry!”
“Talk to me. What’s happened?” She sniffed the air. “Is there magic here?”
Wolves smelled collectively, the one holding me really drinking me in. “I can’t detect anything, Alpha.”
“Traces and magic are easily hidden. Something has got inside the house. It is compromised. We move him now.”
“No,” Caramel Man said. “You will not be a prisoner.”
Bob and Rose stirred, angry, growling icebergs inside me.
“Destroy…” I said.
“Destroy,” he echoed.
“Now,” Yua said. “Let’s get him out of here. He’s lost his mind.”
Moving. Carrying me.
“Get yourself free, Akira. Don’t let them take you.”
Big guy was adjusting his weight to haul my arse out of there. Couldn’t get my katanas to come. Still trapped! Thump, thump, thump on the door.
“He won’t have you, Akira.”
“No.”
“Because?”
“Because I hate them.”
My babies sparkled to life. So pretty, so silver, so damn radiant.
“Tell me you mean it. Show me you hate the wolves.”
“I hate them.”
“More, Akira. Tell me. Show me. Let me feel it. Let them feel it.”
“I hate them!”
“Louder!
“I hate them!” I kicked out at the wolf again.
“Move!” Yua barked.
“Louder!” Caramel Man boomed.
“I hate them! They made me into this fucked up man! They took joy from me! They used me! I hate them!” I howled at the top of my voice, cold fire.
Ice volcano.
I drove my head back into the wolf, cracking him on the chin. He grunted, grip loosening just enough.
Kick to his shins, got myself free, and rolled out of the way. He grabbed me by the hair, I spun, sweeping his legs out from under him. He went down hard, not losing his grip on my hair. Fuck! He was gonna scalp me!
“Dr. Beppu!” Yua yelled.
I screamed and struggled and thrashed. Three wolves were on me.
“Free yourself, Akira!” Caramel Man was furious.
“I can’t! I can’t!”
“Aki!”
G…
“What’s going on?” G yelled.
G…
G…
G…
“Hold him still!” Yua again.
“Oh, tenshi.” Dr. Beppu that time.
Sharp prick in my neck.
“G?”
Everything blurred, limbs going soft. But not dark. Caramel Man wouldn’t let me go to sleep.
“How long will this take to kick in?” Yua asked as I was lifted into the air.
Carried.
G was yelling, “Why are his katanas on the floor? What are you doing to him?”
Yua was yelling, too much yelling. Phone screaming, voices melting together into one, a wall of white noise.
Only one voice mattered.
“Don’t worry,” Caramel Man said smoothly. “There really is no need to worry.”
“Drugged…”
“Yes, you are. But we can use this. In fact, it was a foolish move by our enemies. So, so, foolish.”
The drug was the only warmth in me, a liquid blanket spreading across the ice. It wanted to soothe me. Bob and Rose licked at it, snarled. Wanted it gone. I wanted it gone.
“Now, then.” Caramel Man had the nicest voice. “One moment.”
The warmth cooled, twisted, becoming a blanket with sharp edges. It met all the other cold parts of me, went to greet my babies. Oh, they liked this one. Licked it, nipped it playfully as it throbbed and swelled and seeped into every corner. A boost. Not to knock out, but to send the adrenaline through the roof.
My heart was racing as I was carried into the corridor again.
G was here. Katanas on the floor. Door still open?
“Good thinking,” Caramel Man praised.
They flew to me, landing into my willing palms.
Yes! My other babies! My pointy fucking delights!
“Get away—” Yua’s warning was too late, cut off by my right katana driving into a werewolf holding my feet. His power flowed into my blades as I swung my left blade into the guy above my head.
They dropped me, staggering away in pain. I’d cut them deep. I rolled across the floor, leaping to my feet to cleave off the head of another wolf who got too close. Blood sprayed my face.
More power taken.
Fill me up…
“Yes, fill up,” Caramel Man joined in.
Everyone went still. The alpha’s blazing golden eyes were trying to burn into me. She didn’t scare me. She was just like any other creature of the world who’d meet the end of my blades if she put a step wrong.
“You’ve got no power here,” I told her. “None of you. You’re weak. Every fucking creature is weak against me.” Bristling energy at my fingertips. “I’m leaving here.”
“Kill them, Akira.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Yua said.
I tilted my head, pointing a blade at her. “You—”
Gunfire. My hands moved like lighting, twirling the blades to absorb the bullet.
I smiled at the guard who’d sent the bullet to try and disarm me. Prick. I sent it back and hit him right between the eyes. The big bastard was dead.
Fours wolves down, three in my blades. Keep it coming.
“Aki. Stop this.” G from behind me.
I twitched, fingers itchy. “G?”
“Whatever is happening to you, fight it.”
“You’re fighting the badness.” Caramel Man made a lot of sense.
The wall behind Yua opened up. A door. An agent in blue, then another, then a third. Guns full of anti-magic pointed at me. I’d stared down so many gun barrels in my life. Wolves and SCU now. Wanting to hurt me. Yeah, ‘cos that’s all they ever did.
Hurt.
“That’s right, Akira. Enemies. Pain-makers.”
“Yes.”
“Kill them all.”
Uber frost… “Kill them all.”
The alpha growled. “Take him alive.”
I howled like one of them. Not one of them. Never welcome. Ever.
“Kill them, Akira!”
I crossed the katanas across my chest. I’d need help. There were more of them than me. But I had toys, and an index to scroll through. And I did, fingering each one, the mazoku, the wolves, the little bit of elven energy, not spending too much time on the big mama.
“Later,” Caramel Man said.
Fight wolf with wolf. I flung my arms wide, unleashing three wolves of blazing white light, threaded with red. Then I released the eleven energy to see what it’d do.
A white fizz, and it was gone. Oh, well.
“Get ‘em,” I commanded the wolves. “Tear their fucking throats out!”
Bullets flew, screams and violence, blood, the howl of the alpha wolf. I drove both blades into the chest of an SCU agent who fired an anti-magic bullet at me. Missed me by inches. Her partner, some guy, got a katana to the face. I sliced his fucking head in half.
“Destroy…” I whispered as the madness roared around me.
&n
bsp; Madness…
* * *
Flickering lights, dead bodies in the corridor. I rolled my shoulders as the last white wolf faded away. I licked blood off my chin.
“Doesn’t the spilled blood of a brute taste sweet?” Caramel Man asked.
Not as sweet as caramel. “Yes.”
“Get the key.”
I went to the office, stepping over the body of a nurse. She wasn’t dead, badly injured, sobbing in pain.
I took her life and her wolf power.
Cool. An extra wolf for me.
The cabinet was locked with a code. “Hmmm.”
I went back into the hallway, sheathing a blade and taking a gun from a dead werewolf. Just blast the lock open rather than hack it.
My eyes fell on Yua, her throat torn out. Such a powerful creature left empty.
I went over and stabbed her. Her power was gone. Too late. Damn. Alpha power would’ve been fun.
“Aki…”
My head snapped up, gun pointing at the man at the end of the corridor, bandage around his head, covered in blood. Not hurt. Another man with him…
A moment for the cobwebs to be brushed aside.
“G? Zach?”
“Come here, Aki.” G lifted his arms. Sexy G. Topless. Sexy. Brother beside him…
“Kill him.” Caramel Man. “Kill Gabriel.”
I tilted my head. “No. Don’t kill him. Not him.”
“You are destruction, Akira. A coin of two sides. You have landed on the right side, the side that will bring you peace.”
“Peace… I love peace.”
“Then kill him and your brother.”
G. So beautiful. “He’s the beauty of this world. I won’t kill it.”
“Then you must leave now. Before more come. Before you are stopped from being who you are. Is that what you want? To be forced into some awful slot, made to feel the constant shame your father has infected you with? Because you will. Do not be an instrument of the tenshi.”
G. He would live, and I would destroy for him. He deserved a better world, a new world. With me. I would be back. No killing him. Loving him. Mama Rita would be dead. We’d be free…
“Fix the situation now,” Caramel added. “They will stop you.”
Fix it. I wasn’t killing them. Not them. Caramel Man could be all the smooth operator he wanted to be, I wasn’t spilling the blood of the man I loved and the man who shared blood with me.
Not so frozen.
Huh? Who was that? Caramel Man? Sounded like…me.
“Fix it, Akira!”
I released some of my mazoku. Two of them, white and red curling up into the corridor, waiting for me, hovering between me and the two guys.
“Hold them down,” I said.
They flew at G and Zach, smothering them, carrying them out of the corridor. G roared.
“Aki! Fight this! Fight it!” He struggled against the mazoku, punching through the white shadow.
“Move quickly.” Caramel Man was stressed, not so smooth. Sugar crystals in his voice. Hated sugar crystals in caramel. Ruined many a good banoffee pie in the early days of baking.
Baking…
“More will come, Akira.”
Right. Time to move.
Back in the office, I blasted the cabinet open. Loads of keys. I took them all out to the main door, testing them until, bingo, the first set of doors opened.
A barrier of anti-magic. Would it hurt me, touching that stuff?
“It is energy,” Caramel Man said.
“Aki!”
I blocked G’s calling out. Caramel Man didn’t like me thinking about him or my babies wanting to go and nuzzle up to him. So we cut him off, left him trapped because he was out of the way and safe and wouldn’t have to die.
I think Caramel Man wanted him to die.
No.
“Energy, Akira. Like anything else. Take it. Use it later.”
“But it’s anti-magic.”
“And what is it?”
“Weird energy that’s like magic but not. Oh… Energy.” I smiled and tossed the gun aside, sticking a katana into the screen. It swallowed the energy greedily.
Whoa. This would be fun to play with.
The stairs went up. I sheathed a blade, following the stairs with the keys in one hand as G called after me. Another locked door. More testing and boom. Freedom.
I stepped out into the pharmacy. Dark. My glittery babies lit it up a bit, padding around the room. There were sirens in the distance. SCU. More coming. They’d use those tunnels too, come to get me, to put a stop to me, to use me as their own again. Then they’d kill me when they had what they wanted.
“I’m not a puppet,” I said.
“Absolutely, not.”
“Thank you, Caramel Man.”
He chuckled sweetly. “You’re welcome. Hurry up, now.”
Weaving around the sales counter and past the cabinets of medicine to the main door. The windows were boarded up with iron laced with anti-magic. I sucked the energy out of the iron, then worked the keys until I got that satisfying click.
“You will have to run as soon as you open that door,” Caramel Man said. “The SCU patrol the streets. Can you hear them? They know. They have been warned.”
“I hear them.”
Commotion behind me. My babies growled, smelling wolves. They’d come through the tunnels.
“Time’s up,” I said.
“Don’t look back.” Caramel Man was so strong to get me through this. My guiding light. “Disappear into the shadows. The wolves cannot follow, but the SCU will hunt you. When it’s safe, I’ll tell you where you need to go.”
“Okay.”
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
I tore the door open and dashed out into the street, heavy rain crashing down on me. I didn’t stop, cutting across the silent road and darting into a side street, my trainers pounding the pavement as I vanished into the night.
Chapter Seven
Gabriel
Wolves filled the safe house from the sewer tunnels, more SCU streaming in from the surface through the open door.
Aki’s white mazoku faded away, releasing me to run. I was stopped before I managed to get six feet by a fair Japanese werewolf with a black bob cut.
“Please, sir. You cannot leave here,” she said.
“I command you to let me pass.”
“No, sir. The silver moon is deadly to all—”
“I’m not a werewolf.”
Her dark eyes widened as many gazes fell upon me.
“Sir? You are the beta to High Alpha.”
“It’s a long story. Let me pass.”
“I can’t do that, sir. I’m sorry.”
I balled my hands into fists. “Let me pass. Now.”
“Sir—”
“I said now! Akira is out there! I have to find him!”
She blocked me as I went to move past her. “No, Mr. Dawson. No.”
Her strength would overpower mine now, especially with my condition leaving me nothing more than a weak little puppy.
Not even a puppy.
“You’re not going anywhere.” Another woman. Shaven head, black-rimmed glasses, dressed in black combat gear.
“Otome?” I said.
On any other day, her voice would be a pleasant sound for sore ears. Not now. She was simply in my way.
“I can’t stay here, Otome.”
“You have to, Gabriel.”
Otome Abe was the beta to Yua Ito and now in charge. Her skin was as pale as snow, an angry red scar cutting down her left cheek from a time we’d fought side by side in London when a visit from her and Yua had ended with us shutting down a warlock rebellion. Otome hadn’t needed to get involved. We certainly didn’t need help in kicking warlock ass. However, she’d wanted some fun on her trip, so she’d tagged along.
She’d got her face sliced with a magical scythe before she took down the wielder of the weapon. That scar would forever be a reminder that shutting
down rebellions wasn’t fun, but a matter of duty, of keeping order to the world. That’s what wolves did, being in charge, being the mightiest of creatures. That is why Akira needed to save us…them. The world would fall apart otherwise.
And now Aki was out in the streets, infected with tenshi knew what, carrying pure death in his katanas, full of rage and—
“He’s out there,” I said. “I have to save him. I—”
“Don’t try it, Gabriel. Please. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Because now you can…
She sighed heavily. “I heard what you said just now. You’re human?”
They would’ve sensed it in no time. “Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Not now. Please. I’m begging you. Let me out of here. I can stop him.”
She shook her head. “You’re in no condition to go anywhere.”
“I can—”
“I said no.” Her tone was laced with the same ferocity as mine when I gave out orders when wolves tried to push the boundaries of my authority.
She didn’t have any authority over me. Now or when I was lupine.
“I’m going.”
She squared up to me, shorter, looking up, her collar lights blinking. “Don’t fuck with me. I mean it.”
“We have survivors!” someone called.
We didn’t take our eyes off one another. I’d never back down first. Call it leftover instinct, a resolution to never stand aside for what I believed in.
And I believed in Aki no matter what. Even with all the blood and destruction he’d left in his wake, I’d never leave his side, fall away from supporting him or loving him. We’d come too far. This hadn’t been him, anyway. Something was very, very wrong. It had to be. Yes, he’d been a hunter, and his katanas were dangerous. But he had a good heart. He wouldn’t tumble into this without being pushed.
How much of a push did he really need, though? Think about that.
Otome turned and walked away. I watched her. How was I getting out of here with all these wolves? The iron door was closed again, with more iron supplies brought through the sewers.
I turned to Zach, who gave me nothing but sadness.
We were both lucky to be alive. Which told me Aki was still in there somewhere. His mazoku hadn’t killed us, only secured us for his escape.
“I’ll save him,” I said to Zach.
He read my lips. He pointed at himself.
Four Moons: The Complete Collection: (Books 1 - 4) Page 71
