by Leia Stone
Just then, Walsh, who had been in a ground grapple with Red, slipped away from the troll, and the crowd seemed to shrug off the magical incident.
I was back in my wolf’s perspective, looking through her eyes and up at a very angry Mr. Mohawk. Rolling to avoid his kick, I decided to help out Walsh and avoid Mohawk as long as I could. Turning, I scrambled across the cage and wiggled under Red. His hand came down, about to grab Walsh, and I bit into his wrist, pinning it down with the move Walsh told me about. Walsh reacted with the lithe grace of a cheetah. Springing from his position on the ground, he leapt and attached himself to Red’s jugular with his teeth. With one yank, Walsh came away with his jugular and the crowd went insane.
The redheaded troll-fey’s hand that I held in my jaw went completely limp as he bled out, sticky green-black blood pooling around him in a rapidly growing puddle.
The cheers of the crowd reached a crescendo while I spun to keep my eye on Mr. Mohawk troll. He stood right behind me, grinning, holding a twelve-inch hunting knife in one hand, and my heart dropped into my stomach like a stone.
No weapons were allowed. Someone must have handed it to him and no one said a thing.
Awesome.
‘He’s got a knife, I’m shifting to human,’ Walsh said. ‘I’ll grapple him to the ground and you finish him.’
My wolf nodded as Walsh started to shift.
Suddenly Sage was there, tossing him sweatpants, which he slipped on quickly. The troll-fey waited patiently, grinning at us the entire time. He looked like he was going to enjoy this part and it made me sick.
I inhaled, the scent of hot wires reaching my nose.
‘I don’t like this. It smells wrong… the blade isn’t normal,’ I told Walsh.
He didn’t say anything, and it took me too long to realize it was because he was human now and could no longer hear my wolf.
Shit.
Mohawk held the knife like he knew what he was doing, and my heart jumped into my throat with panic. I didn’t like the sickly green color that shimmered on the edge of the blade.
Magic.
‘Tell him it’s a magic blade,’ my wolf said to my human half.
I forgot that I had a human half that could speak. Just as the troll lunged for Walsh, I screamed, “Magic blade!” as my wolf bared her teeth and growled inside of the cage. The knife skated past Walsh’s skin as he arched his back to dodge it. Pivoting, he then pulled up his fists and rained blow after blow onto the troll-fey’s face and chest, wherever Walsh could reach. It was like watching a tortured pit bull backed into a corner. Walsh was attacking like a madman completely gone berserk, and caught the troll off guard. But I knew that wouldn’t last long.
My wolf crouched and then sprang, aiming for the troll's throat. He saw me coming, briefly taking his eyes off of Walsh, and lunged for me, knife drawn high. It was like time stopped. I could tell he was going to stab me in the ribcage. But I was going too fast, with too much momentum, to slow down at this point. All I could do was brace for impact.
But the slice of pain never came. In a blur a motion, Walsh leapt in front of my wolf, knocking her to the side and out of harm’s way. His shoulder jammed so hard into my ribs, I lost my breath as I was thrown to the ground. The troll’s knife slid into Walsh’s stomach like he was cutting butter, and a howl ripped from my wolf’s throat at the same time that my human half screamed.
“Walsh!” Sage tore across the dirt-packed floor and gripped the iron cage with her fingers.
Walsh let out a strangled cry, crumpling to the ground with a look of absolute agony on his face, holding an open wound that was slowly trickling crimson.
The troll-fey grinned, adjusting his grip on the knife as he looked at Walsh like he was a rare steak about to be carved.
Over my dead fucking body.
Sage’s head whipped back to my human half. “Do something.”
My wolf stood, shaking herself as unbridled rage consumed the both of us. Mohawk bent, ignoring my wolf, and hovered over Walsh, giving me a nice view of his lumpy ass. Two lumps of flesh bulged out between his legs, straining under the fabric of his pants.
My human half winced at what was about to happen, but my wolf had no such displeasure. Flesh was flesh.
I leapt, opening my jaws, and the room took in a collective gasp. When I felt the bulk of his skin and muscle in my mouth, I clamped down.
Hard.
One ball-less mohawked troll-fey, coming right up.
I shook my jaws like a dog trying to break the neck of his favorite stuffed toy, and the flesh came away cleanly, along with the cloth of his pants.
An inhuman howl cut through the barn; the knife dropped to the floor with a clatter and the troll shook violently, falling over to the side and passing out. When he went completely limp, I spat the flesh from my mouth and didn’t wait for the giant to get up. This motherfucker brought a knife to a fist fight.
That meant prison rules, bitch.
His waxy skin glistened with sweat as I pounced on his chest and peered down at him. The crowd chanted with an insane fervor.
Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!
I glanced over at Walsh, eyelids lowering as he got weaker and weaker, and knew that I needed to end this quickly so that we could get him help.
But my wolf hesitated.
I couldn’t kill someone when they were defenseless and knocked out cold. Right? I turned back to look at Trip. His eyes were glittering with malice. Could he call off the fight? Or was death the only way out of this cage? I probably should have asked that before—
A firm grip wrapped around my throat and squeezed so hard that my windpipe felt like it was crushed into a fine powder. I turned to look at the troll-fey, eyes wide, and was met with the most horrifying black eyes I’d ever seen.
“You fucking bitch!” he snarled, spittle flying from his mouth and onto my muzzle. He panted, no doubt in a world of pain, but that didn’t seem to stop him from having a vise-like grip on my throat. My wolf bucked backward, trying to struggle out of his grasp, but it was no use. He was too strong, and I was in a shitty position with no footholds or anything I could use to my advantage. With his other hand, he reached to the side, patting the mat of the cage wildly, no doubt looking for the knife. I panicked, unable to breathe and starting to feel weak.
“I’m going to dissect you, organ by organ, and when I’m done you won’t—” He froze, looking up as a shadow passed over his face.
I was starting to see spots, blackness dancing at the edges of my vision. I needed air. Now. My wolf wanted to turn ghostly, to disappear from his fingers and go spectral, but it would out what I was to everyone.
‘Hang on,’ my human half said, and I blinked, shifting to her vision.
“Looking for this?” Walsh grunted, knife in hand as he stood over the troll. The beast was lying flat on his back, groin area bleeding freely with my wolf on top of his chest.
He released my wolf immediately, trying to scramble upward, when Walsh dropped to one knee and sliced his throat quick and cleanly.
My wolf pulled in deep, ragged gasps of air as the troll-fey went limp.
The crowd went wild, some booing and others cheering, all while my shifter healing repaired my crushed trachea or whatever he’d done. The lump in my throat became less painful, and I was soon able to breathe normally. Money exchanged hands as Trip glared at Walsh and I through the bars.
We’d no doubt just killed two of his prize fighters, but he gave his word. That had to mean something. When everyone was paid, he walked over to us, holding a wad of gold coins in his pocket.
“I believe you owe us our payment now, sir?” Sage said boldly, glancing at Walsh and my wolf nervously as we limped out of the cage, which had just been unlocked. Walsh held on to his bleeding ribcage, but a thin, steady stream of blood exited out his fingers.
“My word is good,” he growled. “Fetch the horse,” he snapped to one of his lackeys. I could tell by the bulge of coins in his pocket that he could buy more
of whatever he wanted.
I cleared my throat. “And release the Paladin wolf.”
He sneered at me through eyes blacker than oil. “And that.”
Ten minutes later, I knelt over Walsh’s limp and bleeding form as he clutched his side in pain. The Paladin wolf was curled in a ball at my feet. When Trip had unlocked her cage, she’d cowered in the corner, shaking. Sage tried to sweetly coo her out but it didn’t work. With Walsh near death, I’d grown impatient, and only when I put my hand out and commanded in a firm voice for to her to come to me, did she move. She hadn’t shifted to her human form and I was okay with that, because we had Walsh to worry about first.
Walsh groaned and my hands shook as I rummaged through the med-kit Sawyer had sent for something that looked useful. A whimper of desperation left my throat, and the Paladin at my feet curled tighter around my legs in response. I frowned, looking down at her while my wolf sat at the back of the carriage we were in and watched all of us with inquisitive eyes. We were supposed to ditch the Paladin at the end of the road ahead, but something wasn’t right with her. She was too meek, she’d be eaten by a coyote at this rate, and definitely taken by a dark fey. Besides, Sage was too focused on Walsh to even think about her family’s sworn enemy at my ankles.
Sage rode in the front of the eighteenth-century stagecoach, holding the horse’s reins as it galloped along the dusty dirt packed road and through the woods. “Should I try to stitch him up? Why isn’t he healing!” I asked, grasping a suture kit. Walsh’s eyes were fluttering open, closed, open, closed. I’d told Sage to get us away from the barn in case anyone tried to retaliate for what we’d done. Trip kept his word and let us go, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have someone chase us.
She shook her head. “Stitches won’t help if it’s internal. That blade smelled like magic because it was. The magic disables our rapid healing.” Her voice cracked and I let a curse word fly. “Just keep pressure on it until I can get him to a healer fey.”
My eyes bugged. Light fey were healer fey, and Sawyer said they were currently not our allies. They were also in the next territory over. We didn’t have that kind of time.
“Light fey aren’t in our alliance anymore,” I reminded her, watching as tears rolled down her cheeks.
I could see her jaw clench shut, her beautiful face marred with dust and determination and a whole lotta panic. “We don’t have any other options. He’ll bleed out before I get him to the Witch Lands.”
“He’ll bleed out before we get out of this territory!” I shouted, hoping my bestie would see reason. I didn’t want to be the only one making the hard decisions here, but I would shove a hot metal rod poker into his wound in a minute if I had to. I had to do something, I wouldn’t just let him die without trying.
Leaning down, careful not to put a knee on the Paladin wolf wound around my leg or my injured friend, I peeled Walsh’s hand away from his stomach and choked on a half sob when sticky dark blood bubbled out. The last bit of consciousness left him then and his eyes rolled into the back of his head before his whole body went limp.
“No!” I shouted in a strangled cry. Why did I do that? I was just trying to assess the damage. He’d gotten stabbed saving my dumb ass, I couldn’t let him die.
“STOP!” I shouted to Sage. The jerky ride wasn’t doing us any favors, and we were far enough away now that we had some good distance between us and the barn. She looked back, saw Walsh’s unconscious form and paled, yanking the reins. We skidded to a jerky stop, and by instinct I stuck two fingers into the hole in his belly, grimacing at the wet, warm flesh that swallowed my digits.
“Don’t you fucking die on me, Walsh,” I growled. My wolf stepped up next to my side, pressing into me, and then went semitransparent. Without question, I needed to be whole for this. I couldn’t even think straight right now; having my wolf with me might help. She jumped up, crashing into my chest as the Paladin wolf at my feet watched us with searing yellow eyes.
A thought struck me then. We had a med-kit… and Sawyer was pre-med.
‘Sawyer, Walsh has been stabbed in the gut. We have a med-kit. Can you walk me through saving him?’
I braced myself for his no doubt frantic reply, wondering if I was even capable of piercing his flesh and doing stitches or whatever was needed. Luckily, my fingers shoved inside of him seemed to have stopped the blood, for now.
But the reply I needed never came. Horror struck me. He didn’t answer me this morning either. I’d thought he was just asleep, but now I wondered…
Oh God. Problem for future Demi. I needed to focus on Walsh now, and I was on my own.
“Open the suture kit!” I yelled to Sage, who just stood over Walsh’s unconscious form and stared. The Paladin wolf at my feet whined and I wished she’d give me room, but she seemed hell bent on sticking close to me like a damn ankle weight.
Sage’s hands shook as she ripped open the suture kit I’d dropped at my feet. My mother taught me to sew a button at age twelve, so I could totally do it…
The form at my feet tightened, and I was about to nudge the wolf away when I realized she’d started shifting.
Unless she was a fucking doctor, I didn’t want to have to deal with her right now. The fingers I’d stuck into Walsh’s stomach to keep the blood from gushing out was grossing me out more and more by the second. I couldn’t deal with one more thing.
My eyes flicked to the small naked brunette who was now crouched in a ball, head down as she barely peered at me through short, cropped bangs. I’d never seen a more fearful and submissive wolf in my life. She mumbled something softly, too soft for me to hear it, and I felt annoyed. “Speak up!” I snapped.
Walsh was going to fucking die and I was going to have to tell Sawyer he died saving me. It was all my fault and I would live with this guilt for the rest of my life.
“Do you want him healed, Alpha?” the girl said, louder this time.
My eyes flicked to Sage at the same moment hers met mine.
Alpha?
Why would she call me that? I shook myself from my thoughts, focusing on the most important part of her words.
“Yes. I do. Very much,” I told her.
Please be a trauma surgeon.
She nodded, rubbing her hands together, which shook her breasts. She didn’t seem to mind being naked, crouching over Walsh with her bare ass out for all to see. My gaze again flicked to Sage as if to say, What the fuck was happening?
She just shrugged, and we both looked at the timid brown-haired teen expectantly. I inhaled, trying to get a better read on her. She was definitely submissive as all hell, but I’d never smelled so much magic on one person in all my life. Now that I had a moment to think and assess her, I took another inhale, watching Sage do the same.
Hope thrummed through my chest when the coppery hot wire scent of magic hit my nostrils strong and powerful.
Was she a healer? Or was she going to stick some herbs in his gut and hope for the best?
As if reading my thoughts, she clapped her hands together loudly and blue sparks shot from her palms.
Holy shit.
Sage swallowed hard and I saw the hope in her eyes too.
The brown-haired girl looked up at me. “Please remove your fingers, Alpha. I will save him for you.”
I was… stunned… again by her use of that word. It sounded so… soft and respectful on her tongue, and she sounded so sure. My heart thundered in my chest. Did she somehow know who my bio father was? Could other Paladins smell my lineage? Arrow hadn’t… just because I was half of a Paladin alpha, that didn’t make me an alpha. Right?
I looked at Sage, wondering if we should trust this girl with Walsh’s life.
She gave one curt nod, and I pulled my finger out of the wet hole in his ribcage. Blood bubbled to the surface as the Paladin sighed deeply. “Father God, guide my magic,” she whispered, and again Sage and I shared a look.
Please be a badass healer, please be a badass healer, please be—
; Holy rattlesnake.
I gasped as blue sparks lit up her face, and Sage’s, and… everything. This wasn’t witch magic. This was… something else. Something breathtakingly beautiful.
Little glimmers of bright blue rained down from her palms like glittering snow and fell onto Walsh’s abdomen. It coated his skin, the sticky blood, his gaping hole, his entire body, making him look like an injured alien unicorn. Walsh’s entire form glowed with glittering blue as the young naked Paladin female breathed in and out deeply through her nose, with her eyes closed.
“Protect me from evil, Father,” she whimpered, and I frowned just as an unseen force knocked into her and she fell backward, holding her stomach.
My eyes widened as I ran to her, forgetting all about Walsh. She lay flat on her back on the splintered wood of the carriage, looking up at the sky. Her fingers clutched her naked stomach as blood pooled around her.
“What the hell!” I shrieked, glancing back at Walsh, who gasped, taking in a deep breath as if he’d just been shocked back to life. My gaze flicked to his stomach… completely healed. Not even a pink mark or scar to show where he had once been injured.
How was that possible?
I grabbed the young girl—she looked barely sixteen—and took her into my arms, shaking her. “What happened!” What was that invisible force that had pushed her back? Why was she now bleeding where Walsh had just been injured? I had more questions than answers.
She looked up at the sky, smiling as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
“How do I help you?” I whimpered.
Her eyes found mine and I was struck by the deepest turquoise-blue eyes I’d ever seen. They were threaded through with shafts of yellow, making them look like they contained lightning. Reaching up, she stroked my face. “Alpha.”
Something stirred inside of me. My wolf? I inhaled. No. It was… something else. The scent of magic filled the air and my chest constricted. What was the point of saving one life just to take another? Had this girl just given her life for Walsh?
