“Raphael,” I said.
I was standing in the clearing with my hands loose at my sides. There was going to be a collision between us if it came down to a fight, but I couldn’t just let him do what I thought he was going to do.
Amber stayed by the car, and I was glad she did. She was scared. I could smell it in the air, a sour smell that traveled to me on the breeze.
“Hello, Balfour.” Raphael sounded smug, like he’d gotten something none of the rest of us had been able to get.
“You can’t do this.”
He started circling me. I mimicked him, circling as he did. He was sizing me up. Maybe he thought that with his new power, he would be able to flatten me.
“How are you liking the alpha gig?” he asked. “I wanted to hold on to it, but there were some things I had to give up.”
“I haven’t been on the job very long, but I’m sure I’ll find out how it’s going to work for me.”
He smiled again, a smile that reminded me of the witches. How much of their magic was running through him, as well as the magic he’d gotten from the burial ground? How much of it had they used on him to keep him coming back for more? Or was it really all his own choice? I didn’t want to believe that he’d chosen to betray the pack and side with our nemeses, but there were things that weren’t impossible in this world and Raphael had never been someone I would trust with my life if I had a choice.
“I’m sorry you have to lose it so soon after you’ve gotten it,” he said.
“Why do you think so?”
He shrugged. “We’re going to fight, and you’re going to die, and it will all be over. Do you think Aryn will be strong enough to deal with everything that’s coming his way?”
Honestly, I didn’t. But that was okay, because I wasn’t going to die.
“Why the witches?” I had to know.
“Because they offered me power. You can’t tell me you would have turned it down.”
I shrugged. I would have turned it down, but I wasn’t going to get into some kind of discussion with him now. The power was building in the air. It rippled on my skin. Any moment, it was going to explode, and talking would be pointless.
It happened sooner than I had expected. Raphael curled his lips back, and his teeth were sharp. The human quality was already fading. I had the feeling that his teeth weren’t ever going to be blunt again. His eyes flashed red. The green gems he’d sported were gone.
They say the eyes are the window to the soul. In this case, it showed the lack thereof.
I dropped into a fighting stance. I wasn’t going to shift until he did. He wasn’t the type to fight fair, but I wasn’t going to give up my honor just because Raphael had none.
Raphael lunged at me, and in the split second between him leaving his position and making contact with me, he was a wolf. The transition was so quick; it was like he’d changed channels. I didn’t have a chance to think before his jaws were around my neck.
Amber screamed.
I managed to roll over and push him off me. I felt heat to one side, and I turned my head to look. Amber had a fireball balanced between her hands and was throwing it back and forth. She looked at me nervously. She was scared she would hit me, but I didn’t care. Vampires were flammable as fuck, but werewolves were immune… up to a point. I nodded at her. I needed the time to change while she kept Raphael busy.
She trusted me, and shot the fireball toward us. Her aim was perfect. She hit Raphael in the ribs, and he yelped like a dog and shook himself. His copper fur was blackened, and he pawed his face like embers had gone into his eyes.
That was enough of a distraction for me to change. I pushed into my wolf form. It went a lot quicker than when I was second in line. It was possibly the only thing that saved me at that point.
I was barely in wolf form when Raphael attacked me. His power hit me before he did, and I went down. For a moment we were tangled. I was bleeding out; I could feel it. I needed help. I knew instinctively how I could tap into my pack, but they weren’t close enough for me to leech from them.
I managed to get back on my feet and snapped at Raphael’s legs. He pulled them back. I managed to break his skin twice. I tasted blood and magic on my tongue, thick and unpleasant.
Another fireball came in our direction, but this time it hit both of us at the same time, and instead of only knocking Raphael out, it knocked both of us. The fire was so hot I felt my fur singe. The air I breathed was dry and hot, lighting me up on the inside. I gasped and felt like I was dying.
This was the end. I knew it was. Raphael would recover quicker than I could with his new magic and my lack of a pack to help pull me through. Amber was worried about how she was going to get it right the next time.
I could feel her fear and her nervousness and her worry, and it did nothing to help me recover. In fact, it felt like her panic was leeching strength from me more than anything else.
We needed help. Fuck, we really needed help or this was going to be all over and life as we knew it would change forever. Of course, if we were all dead, it wouldn’t make much of a difference to us anyway.
I didn’t want to die.
A strange bellowing sound came through the trees; a sound I had never heard before. I wasn’t sure if I should fear it. Something made me think it was help, not an enemy. The magic was warm and comfortable, not laced with terror.
Amber made a surprised sound. I looked up as the gatekeeper charged through the trees. He wasn’t wearing his glamour, and for some reason, he looked bigger and stronger and scarier than before, when he was marching me to my cell. He was easily eighteen feet tall, with shoulders that were equal to the length of a car. His teeth seemed longer, pushing out of his mouth and pointing up toward his eyes. His hair was tangled and messy.
I felt Raphael’s fear the moment he laid eyes on the fae. Thank God, there was something the son of a bitch was afraid of.
Amber’s little friend, Fern, arrived too. She looked determined. I didn’t know what she could do. She was a slight little thing who looked like the wind could scoop her up and blow her away. Amber could use some emotional support – that would have to be enough.
Hocus came at Raphael and picked the wolf up in one hand, cradling him like he was a teacup breed of dog. Raphael looked like he was a little lapdog, too, scared, with his ears pinned back and his tail between his legs.
That didn’t last long. His power filled him as he remembered who he was now, and his eyes flashed a brilliant red. He turned on Hocus and attacked his arm.
The fae was big and scary, but clearly not used to fighting. Raphael’s first bite broke his skin, and at the sign of his own blood he dropped Raphael. The wolf’s body hit the ground with an audible thud, forcing the air out of his lungs, but he somehow recovered and managed to get back up on all fours.
Raphael came at me again and this time, he was going in for the kill. He was going to end this now, and when he did and there were only fae left, the battle was going to be over for them, too.
The little willow girl stepped into the clearing. I wanted to get her out of the way – Raphael was going to mutilate her. When she looked at me, her eyes were a brilliant green, a color Raphael’s had never been.
She lifted her hands, and for a moment I wasn’t sure what she was going to do. Sprout flowers or something?
The ground trembled, and roots broke out of the soil. They curled in the air like snakes, finally free from the earth. She moved her hands, and the trees bent around us until we were in a cave-like structure made of tree trunks.
The roots reached out and went for Raphael. He tried to run, but there were roots everywhere. I didn’t move for fear of tripping. They grabbed Raphael and wrapped around him. The girl was stronger than any fae I'd heard of, stronger than Amber and Hocus put together.
Hocus was standing to the side, his arm dripping blood, cradling it against his chest.
Amber conjured up fire that shot out, singeing Rapha
el the same way it had done to me. I got up and went for Raphael. These fae were going against their nature to save me. I wasn’t going to make them kill him, too. That was completely against who they were, and I would spare them that.
I grabbed Raphael around the neck and shook him like a dog. The moment I had him in my grasp, Fern let go, and the roots retracted. Amber had a fireball on standby, and Fern had the roots poised, but the final blow was up to me.
Was it fair to gang up on one wolf? No. But he’d betrayed the pack, and there was nothing that could redeem him.
I felt my teeth penetrate the muscle of his neck and hit his spine. I bit down hard, and it snapped. Raphael’s body went limp, and there was a surge of power before it all faded away. I opened my jaw and let the body fall to the ground.
Fern, Hocus, and Amber stood to the side, looking at the dead animal. The roots were back in the ground as if nothing had happened, and Hocus’s arm wasn’t bleeding anymore. In fact, it looked like nothing had happened to it.
I brought my human back. I was free to do that now. The shift was strange, and I was naked when I was back in human form. I felt like I was coming back into someone else’s body. The magic I had now made it feel like that.
Fern looked me up and down and grinned. Amber dove into the car and brought out a coat that she had in the back. It was a lady’s coat, but it worked.
“What now?” Amber asked me.
All I could do was shrug.
Did the witches still have the land? Yes. Were the fae going to be in trouble for what they’d done for the werewolves? Probably. And the whole alpha thing was going to need some getting used to.
I wanted to go on seeing Amber, but I doubted it would be allowed. I also doubted that that would stop either of us.
What now? Well, we were going to see, weren’t we?
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