by Meg Xuemei X
Surrender, Blaez! I said.
Blaez tumbled to the ground and rolled, aiming to pin me under his weight. I jumped away just in time. Lenka, Ty-Ohni, and Hó’nehe pounced on my ankles and tripped me, yipping with glee.
Lenka, a beautiful red she-wolf, nipped at my ribs, and Ty-Ohni had his mouth on my shoulder. He knew better than to get his teeth near my throat; I wouldn’t tolerate that. Hó’nehe resorted to dragging my leg keenly, wanting me to play tug-of-war.
I conjured a picture in my mind. I’ll stay. I won’t leave again for a long while.
Blaez rose, then stretched, his big head on his paws, and watched me like a philosopher.
I shoved away the pack that crowded me and rose to a crouch. I’ll bathe.
And then we play? Lenka asked.
It depends, I said as I ran into my forest.
My pack shot past me.
I laughed, but the sound died in my throat as wing-shaped shadows swept overhead.
Angel hunters!
My blood turned to ice.
They never gave up on their hunt, but they shouldn’t have found me so soon. I’d been in the human city Palmyra for less than three days. Now that I was with my wolves, the hunters should have lost track of me. In the past, being with my pack had blocked the Angels’ sight and kept me under their radar.
I looked up at the sky, my heart in my throat. My wolves howled in fury, sensing my distress.
But there were no Angel wings beating in the clear sky. I blew out a breath of relief. My nerves were playing tricks on my eyes.
Let’s go. Bath! I called my wolves.
Light danced with shadows, wind sent down sweet-smelling blossoms, and the sunlight on my face made me want to sing.
Lenka and Hó’nehe soared into the gem-like stream, not bothering to ask my permission or wait for me. But then, my pack wasn’t like any other pack. They had a hybrid as their alpha.
Ty-Ohni stood guard and Blaez padded quietly beside me. He was moody, but I wouldn’t concern myself with his brooding. I needed to wash off my weariness, the grime, and the human scent.
I unfastened my cloak and tossed it onto a rock by the spring before I extracted a knife from my boot and dropped it on the ground. I did the same with the other two daggers strapped to either side of my legs. Earthling weapons couldn’t harm an Angel, but mine had been forged in the Angels’ homeland and could bleed them.
I’d stolen the first dagger, obtained the second from an Angel hunter who had nearly killed me before I sent him to Earth hell, and bought the third on the black market.
My eyes flicked to my tight leather gloves. I only took them off when I bathed. If anyone were to touch my bare skin, they’d die in agony.
Only my wolves were somehow immune, but I was still careful with them and tried not to touch them without my gloves. My bare touch didn’t drain their life force as it did other beings, but it weakened them.
I was the First Witch. I carried the curse of death touch.
I tugged at the glove on my index finger, ready to pull it off. Blaez, who had been watching my every move, turned his head and snarled.
Invaders! Ty-Ohni broke off toward the east.
Blaez raced after him. Lenka and Hó’nehe leapt out of the stream and shook the water off their shining furs, which splattered all over me, before charging after the white wolf.
Panic seared through my throat. The wings that had cast shadows over me hadn’t been a trick of my mind. The hunters had found me.
Angels were the mightiest, cruelest of all alien species. They’d once conquered our planet in two weeks. I didn’t expect to escape this time. My wolves would defend me to their last breath, but they were also my weakness when it came to battling the Archangels.
I could slip away right now to preserve myself.
I returned my crescent moon-shaped knife to my boot and shook my head in disgust at my cowardly thought as I picked up the other twin daggers on the forest floor.
I couldn’t hide forever.
I wouldn’t.
I removed my gloves, stuffing them in my pocket, and dashed after my pack. My consciousness pushed forward into Blaez’s.
Through his eyes, colors burst in front of me. Everything became super focused and vivid, yet everything—the trees, bushes, and blossoms— blurred past at his blinding speed.
Blaez, I called, lead the pack away.
Never, he answered. We defend you!
The Angel hunters are too dangerous, I said.
We’re more, he growled, as if I had hurled an insult at him.
The wolves rushed toward the threat without fear or reservation.
So, this was the showdown between me and my enemies.
The hunters’ silhouettes appeared in my field of sight.
CHAPTER 2
The Dragonian
Seven! the grey wolf, Ty-Ohni, reported. Dinner or snack?
Seven against the five of us.
They would feast on my pack if they killed us all, but I didn’t tell my brave wolves that. I didn’t want to hurt their feelings.
The first foe tore into my vision. He wasn’t an Angel—he had no wings—but that didn’t lessen the dread in me, especially when I saw how fast he moved.
In an instant, he grabbed my beta’s head, his hard face a foot from Blaez’s. He was a Dragonian warrior, yet not a pure blood.
The Dragonians were an engineering race. Hairless and blue-skinned, their eyes were cat-like, luminous. One of their tribes even had horns.
This Dragonian had light brown skin and lush hair. His amber eyes were fierce like a tiger’s and they shone in the stream of sunlight.
Metal plates clasped his broad shoulders and forearms, but his herculean upper arms were exposed. They were thicker than my thighs. His sculpted armor was like a second skin and couldn’t conceal his muscled chest.
He was a half blood. His Dragonian father must have mated with an advanced human woman.
Blaez’s eyes bulged under the pressure of the Dragonian’s strong hand clutched on his throat, but that didn’t diminish his hate-filled glare.
My wolves wouldn’t stand a chance in this fight.
Peeling my mind off Blaez, I roared and flung a dagger.
It flew toward the Dragonian’s eye like dark lightning. I’d never missed a target and didn’t expect it to flounder this time either.
The Dragonian hurled Blaez away and the white wolf hit a high branch before falling to the ground. The Dragonian raised his armored forearm and blocked my dagger.
The rest of my pack crashed into the other men. Teeth and paws against punches and kicks.
I charged toward the Dragonian, my remaining two daggers clutched in my hands.
He withdrew a steel barbell from his waist, twisting the middle, and the barbell lengthened from both ends. He spun it like a fucking showman. When I reached him and thrust my dagger toward his heart after a clever feign, he parried it easily.
A surge of rage beat within me.
He evaded my ferocious slashes, wielding his steel to meet my twin daggers, jumping back as if to play nice before lunging at me again.
He moved like a lithe leopard, which consumed me with envy and made me angrier.
“By the way,” he called toward his companions casually in Earth’s native tongue. “Don’t kill the wolves.” His bright gaze searched my face.
There was nothing for him to see except my dark, blue eyes spitting fury and my flaming red hair tangled in the wind.
He was their leader.
He’d ordered his gang not to kill my pack.
Just as the knots in my stomach loosened a little, he added, “Not yet,” studying me with amusement and a hint of fascination.
Well then, I would just have to amuse and fascinate him.
I tossed a dagger toward his neck as I lurched at him, my other dagger stabbing toward his heart. But before I’d blinked, my daggers fell to the forest floor.
I was weaponless.
I staggered back, snarling, and he gave me a taunting smirk.
I was no match for his brutal strength. However, if I could get close enough to touch him with my bare hand, I would end him nicely.
My pack wasn’t faring any better. The brutes threw Ty-Ohni and Hó’nehe into the air as if they were toys, but I was pleased to see my wolves had left a few impressive bites on the vulnerable parts of their limbs.
A horned Dragonian had his massive arm tightly around Lenka’s neck and his other hand locked her jaw. One snap and he could break the she-wolf’s neck. The nasty Dragonian was only waiting for an order from their ringleader.
“Let her go!” I demanded in the common language.
“So, you can talk,” the ringleader said with a hint of mirth in his voice.
Did he really think I was a beast girl?
At my outrageous look, he flashed a grin—all even white teeth—that aimed to daze me. But he’d targeted the wrong woman. I was never easily dazed.
I regarded him with a cold calculation.
He was over seven feet tall. All his men were. They proved to be formidable hunters, and he was the most fearsome.
He eased his pose, but only appeared more dominant. My eyes dipped down to his muscular legs, half covered by his sculpted, asymmetrical armor, then his metal shin guards, then his military boots.
This one liked to show off his magnificent body.
Did I say magnificent?
When I tore my gaze from his sexy, powerful torso back to his face, I found his eyes turning molten gold.
He liked what he saw.
I bared my teeth and hissed, but my mind worked quickly to seek an exit for my pack and me.
I’d been on the receiving end of his explosive strength and violence. I’d seen that he could have easily delivered a death blow to my wolves, yet he’d held back. He’d also hinted that he reserved the rights to murder us.
I scanned the rest of his gang: four pure-blood Dragonians, one shifter, and one advanced human.
Humans were divided into three subcategories: genetically advanced humans, average humans, and sub-humans that were closer to apes.
None of the gang had used a weapon against my pack, though they carried all sorts: angelic blades, mechanic bows, and phasers that they must have gotten from dead Angels during the war of Earth against the Heavens.
They could have just passed by my forest and decided to fight.
Blaez, Ty-Ohni, and Hó’nehe charged back toward the invaders as soon as they recovered. I threw a hand at them and put a mental leash to stop them.
They halted but snarled furiously.
Back off, I ordered.
Why? they barked.
To live another day, I said.
We want to have their big bones for snack!
Sounds awesome, but not today, I said. Today, we’re cunning and patient.
My wolves stopped growling and laughed.
We’re cunning and patient, they agreed and allotted the snacks among themselves.
Blaez insisted on having the ringleader, who kept staring at me with such intensity it made my body feel alight with heat. The Dragonian hadn’t missed a beat on my mental exchange with my wolves.
I stabbed a finger at the horned Dragonian, who still held the she-wolf captive. “Let my wolf go now if you want to walk out of my forest alive.”
“Your forest?” asked the horned Dragonian.
“Are you deaf?” I said. I didn’t look at him but at the leader. “You have no right to trespass on my territory and harm my pack.”
“Call its name and see if the forest answers you,” the horned one said.
My wolves bared their teeth and snarled viciously in a show of loyalty and support.
Laugh lines jumped at the corner of their leader’s eyes. Did he think this was funny? Did he think we were a joke? He wouldn’t think so if I had a chance to cup his face with my bare hand and inflict pain on him no mortal could sustain.
Cup his face? It suddenly occurred to me how striking his features were when his amber eyes brightened like that.
The horned Dragonian still held Lenka.
My fingers twitched, but I had no dagger to throw at him. I unfastened the steel chain from around my waist and dropped it at my feet to show them that I was completely unarmed.
The gang looked a bit surprised at my sudden change of behavior.
This trick had always worked in the past. As soon as the enemies believed I was surrendering, I struck. No one expected me to be the weapon.
I would approach the half-blood ringleader first. He would allow me near since I’d just showed him I was weaponless and thus harmless. I would bestow a gentle touch on him. When he fell to his knees in agony, his warriors would rush to investigate. I would use his corpse as a shield and take down the next prey.
My wolves would attack at the same time.
Not all of them would live through this, but if these men were determined to toy with us before killing us, then it was the only way to go. I would bring down their leader and take a few others with me.
“Ask nicely, wolf girl,” the leader said before I made it halfway toward him, “and we’ll release your pet.”
My pet? I was glad that Lenka couldn’t understand him.
“Sure, I’ll ask nicely,” I purred with a sweet smile reserved for my enemies. And I can give you an even nicer touch. “Would you let her go, please?”
Heat rose to his eyes at my purr. He nodded toward his man, and the horned Dragonian shoved Lenka away from him.
“See, being nice is all I asked for,” the ringleader said with an easy smile.
His words and smile didn’t charm the red she-wolf at all. She wheeled and lunged toward her former captivator. She flashed an image of her tearing his throat out into my mind. I wouldn’t object to it if we could win.
Lenka, I ordered, fall back in rank.
She snapped her head at me—she didn’t like it one bit, but she obeyed and retreated to stand beside the white wolf with a sequence of snarls.
My pack flanked me, two on each side, baring their teeth with drools.
I halted my advance and theirs.
“What are you?” the Dragonian leader asked.
I narrowed my eyes to slits, but I had to tilt my head to look at him. I was at an average height of five foot six, comparing to his seven feet. “What are you?”
He chuckled good-naturedly. “Are you a shifter? If you are, there’s no shame in that. We’ve got one right here.”
“No, she isn’t,” the sandy-haired shifter said. “She smells good, but she doesn’t smell like my kind.”
I gave him a once-over.
He was extremely good looking, in a boyish way. He was the youngest among his companions and I guessed he was a year or two younger than I was.
The shifter broke into a wide, friendly grin at my appreciative assessment. I could see he did that often, particularly to girls who checked him out.
“I’m Lucas,” he offered.
The half-blood leader gave him a hard look, and Lucas let his charming grin drop. The leader cleared his throat, trying to turn my attention back to him.
I let my gaze linger on the shifter a second longer before turning to the ringleader, just to rile him up.
“A human girl became a wolf alpha?” asked a hornless Dragonian. “How did that happen?”
There were three other Dragonians, and they all looked the same with the same blue skin tone at first glance.
I gave the horned one an evil look.
“She isn’t a pure human either,” the advanced human said. “She’s half blood, but I can’t pinpoint her other origin.”
Of course he couldn’t. No one, except the Angels who hunted me, knew what I was. I was the first hybrid of an advanced human and Angel, and not just any Angel—but the Angel King.
It was unheard of that a mortal could conceive offspring from the super race. When the Fey Empress had sent my mother to be her spy and the Angel Kin
g’s courtier, the Empress had gifted my mother Fey immortality, which must have altered my mother’s genetic composition. By a dark twist of fate, the impossible happened and I was the unwanted product.
If the Dragonians learned about my true origin, they would kill “the abomination” on the spot. Cold perspiration dampened under my armpits.
I knew what I was when I could first form a thought. Even in my mother’s womb, I’d absorbed her knowledge and part of my monstrous father’s. I could assimilate the knowledge of those I touched.
“Good luck figuring that out,” I sneered to conceal my fear of being discovered.
“We don’t need luck,” a Dragonian said smugly. “We have science. Our Atlantis lab can decipher any genetic chemical letters.”
I hissed. Like hell would I let them drag me to Atlantis and throw me onto the operating table to dissect me. Death’s dark light danced in my eyes; I would let death kiss them one by one.
My wolves snarled, attuned to my mood. One silent command and they would go for the enemies’ throats again.
Halt, I ordered.
They threatened you, Freyja, they barked. We must tear them apart.
Cunning and patience, remember? I asked.
They snarled more aggressively, yet remained beside me.
The ringleader studied us.
“You’re prettier than any human girl I’ve ever seen,” the shifter said, trying to ease the tension in the air. “You aren’t half Fey, are you? You don’t have pointed ears. And you’re more vibrant than a Fey.”
Thankfully, I had no wings, so no one here could make a connection and attribute my angelic face and dark blue eyes to the angel race and the Angel King.
The ringleader sent the friendly shifter another harsh glance. He didn’t share the shifter’s flirting style.
“We have no intention of harming you, wolf girl,” the leader said.
“Then I’ll allow you to pass by my forest in peace,” I said. “Be gone now.”
“We’re leaving,” he said, his eyes never taking off me, “but not without you.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You’re coming with us,” he repeated.
I gave a high-pitched laugh. “Very funny.”
“It’s not a joke,” he said. “I’m asking nicely.”
