Fifty feet now.
The wasp’s stinger tickles my belly.
Her mandibles sink deep into my throat, loosing a shower of blood.
My animal roars, opens her mouth, unleashes a withering blast of heat.
Shiori rolls leftward so her shoulder and not her head takes most of the heat. Her scales redden and burn and the stink of seared flesh sours my nose and my life slows to this single instant, a mad dance of blood and death, of survival and extinction and something deep inside, some well of hidden strength bursts free and I rear backward, freeing myself from Shiori’s mandibles while my scorpion tail slams into the soft spot where I tore off her armor—
Thirty feet.
Trish leans forward on my neck, hurls a fistful of orange powder straight in Shiori’s hideous face. Shiori’s eyes melt into her head and the skin on her face sloughs off, revealing her thin skeleton. Professor Melchuk’s burning powder eats still deeper, dissolving flash and bone.
Shiori’s body tenses beneath me.
Her screams become a choked gurgle.
The ground’s coming up fast. I have to break free of Shiori or Trish is dead, but the wasp-bitch still has her hooked legs wrapped around me—
Ten feet.
Trish jumps off me, into shifting black smoke.
Rodas.
I’m above Shiori as we hit the ground, which is what I intended. Let the wasp absorb most of the impact. Only right before we crash into the Avenue of the Dead Shiori bursts into a swarm of wasps and suddenly I’m falling alone, passing through the biting cloud, feeling them sink their tiny stingers into my ears and nose and eyes—
I hit the ground so hard the earth shudders.
Everything goes black.
***
I’m prowling through a night forest, my nose low to the dew-moistened ground, on the scent of something I can’t name. An approaching storm bends the hemlock and cedar trees forward and back.
I stop and scent the air.
He’s close.
My son.
Lachlan?
No.
My second son. I leap through a dense stand of slide alder and devil’s club, convinced my son is in danger. My limbs ache. There’s a strange exhaustion in my muscles and a tightness in my joints. Like I’ve been hunting for days without food or rest.
Then it hits me, a preternatural knowledge common to some dreams.
I’m older than I am in this age.
Much older.
I burst through the thicket and into a moonlit clearing.
The moonlight is silvery-white. Soft. Beautiful.
A magnificent creature is waiting for me in the middle of the clearing. A silver-black wolf with piercing blue eyes. For an instant I think it’s my bloodmate. Then the grief hits.
My bloodmate died long ago.
Shimmering metallic eagle’s wings rise from the beautiful wolf’s back. He flicks his tail, a nest of hissing blue-eyed snakes.
My son. Child of love.
Lord of Dawn.
The Unforgiving. The Wolf Knight.
The names arrive from a deep well of hidden knowledge.
We failed. The One War lives on.
The thought makes my hackles rise.
My son lifts his head as I approach. His animal vanishes, and standing in the clearing is a tall, tight-muscled warrior dressed in animal hides. He’s wearing a single piece of armor, a battered breastplate that shines in the moonlight. There’s a grim coat of arms etched in the worn steel.
A skeletal wolf head.
A floating crown.
A pair of crossed reaper’s blades.
His father’s coat of arms.
My son has a morning star slung over his shoulder, its viciously spiked head attached to a long wooden handle stained black with Stricken blood. A gorgeous mess of jet-black hair spills around his ears. He looks so much like his father my heart skips.
My son studies me for a long moment, concern and sadness etched in his proud features.
Then he whispers three words:
Wake now, mother.
***
I scream myself awake, looking through a ragged hole in the pit entrance ten feet above me. The sky’s a flickering red-orange terror.
My animal’s gone.
Frantic, I check my wounds: the cuts around my neck are almost healed, and there’s no sign of a puncture wound from Shiori’s stinger. But my bones are shattered. I feel the tingling heat that means I’m healing, but my skin is deathly cold. There’s a bitter chemical taste in my mouth, like bleach and bile, the byproduct of my body healing too fast from catastrophic trauma.
How long have I been out?
Aaron.
The thought makes a surge of panic rise in my throat. I scramble up the pit, sending a shower of loose rocks down. My fingers slide and slip through the muck. Then a shadow falls over me.
Terror grips my heart.
I look up, expecting to see Vuk or Shiori. Instead there’s a man with yellow eyes and patterned skin. He leans down, extends his hand.
“Hurry,” he says, casting a quick glance over his shoulder.
Something’s coming. So large its footsteps make the earth quiver, sending stones and sand falling into the pit.
“Hurry, Lily,” the man says.
I struggle to remember his name, but my mind’s a fractured mess.
My unborn son? Lord of Dawn?
Sadness sweeps into me. A life of violence and war.
But already the image is fading—
I snatch the man’s hand, and as we touch my memory returns.
“Rodas,” I say as my brother lifts me easily out of the pit. “Thank you.”
Rodas flings me a look that says I should hold off on thanking him.
“Trish?”
Rodas points. She’s lying a few feet away from the crater I created when I landed.
“Dead?” The word carves a wound in my heart.
“Unconscious.”
My relief is short-lived. I ask about Aaron.
Rodas shakes his head.
No.
We’re standing at the base of the pyramid, in the center of the Avenue of the Dead.
Shiori’s staggering towards us, in human form. Her white dress is stained and tattered. Blood’s leaking from a brutal wound where my scorpion tail pierced her side. One half of her skull and face is burned deeper than bone. The burn spreads down her neck, exposing the fluted tissue of her windpipe, then her white collarbone and ribs.
The gruesome sight makes me shudder.
The unburned half of Shiori’s face is oddly misshapen, as if she’s trying to summon her animal, but failing. She takes a few faltering steps forward, laughs madly, nearly collapses. A few wasps buzz from her throat, but they’re weak and disoriented. They fly in random patterns, then flutter harmlessly to the ground.
“Kill her,” I growl. “She won’t remain weak for long.”
Rodas lifts his head and roars. Hundreds of Skin warriors leap from their hiding places, each brandishing a long spear. They circle around Shiori while she hisses and buzzes and spits. The braver ones begin stabbing at her, their spears slipping into her legs, belly, chest. Shiori whirls madly, swatting at her attackers while her skin ripples. I hear her pleading with her animal, begging it to join her.
I’m about to tell Rodas to finish her himself when a wave of crippling nausea washes over me. I bend double, spitting bile and blood, suddenly worried over my unborn son—
A black cloud smothers the earth.
A million carrion vultures swoop down.
Shiori looses a hideous cackle.
“Kill her!” I scream, too tired to stand upright. I slump against a stone disk inscribed with ancient glyphs.
Rodas summons the Night Stalker while Lachlan’s Carrion Cloud swoops down at the helpless Skins. The Skins scatter as the birds attack, tearing the humans limb from limb. Rodas races at Shiori. She raises her arms in what I mistake for meek surrender. The vultures
attack the leopard, pecking the skin from his bones. Shiori’s face shifts, and this time the wasp emerges more completely.
She’s growing whole.
I hear a screeching wail that makes me close my eyes, fighting back tears.
There, high overhead, Vuk, the One Without Value, is descending the stairs of his pyramid throne.
There’s something hanging between his mandibles.
I close my eyes, try and will the despairing vision away.
But Vuk only roars louder, his insectile call filtering into my consciousness, making me shudder with loathing and something more. Something that is not my own.
Desire.
He’s scenting my animal for a mate.
Calling to her.
Aaron’s wolf-body hangs limply between Vuk’s hooked mandibles.
The wolf’s silver-black fur is parted in several places, revealing the glistening red of muscle and the terror of white bone.
My bloodmate’s eyes are closed.
I reach out to his wildmind, fighting through Vuk’s suggestive screech, trying to sense the life force throbbing through the wolf.
There’s only silence. Black and eternal.
I’m too frightened to grieve. First I have to live.
Vuk is halfway down the pyramid.
He’s taking his sweet time. Anik’s dead. My bloodmate’s dead. That leaves only me and Rodas against the three—
Kneel to me, my pretty sister, Vuk says in my mind. The One War is over. You have lost. Your Pureblood mutt is dead. Kneel to me and your life will be spared. Walk with me, hand in hand, into the glorious Age of Discord.
An overpowering desire to yield burns through me. My animal howls, scenting her bloodmate’s death and her brother’s imminent ascendance. It’s a response that lurks beyond reason, a response of the wildlands that surge through her blood, the need to survive at all costs, even if it means submission to a monster—
I trace my hand over one of the carved glyphs.
A feathered serpent carrying a star in its mouth.
The morning star. Dawn.
Renewal. Hope.
My son. The man I saw in the dream.
Thinking of my unborn son gives me the strength and courage to stand and face my brother. “Go fuck yourself, you nasty motherfucker!”
I take a quick look over my shoulder.
Shiori’s gone.
Rodas has shifted into the black smoke. My son’s vultures screech and caw, enraged by their inability to strike him.
Vuk takes another step toward me. “Do you remember what happened the last time you refused my summons, dear sister? The world bled for millennia. Pups and infants were gutted in their sleep. The innocent died by the thousands. An entire species was nearly extinguished. The Purebloods collared themselves from fear of becoming what I already was. Free. An apex alpha on the prowl.”
Vuk pauses. Shakes his head, swinging Aaron’s limp body from side to side. “It’s natural law, Lily. The strong over the weak. I warned you. Again and again, I warned you. But you refused to listen. You were blinded by your own particular weakness. Love. A ridiculous belief in its healing power. Love is a lie of the Skins. They need it to make their worthless lives more bearable. We, the naturally ascendant species, require no flimsy crutch. Tell me, where was love when I murdered our father? Where was love when I mounted out mother? Or when I mounted you?”
“There’s nothing natural about you,” I scream. “You’re an aberration. A mutation. A sickness. Mother nature’s foulest fuck-up.”
“I’m going to enjoy forcing you to yield,” Vuk says. “I’m going to enjoy satiating my appetites with your flesh, then ripping that hideous mixed-blood boy from your belly.”
Vuk’s words cause a warm ripple to spread over my skin.
My animal’s returning.
And she’s way pissed.
Vuk scents the air. His forelegs click together in what can only be excitement. “Ah. There she is. The All Encompassing. Call her, Lily. Call her and witness your animal’s weakness.”
Far overhead, at the edge of the pyramid platform, I see Lachlan sitting on the top step. His knobby knees are folded against his chest. He’s resting his pointed chin on his folded hands. His eyes blaze black. His vultures lift into the sky. Something in how he’s staring at me. Not with loathing or rage.
No. My son’s looking at me…with something like longing and regret. I think about calling to him and quickly decide against it. Let him see what his father is capable of. Let him see…the horror he had a hand in returning to the world. Let him decide for himself.
Rodas forms at my side. He’s bleeding from several gouges along his shoulders and back, but he’s whole.
“Can you handle Shiori?” I ask.
Rodas scowls up at Lachlan. “If the boy minds his manners. I bested her once before. She’s injured now. That burn won’t heal.”
I arch a questionng eyebrow.
“She tracked me down. Demanded I return to Vuk’s pack. I told her no.” Rodas grins. “I don’t think she’s used to not getting her way.”
“No shit,” I say, eyeing Vuk. Then I say to Rodas, “Just keep her off me. Got it? I can’t worry about her. I know what Vuk wants. He wants me alive to torture. I can use that against him. But Shiori simply wants me dead.”
Rodas disappears into smoke and drifts down the Avenue of the dead, searching for Shiori.
I turn my attention to Vuk. “Your power isn’t infinite. One day someone will rise to claim your throne. You’ll fight, as you always have, expecting to triumph. But the challenger will be younger. Faster. More capable. More deserving. You’ll die at his hands. Do you know who that challenger will be?”
Vuk hesitates.
“Your only son. Lachlan.”
“He’s a child,” Vuk spits. “An infant.”
“The Age of Discord isn’t yours. It’s his. My blood will live on in his veins.”
“Silence!”
Lachlan’s head jerks up. The carrion birds scream and caw.
He’s listening.
“You failed the moment you sought our son’s help. Even if he stays loyal to you. My blood thrums strong in his veins. Every time you look at him you’ll see me. One day my blood will rise against you. I scent it.”
It’s a lie. I don’t scent anything except darkness from my son. But Vuk whirls, looks up the stone steps. His eyes settle on Lachlan. “Then I murder the boy as well.”
“Then you have nothing. No one. Only those you terrorize, with their false prayers and lying pledges of loyalty.”
“They will be loyal!”
“Not to you. One scent of weakness and they’ll turn on you in a heartbeat. You’ll live in the shadow of fear, always wondering where the next challenge will come from. You’ll trust no one. You’ve created a cage. Called it dominion. Locked yourself inside.”
“An apex predator needs no one.”
“You’re wrong. He needs a pack. Otherwise he’s simply…vulnerable.”
Vuk flings Aaron from his mouth and leaps down the steps. I uncage my animal and fly upward, meeting him halfway. Aaron smashes into the stone steps and rolls to the base of the pyramid, and in the instant before Vuk and I meet my bloodmate lifts his head from the dirt, ever so slightly—
Vuk crashes into me, easily overpowers me, and carries me down to the base of the pyramid. His claws cut deep into my belly and I lash out with my poisoned tail. He snatches it from the air, bites down on it, severs it in two. A flaming scream bursts from my mouth and then I feel Vuk’s weight crushing me down, his paws heavy on my chest, my ribs cracking—
“You fucking whore,” Vuk says in his high-pitched, needling voice. “You lying, traitorous whore.”
Vuk’s mandibles cut into my chest, searching for my beating heart. Blood bubbles from my lips. I misjudged him. Pushed him too far. He’s going to murder me—
Off in the distance, Shiori screams.
I glance behind Vuk, to the top of the pyramid.
Lachlan’s gone.
Maybe he simply left. Maybe he can’t stand to see his father brutalize his mother. But something, an instinct born of a mother’s heart, tells me otherwise.
Vuk pins my paws over my chest. Swings his mantis face low and hisses at me. I scent his brutal arousal, the reek of perverted need emanating from him in noxious waves. I spit at him, try and get my jaws around his foreleg. He rears back and smashes his foreleg into my face so hard my cheekbone shatters. I hear an odd, pained sound and realize it’s the sound of my own screaming—
Vuk shifts so his weight is between my legs.
My skin’s burning white-hot in fury but my enemy doesn’t feel it, he’s too strong, and suddenly despair slams into me, withering me, making me almost lose hope.
I misjudged my son.
He’s gone.
Vuk’s three fractal eyes glitter black. He screams he’s going to fuck me, fuck me and murder me and fuck me some more, he’s going to fuck and murder both my sons, consume their hearts, his rage and perversion a palpable force streaming from him, a remorseless, depthless evil, and the worst of it is he’s convinced himself he’s entitled to such horror because of his strength—
“Get off her, father.”
A child’s voice. Quaking. Fearful. But determined.
Vuk’s head jerks up.
Lachlan’s standing a few steps away. In human form. His pale skin glowing with every red lightning flash.
“You’re nothing, child,” Vuk spits. But he glances down at me, and for the first time I see uncertainty in his eyes. He didn’t expect this—
“Get off her.”
Lachlan’s voice rises in a fever pitch and suddenly Vuk’s eyes widen and his bones snap and rearrange and he’s shrieking, a horrible pain filled wail because our son is banishing his father’s animal, returning Vuk to the weakness of Skins.
Vuk’s mandibles recede into his jaw.
His grip on me weakens.
My animal rages with renewed energy when she scents her rival’s vulnerability. I fling Vuk off. He smashes into the pyramid so hard the stones shatter. He’s a hideous half-man half-insect monster, a twitching, frail, pathetic sack of shit, and my son’s eyes burn wild as he continues to thrust Vuk’s animal into its cage—
The All Consuming: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 4) Page 24
