by Laken Cane
“Rune…”
“We’ll have to run from here,” she said, taking Kader. “I will get there faster than you, but hurry, Ellie.” She pointed. “We’re gathered right up there. Hurry.”
He didn’t want to let Kader go. He grabbed the child’s hand and refused to release her. “You can’t, Rune. You can’t use a baby.”
“She’s not just a baby,” Rune said, her throat so tight it hurt for her to talk. “She’s Roma’s only hope. And Will’s. And the world’s, Ellie. This is what she does. What she is. Let her go.”
But Rune understood, because she didn’t want to let Kader be who she was, either.
Kader decided for him. She yanked her hand from his and wrapped her arms around Rune’s neck. “Fly, mama!” she shouted.
And Rune did.
She was in the midst of her crew in less than two seconds.
“My child,” she said. “My child.” And that was all she could manage.
Ellis arrived, sobbing, pale, distressed, and Levi rushed to pull him into his arms. “Ellie,” he murmured. “Ellie.”
“Rune’s not the same,” Ellis cried.
Levi turned to look at her. “She is,” he said. “She’s exactly the same.”
She was.
She wasn’t human, and she wasn’t weak.
And with her daughter’s help, she was going to break down a wall, kill a demon, and take a tortured wererabbit home.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ellis took Kader from Rune, because he had to hold her, he said. He had to kiss her.
The demon’s dogs ceased barking abruptly and so completely that not even Roma’s cries were louder than the sudden silence.
But her cries continued to burrow into Rune’s brain until she thought she might go mad from the sound. “Hush,” she whispered. “I’m coming for you, baby.”
“Princess,” Roma howled.
Shock slammed into Rune, knocking the breath from her lungs, and gooseflesh arose on every single inch of her body.
“Princess!”
And she could no more have refused to answer Roma’s entreaty than she could have driven a blade into Ellie’s heart.
“She knows. Somehow…” Raze’s voice faltered, but his resolve did not.
It would never.
“She’s aware,” Levi whispered.
“She’s ready,” Rune told them. “She’s fucking ready.”
“Princess!”
Not even Strad could have held Rune back.
Her entire body trembled as she threw her head back and roared at the sky. She wasn’t just the woman at that moment.
Something primal awakened inside her. Something more than her monster.
Something so unrecognizable that she had no idea what it was or where it’d been.
It just was.
But then…then she did know.
She was The Princess.
No.
That was wrong.
She was The Queen.
Roma’s need—and Skyll—had brought it forth.
Most of all, her daughter had brought it forth.
And suddenly, the sky darkened as an enormous cloud of crows came to the call of their mistress.
That was the moment Rune understood her body was not a boundary to her spirit, to her desire, to her.
She also knew she had not birthed the crow. The crow was her.
A piece of her that had broken off in Skyll.
Even the berserker fell back, his eyes widening in horror as she threw off the confines of her physical self and began to shift into her Other.
Her crow.
She was a woman. A vampire. A shifter.
A monster.
Hadn’t they always known, really?
“You do not fully realize your power, do you?”
“…there is a chance you would pull out the secrets inside you…”
“Z calls him Shiv Crow…”
She kept her arms and hands un-shifted. She would need them.
The rest of her belonged to her crow.
She flew to Ellis, ignoring the horror and fear in his wide stare, and even as he attempted to shield the child, Rune ripped her from his arms.
“No,” he screamed. “No, Rune!”
But she knew what Kader could do.
That was why she was there, and in spite of Ellie’s misgivings, the little girl would save Roma’s life.
And she would save the assassin.
Shiv Crow swooped from the sky, and Rune flung Kader into the air to join him.
Kader began to fall, then righted herself and called forth her own monster. Wings burst from her back—black as obsidian and shiny as the glint of the moon on virgin snow. She zoomed through the sky as though she were a million years old and had never been bound to the earth.
Then Rune took flight and torpedoed herself toward the wall of magic behind which Roma suffered, and the second, the fucking second before she would have slammed into it and destroyed her body, she heard Kader’s voice.
The child’s command echoed like claps of thunder.
“Boom!”
The wall crumbled beneath the force of baby Kader.
“Holy fucking shit,” Rune heard Jack whisper.
She heard everything.
Even the erratic, terrified beat of her berserker’s heart.
She smiled.
Inside, she smiled.
God, she was proud.
Then her crew descended upon the camp, their own roars breaking through air dense and loud with the rapid beating of thousands of bird feathers.
Roma’s stare, bright and filled with joy, never strayed from Rune.
Rune knew the girl was about to die.
After everything, she was about to die.
Roma knew it too. Had made her peace with it.
But Rune had never gone gently into fate’s selfish, inflexible embrace, and she wasn’t going to let Roma.
Fuck no.
Without slowing, she zeroed in on Roma’s still body, but the demon…
He was there, and he raised his face to Rune even as he greedily grasped Roma’s head between his palms and prepared to break her neck.
“I will twist her head off and hand it to you, Rune Alexander. That’s a promise!”
He was keeping his promise.
Rune’s screech was more bird than human, more monster than woman, and she knew she would not reach him in time.
She couldn’t stop him.
He would kill Roma, and Rune would have allowed it to happen.
Then, without even realizing she could or was about to, Rune reached down into the depths of Roma’s body, her soul, her brain, and she began to force Roma’s shift.
It wasn’t easy.
The beast was hiding from the excruciating pain of the silver surrounding the girl’s body. Silver was strong.
Rune was stronger.
Time slowed down, and she saw every event that followed as though it happened in slow motion. She saw each twitch of the demon’s body, every agonizingly slow movement of his powerful hands.
She felt the sigh that slid quietly from Roma’s parted lips.
And then she found Roma’s Other, and she began to rip it free. She dragged it kicking and screaming and hurting into the world. The wererabbit felt the agony of the silver, but Rune refused to let that stand in its way.
She would not let Roma die.
A second, in reality. That’s all it took.
And when Roma was free, she turned on the demon, even as Rune rushed toward her.
Time sped up once more. Rune’s crew spilled into the camp and sounds intruded, bashing her eardrums with their intensity as they all warred for attention.
But the sound that cut through all the rest was Kader’s voice.
Kader was a power to be reckoned with.
Someday, she would be unstoppable. The world would have even bigger, stronger, and stranger demons as the monsters evolved with the good guys. With the heroes.
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But not that day.
That day, she was still a child, and she wanted her mother.
“Mama,” she yelled. “Mama, get me.”
Unlike Rune, she hadn’t shifted into a crow—and when Rune glanced up, she saw Kader’s glossy black wings disappear.
“Mama! Get me!”
And she began a freefall in Rune’s general direction.
Ellie’s screams were deafening as he watched from the ground below.
He needn’t have worried.
Rune snatched Kader out of the air and whipped her around to her back. She shot toward Ellis, and with almost too much speed, she dipped her body and let Kader slide into Ellie’s waiting arms.
“Hold Ben,” she tried to yell, and then remembered she was not in her human form. She could not speak.
It didn’t matter. Her crew knew what to do.
She rushed back into the fight, with her crew, her crows, and her spirit dog. There weren’t enough enemies to warrant that much muscle, but every single one of the group who belonged to Rune deserved the fight. They deserved the kill.
And they took it.
She zoomed like a torpedo toward Roma and the demon. Roma wanted to kill him, but she wouldn’t be able to.
So they would do it for her.
Rune wanted a piece of Ben Fleming, and then she would make sure the demon never tortured another human—or Other.
Later, after the battle, she’d shut out the world and contemplate her Otherness. She’d recall how it felt to fly. To have feathers. To be something…ancient.
She’d always wanted to be normal.
But that had been a long time ago, before she’d realized that normal couldn’t kill the bad guys. Normal wasn’t for her, and it wasn’t for her crew.
She dropped down into the midst of the clearing and shifted back to her human form, shooting out her claws and dropping her fangs a little too eagerly. The fangs cut her lip and her claws came within two inches of piercing Jack’s back.
Roma’s monster was nothing to be ashamed of—the thing was huge, white, and bloody, with fangs crowding its mouth, claws to rival Rune’s, and bulging muscle on every inch of its body.
But she’d been starved, silvered, and tortured, and despite her momentary rush of adrenaline and strength, she was weak and in pain. She needed to power that Other by eating great amounts of food, but she’d been denied food.
For days.
As she wobbled and started to fall, changing to her human form before she hit the ground, Rune started toward her.
Jack reached her first.
He picked her up, slung her over his shoulder, and began loping up the hill to where Ellie and Kader waited.
He’d see them to Rune’s car, and Ellie would take them home to safety.
Roma would be okay.
So Rune went after Ben.
He hadn’t been able to capture her, but he’d kept his promise to make her suffer.
He ran, but got only a few steps before he seemed to realize that escape was impossible. He stopped and turned to face her.
She stood before him, studying him. Background noise penetrated, but did not distract her. The demon’s hounds screamed and yelped as Grim took them on, and the demon added his voice to theirs.
Rune focused on Ben. “I’m sorry for the boy you were,” she told him. “I’m sorry I didn’t help him. But you…you have to die.”
He reached out to touch her arm. “Before they took my power, I would have burned you from the inside out. I crave it, you know. The power is gone, but the cravings are worse than ever. Worse, because I can’t do anything to satisfy them. You think I care about dying?”
“Yeah, I do. You’re going to your death knowing I’m still here, still fighting, still breathing. You’ll just be dead. You lost. And you didn’t get your revenge.”
“Put your arms around me,” he said. “Before you kill me. Hold me, Rune Alexander. I’ve never had that—because of you. So before you kill me, hold me in your monstrous arms.” He shrugged, then smiled. “I’ve had the best time of my life in the last few days. A caress from you would make it perfect and I will go out smiling.” He opened his arms. “Please.”
“No way in hell, motherfucker. I don’t want to see you smile.” But she didn’t beat him senseless like she’d planned to do. She didn’t prolong it.
She shot out her claws, ripped them through his chest, and he was dead before he hit the ground.
Perhaps that’s what he’d wanted all along.
She didn’t see Sylvia Crane, but Annex ops would pick her up before she got far. More than likely, they’d kill her. Eugene wouldn’t want to keep her alive.
The entire crew—temporarily missing Jack—circled the demon, and he threw up a barrier almost as an afterthought.
She had a moment to believe it was going to be easy. They’d kill the only real challenge there that day—the demon. They’d go home, gather around Roma, and celebrate the hell out of life.
Then Sylvia appeared and raced toward Angel, screaming.
“Angel,” she cried. “Help me!”
He turned and lifted a hand. “To me,” he roared. “To me, Sylvia.”
Sylvia stumbled toward him, a hand to her belly, her face pale.
“She’s pregnant with his child,” Will said.
“Shit.” Rune started to race toward Sylvia, to get to her before the demon did—because no way in hell could Sylvia or the demon kid be allowed to live—but the berserker got there before she could move.
He shot Sylvia with the Skyllian shotgun.
The demon screamed, screamed like an animal in a trap, even as bloody chunks of the pregnant woman rained down upon him.
That was what Sylvia had held over the demon. A child. His child.
Rune shuddered.
Then, the demon showed her what she’d known from the beginning. He was not going to be an easy kill.
And he was pissed.
He could have escaped, she was nearly certain, but he didn’t want to run. He wanted to fight, he wanted to win, and almost more than any of that, he wanted Will Blackthorn.
But he would need help.
As she had called the crows, who circled far above as though waiting for something they knew was coming, the demon called his allies.
And they came.
The fight wasn’t over with Roma’s rescue.
The fight was just beginning.
Part Three
TRANSFORMED
Chapter Twenty-Five
Demons swarmed the area. Hundreds of them.
None of them were quite as powerful as the one who’d summoned them, but they were powerful enough to kill the humans.
Rune realized she was naked, with only her long, black hair covering her body, when one of the demons brushed her belly with fire and the trailing tresses began to smoke.
She didn’t need her clothes for modesty—she needed them for protection. But when she’d shifted, her clothing had fallen into haphazard piles on top of the hill.
She was a shifter.
And Kader…
That kid was everything.
“Shit,” she screamed, and ran her claws through the bright eye of a red-skinned demon with a gaping mouth and fire swirling around his fingertips.
The demons didn’t try to disguise themselves in human form as Angel French had done—maybe they couldn’t. They were vicious in their glee, tossing fire and breathing smoke at anything that moved.
Fire wasn’t their only weapon. They used their fangs, claws, speed, and brute force to attack, but what made them so difficult to beat was the sheer number of them.
Rune cut, stabbed, and punched her way through the hordes of demons as she tried to keep her people in sight. Raze still wasn’t a hundred percent after his fight in Wormwood, and Luc and Leon were already emotionally exhausted by the unending horror they’d witnessed that day.
Strad was without his spear, but the shotgun more than made up for that. He blasted gr
oups of demons at once, though the void was filled immediately by more demons.
And Will…
Will fought like he always did—with a deadly precision and a wild beauty that was nearly unmatched.
But that day, something was missing from his fight. Part of his mind was on Angel French. The possibility of his capture would be looming, black and mountainous.
The longer he stayed in the battle, the better Angel’s chances of taking him—even if Will had said that wasn’t possible. It was, and they all knew it.
They knew it because Will was terrified.
None of them had to speak about it—they simply fought their way close to him, and they surrounded him as they fought off the demons.
Angel French wasn’t getting the assassin.
Shiv Crew loved the fight. Always had, always would.
But fighting the unending stream of demons was mind numbing. And they just. Kept. Coming.
Killing Angel would stop the influx of demons—but getting to him was going to prove difficult. He used the mass of fiery bodies for cover and protection, and Rune could hear his delighted laughter break out every so often.
Angel was having a good time, but his power had weakened. His barrier disappeared and he didn’t seem capable of positioning another one.
Jack was suddenly there, throwing a grin her way before he beheaded a demon. “Eugene’s sending more backup,” he yelled.
She spun and drop-kicked a demon, then took a slice out of another demon’s head. She had to get to Angel.
Then her crows dropped from the sky, falling upon the demons like feathered missiles, their beaks long and sharp.
The demons screamed and forgot about the humans as they faced a mortal enemy that had, since the beginning of time, fucked them up.
Rune’s head was suddenly full of those ancient memories, and she had to stop killing so she could watch her crows in their fierce, breathtaking magnificence.
She laughed, awestruck at the brutal beauty of it. Of them.
Shiv Crew didn’t need the Annex.
They had the crows.
And Angel French was going to face the biggest crow of them all.
She shifted with a thought—the shift hurt her, but it was a good pain, somehow. Bones cracking, changing, organs compressing, and wings, oh those wings, ripping their eager way from her flesh like mighty screams of freedom…
