The Devil's Pride (Wild Beasts Series)

by T. Birmingham

“Exactly,” Delilah said, and it came out in a slithery tone that reminded Alexia of a poisonous snake. “To be free to kill.”

  “You’re insane, Delilah,” Roman said, calmly.

  Delilah just smiled. “I’d been planning the ritual before even Reece here found me, right after his mate’s death sixteen years ago. He’d intended to kill me, but I made him another offer. I told him about the half-Skröm/half-Vuković who would take over and unite the Clans, and his priorities changed. The enemy of my enemy and all that. We tried for the girl, but only managed to kill the woman she was with, and then we lost you for another sixteen years, Alexia Maria.” The way Delilah said her name made her wolf side want to attack. She held back. She’d let her Alpha out soon enough, and then they’d see.

  “Alexia was ten years old, and my Mally was not a part of this,” Uncle Graham shouted at the crazy, inbred Skröm raving maniacally about her plans. Alexia glanced in his direction, and he looked back. The man had had her back her whole life despite his manipulations. He’d thought she would be safer in the foster system. He’d been wrong, but damnit, he’d tried. She wanted to thank him, wanted to talk to him about Mally, but that could be saved for later. He gave a small smile and then looked away.

  “Ah, but she was a part of this. She housed the mutt. She mated you, Vuković,” Delilah spat, and Alexia had the satisfaction in seeing Reece squirm. Was it possible he hadn’t known he’d killed the fated mate of a wolf? Had he been so blinded by hatred and grief that he’d killed without using his Vuković senses? She could see it in his posture, in the slackening of the knife away from Mindy’s neck. Mindy gave Alexia a signal that she could run, but Alexia gave a tilt of her wolf’s head that said wait and Mindy returned the gesture with an imperceptible nod back in the affirmative.

  “What’s this ritual?” Cam asked. His eyes still swirled a silvery-gold Alexia knew would never truly disappear, but he appeared calm again, his dark dragon tucked away for another time.

  “The initiation of twelve Dormants killed right after their power as a new Clan member is trapped.”

  “You mean their soul,” Ginny said from Roman’s side. “You change them into Clan and then you trap their soul.” She looked disgusted.

  “You’re doing a resurrection spell,” Grandpa Roman whispered, and Alexia worried about the fact that the big, bad, dour Roman sounded so terrified. “Three families of four Dormants…you used the Skröm and Vuković rituals…and the thirteenth to die is a Dormant Azima who, when he or she comes into their power, will use all five elements. I’m assuming the third child from the first family was just collateral.” Grandpa Roman looked directly at Delilah, and she nodded condescendingly. The Skröm woman was enjoying the moment. Enjoying the fact that she’d accomplished so much without anyone finding out about her plans.

  “You’re messing with things you don’t understand, Delilah,” Ginny said.

  “And you do, Princess? What do you know? You’ve never felt the power the other Clans have over us. You’ve even befriended them,” she said with such vehemence as he looked at Nicky standing by Ginny’s and Grandpa Roman’s side. “But they treat us like we’re Others, like we’re the dragons or the Fae. They think all of us are evil, dark, destined to become something Other, but a lot of that is just myth! The only place we’re allowed is the clubs, and even there, we can’t feed. And this bitch,” she said, pointing to Alexia, “is going to come along and take over and make us one, big happy family. Fuck that! Vuković killed my daughter! She hadn’t killed anyone. She wasn’t a murderer. She was a good little Skröm. She was the founder of a runaway shelter for Christ’s sake.”

  Alexia felt a punch to the gut. She’d wondered about the Skröm. Wondered how evil they all really were. Who wouldn’t, especially with her own Skröm blood?

  “She loved kids,” Delilah continued. “She made dinner from scratch for her mate and her children. And she was pregnant with a little boy when the Council killed her, her mate, her first child and that baby twenty years ago. The Council of course had been told the family was committing murders. So, they killed her and her whole family. Just on hearsay. No court to protect us. No Council to take our side. We’re Skröm, so we must automatically be guilty.”

  Here was the personal piece. The reason she hated Alexia so much. She understood what Delilah was saying, and Alexia so did not want to feel bad for the woman who had convinced a grieving man like Reece that murder was the way to go. Alexia so did not want to feel bad for a woman who had her best friend not two feet away being held at knifepoint.

  Her wolf didn’t feel any sympathy. The wolf understood the woman’s care for her family, for her daughter, but to her, killing innocents was black and white. You just didn’t do it. And she was right.

  “You still don’t kill innocents, Delilah,” Grandpa Roman said, his voice powerful, strong. She saw how he could lead a whole race of Dark Clan, and she almost felt bad for the shit he had to deal with. Shit she herself would have to deal with someday. “We could have talked. We could have tried to work through this. You know I want the other Clans to see us differently. You know I’ve been working on this very thing. Why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t you at least try another way?”

  A maniacal laugh filled the front yard and bounced off of the trees in an eerie cacophony of sound.

  “Ah, but Roman, you didn’t even recognize her, did you? You were the one who was there when the order to kill my family was put through. You let the Vuković have them. You took them from me, but I’m gonna do you a favor because, with these rituals, we’re giving you someone back – someone who has been dead and gone for far too long now."

  There was silence, but Alexia felt it as soon as everyone else realized what she did. There was only person who would stop the power of the Skröm leadership from going to Alexia. There was only one reason they would have to do a ritual involving Skröm rituals and Vuković rituals to raise someone from the dead. There was only one person who had once been tied to Roman and to the Vuković.

  “Ana,” James whispered from his little corner. Her mother’s soul was tied to James, and in order for her to be brought back, the ritual would need to take both of their souls into consideration, both of their Clan sides. Alexia had been paying attention to the fated mates thing. She had one. She wanted to know it all. Mates – whether bonded or fated – were tied together for eternity. Not just for a human lifetime.

  “You’re bringing back my Lily?” Grandpa Roman looked shocked. For just a moment, Roman and James had identical looks on their faces. Looks that said if her mother was alive again, all would be right with the world. It wouldn’t be of course. There was a reason she was gone. James wouldn’t have had to take her life otherwise.

  “Yes, Councilor. The only way to make sure the power as Councilor does not go to this bitch here is if your daughter is brought back and the power of the Council seat is returned to her… No one will follow this mutt. We will not have a Vuković as our leader. Not a Vuković. Never this girl,” she said, moving quickly toward her.

  There was the sound of blood rushing to her ears and then there were only loud cries. Alexia nodded at Mindy and her friend ducked under Reece’s arm. She ran to Cam, and he collected her in his arms. He might be Other – a dragon – and he might have been a total douchebag. But despite his earlier speech and his recent actions, he loved Mindy, and Mindy was probably the only person who could save him.

  Delilah had been moving toward Alexia, but she’d been blindsided by James and Grandpa Roman before he could get to her.

  She felt a push at her mind and then a bubbly personality was rushing forward and borrowing some of her power. She quickly envisioned her veiny tendrils sinking into the Earth and she borrowed a little bit of power herself. She’d of course found that a little bit of power for her was way stronger than most Skröm should have, and so, when she saw three Shadows obliterated before her eyes, she yelled a silent yippee for team Alexia and Tinkerbell.

  Stop calli
ng me that, she heard even as the woman in question’s laugh tinkled in her ear.

  It does not tinkle, she thought at her, but Alexia just smiled.

  A Vuković came at Alexia from the side and instead of turning, she quite literally swatted at him.

  Her Man Bear screamed in her mind for her to duck, and Tinkerbell evicted her mental premises at the masculine screech.

  Alexia ducked.

  Devon jumped over her, his large frame colliding with the enemy even as the bear held the wolf to the ground until he squirmed no more.

  Bam! Another one down.

  At the roaring snarl of the half-man/half-dragon in front of her, Alexia figured she wouldn’t be needed. Cam hadn’t turned fully yet, but his body was slowly being covered by silvery-gold scales. And from the way the bones of the wolf who’d tried to attack Cam cracked, Alexia knew the scales were not only beautiful, but impenetrable. The lumbering sound of his snarl spread outwards, engulfing her eardrums in an unearthly noise that had her insides shriveling. Alexia’s wolf wined at her to move, and she’d learned to listen to those instincts in the past couple weeks.

  Alexia turned to fight a Skröm who’d been sneaking her way and mentally told her Man Bear to join when she saw the one thing that could make her stop. The half-dragon form Cam was sporting hadn’t come out as a result of the fight. The half-dragon had come out because not twenty feet away, lying in a puddle of blood, a jagged cut sliced from her heart to her stomach, was her best friend.

  Delilah stood over Mindy, a long knife in hand, her red eyes flashing in delight. She took the knife and threw the blood in a circle, and a flash of light threw everyone back, and as they all scrambled to recover, Alexia ran toward the place Mindy had been lying, but she was gone... Her previously solid, comforting, rock-steady form was now nothing but dust in the wind.

  Her paws sank into the muddy front yard of the old, brick house and she howled. An unearthly howl that was pulled from her soul. Other howls and a vicious snarl accompanied her own, even as she heard the battle continue to rage around her. The veins she’d put into the Earth to tether her pulsed red and then brighter and brighter until she felt like she was on fire.

  Alexia felt herself shift from wolf to human, but she wasn’t really human. She was Skröm. She was Light Skröm, and she was beyond anger. The anger she’d at first attributed to her Skröm and Vuković sides and then later, to her own human experience, was neither. The anger was her. The anger was ancient. The anger was primal, animalistic. It was righteous anger filled with Light. It was anger beyond anything she’d ever felt. But that anger was also as her best friend had said. It was pure. It wasn’t hate. It wasn’t fear. It was pure, undiluted powerful Light.

  She heard Grandpa Roman and Ginny gasp, but she couldn’t spare them a glance. Her Light reached out to fix something that was broken, and in a flash, the Shadows that had surrounded Grandpa Roman, Ginny, Nicky, James and Graham were gone. No ashes. No remnants. At least a dozen Shadows, and they were gone with that push from Alexia’s Light. She reached out with those earthly veins, seeking the Vuković and the Skröm who had come and she felt them. She called out to them. Held them captive with her mind.

  “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to die today,” she said, just above a whisper, but her voice carried that sing-song quality more powerfully than she had ever heard. Alexia saw them through an orange haze, and while some of them cowered, they did not regret their actions. Their minds still had thoughts of destruction, still had thoughts of pain and greed. She lashed out with her power, making sure to only hit the Skröm and the Vuković on Delilah’s side.

  There were still wolves and other Skröm in the area, and Alexia didn’t know if they were Dark, but she did know that her power was different from the others. She knew her Light was different. Her abilities as a Skröm and a Vuković coupled with her mating to a Luna and a Taryn had made her different. She could obliterate them with her power as surely as she had the Shadows. And she should not have been able to do that to the solid forms of the Skröm and the Vuković.

  They burned brightly for a second, filled to the brim with her Light, and then they exploded in a shower of blood and dust.

  Leave some for the peons, too.

  Alexia would have smiled at the tinkling voice in her head if not for the gaping hole in her chest and the feeling of heartache that engulfed her and brought her to her knees in front of the muddy puddle of blood. Her best friend’s blood. Her soul sister’s blood. No one should ever have to kneel in the blood of someone who’d once been their shelter in the storm.

  Alexia heard the battle raging around her, and she looked around to make sure Devon was safe. But instead of being right in the middle of the battle, like she’d thought he would be, he remained by her side, standing guard over her as she grieved her friend.

  He had one wolf locked in a hold with one of his strong black bear arms, so tight she could see the creature’s eyes bulging. Devon took his other paw and grabbed at the wolf’s throat in a swift motion. Blood exploded from the creature’s throat even as tendons and muscle were exposed. His heartbeat stopped instantly and he fell to the ground.

  It was then that she and Devon both heard the roar of a beast. They turned. Cam had been fighting alongside the others, his scales coating his skin, but in a half shift similar to Alexia’s and her Uncle Graham’s abilities.

  The scales had spread along his skin throughout the fight as she’d observed the progression, making sure to keep an eye on the dragon. But now he was covered, head to toe, and the roar that had grabbed her attention gripped her heart as well. His transformation wasn’t quick. It was bone-crunching, blood-letting, ear-splitting pain that crawled up her spine and bowed her back. She could feel the evil of his monster in her bones and the urge to throw up hit her full force. The Skröm scared her, gave her bad tingles, and raised the hair on her arms, but Cam’s dragon put her body into shock. The bloodied, shining monster emerged and everyone – Vuković, Skröm, Luna, Taryn – cowered in his presence.

  Luna were supposed to stay the same weight when they turned into their animal forms, but not Cam. No, Cam was enormous. He was the size of the dragons of legend, two stories tall with a body the width of an infield. His silvery-gold scales covered his entire dragon’s body, leaving no room for weakness, and his once brown eyes that had turned golden in times of stress were now a permanent silvery-golden color that made Alexia shudder when she looked at them. He looked cold and hollow and she might have thought he was beautiful if not for his empty eyes and the evil she felt coating his soul.

  Alexia’s heart was still racing and hurting from Mindy, but her wolf’s priorities were different. Her wolf wanted to move, to fight, but she knew she should hide. She knew what the dragon was about to do, and so Alexia ran. Her Man Bear joined her at her side, and they got out of there. Fire rained down on them, and she saw the remaining Vuković and Skröm from Delilah’s rogue group turn to fire and then dust right before her eyes. Alexia wondered briefly if they looked like burning ants to him.

  If they all looked like ants that he just didn’t care if he burned.

  That question was answered when he continued raining fire down on them even after Delilah and Reece and everyone on that side of the battle was long dead. Cam was grieving. Alexia understood grief. Her wolf understood grief, but there were some things a man couldn’t come back from, and killing one of the people on this side of the battle would break him.

  Of course, as soon as she thought that, she saw two other ants go down. Only this time, it was her Uncle Graham and Tinkerbell at his side. Alexia screamed at Cam to stop. She even tried to get Devon to turn back, to switch gears, and to help rescue the man who’d saved her life on more than one occasion and the woman who had helped train her, but it was no use. Her Uncle Graham was ash and dust. Just as her best friend was now. Carrie, however, the Tinkerbell Princess who had quite frankly stolen Alexia’s heart from their first training session, had not evaporated into
dust. She’d been picked up by her twin, still on fire, and they’d run to catch up with everyone else.

  Cam’s dragon apparently felt the battle was done because they heard the stuttering of fire, and then the dragon was off…leaving havoc and death and more grief in his wake.

  They’d gone back to Cam’s place right afterward, and Ben had lain Carrie in the back bedroom. The fire had crawled up the lower right side of her body and her right arm, and she had been burned through. The Clans were quick to heal, but Alexia didn’t know if that applied to dragon’s fire. The fact that even after a couple days, there was still little improvement, suggested not.

  But Carrie and Ben were staying with Devon and Alexia for the near future. Carrie had agreed as soon as Alexia had offered. She’d also shared that she didn’t want to go back to The Lodge just yet, and Alexia understood. Tinkerbell needed to recover.

  Alexia didn’t know how she knew, but she just did: Cam wouldn’t be back. But Devon had said, rather unconvincingly, “Just in case.” So, they stayed in Cam’s trailer. It was a little crowded, but they made do.

  Cam’s place felt empty now, though, despite the crowding. They’d been left behind to pick up the pieces of a battle Alexia didn’t know if she’d be able to ever recover from.

  In the days following, they held a small memorial service for Mindy and for Uncle Graham – Alexia’s Uncle Grover – in the backyard near where Mindy’s fairies probably lived. God, she’d loved that garden. And a small part of Alexia felt bittersweet at the thought of Uncle Grover being reunited with Mally.

  They’d learned from both Roman and Ginny that Mindy had gotten caught up in the battle. Two Vuković and two Skröm had blind-sided Cam. Mindy had been taken by Delilah, who had wasted no time in using her knife and completing of the ritual. A ritual meant to bring Lilyana Zoranski back, but which had failed, and for that, they were all grateful.

  Lilyana, James had finally admitted to Alexia, had always been a little wild. And she’d also never quite settled. In the end, after her return – and the bodies that had littered the state in her wake – James had had no choice but to kill her. It had broken something in him to do so, but some part of him had always known what he’d have to do. His Ana had always been too stubborn, too dark, and although he’d loved her – flaws and all – he refused to let innocents suffer for her sins.