by A. K. Koonce
It’s a good look for Kyvain. I like it.
My tormentor surges to his feet with death blazing in his eyes, but Aric doesn’t even blink, let alone flinch. More danger radiates from Aric’s adorably tattooed pinkie than Kyvain’s entire body.
Calvin’s chest is smacked with the back of Kyvain’s hand in a manly gesture that, in previous generations, would have been a summon to stand as second in a duel.
Two against one aren’t bad odds, but Aric’s clearly the kind of man who defies mathematics. Attacking Aric would be suicide, but I won’t say a word if this is how Kyvain decides to die.
Unfortunately, I’m out of time to witness his demise. Moonlight kisses the tops of the trees and the buzz under my skin has grown from a mere itch into a searing need to shift.
I have more questions than I can count, but it seems they’re going to have to wait.
Pain splinters through me.
The deafening howl of my wolf splits my skull with its intensity. Bending at the waist, I dig my fingers into my hair with a silent scream.
The Dark Moon has officially begun.
Chapter Five
Dark Moon
Rhys
Magic lashes out like a wave of chaos.
Kyvain and Calvin both pant heavily as the moonlight washes over them, calling to the wolves buried inside their souls. Twin agonizing cries break past their lips, and Kyvain sends one last angry glare toward Aric.
“This isn’t over,” he threatens, but his voice is rough, not nearly as human as it was a few minutes prior.
“Anytime, boy.” Aric grins with pure manic amusement. It’s scary as fuck. “In this realm or the next.” Pressing on his knuckles, he cracks them like this is some bad eighties mafia movie, but somehow the gesture looks completely natural on him. Like he’s used to threatening people daily.
Maybe he fucking is.
Why doesn’t that make me want to run? The warmth in my chest pushes me to get closer, but the pain tearing at my joints makes me stumble toward the woods while I still remain upright.
Cold sweat breaks out across my brow. A whimper cries from my lips.
Three monstrous steps is all it takes for Aric to reach my side.
He doesn’t hook a finger under my chin all gentle and sweet. He full out grabs my chin, his fingers pressing into my cheeks as he lifts my entire face up to stare into his soulless gaze.
This close, I can see the scar that lines one eye, slashing straight through his brow and leaving a pink, jagged line I want to trace with the tip of my finger. And his eyes. They’re so much more vibrant this close. Hellfire spits at the center of the golden brown irises. I have no doubt this man doesn’t belong here.
They’re like burning comets streaking across a pitch-black sky. Flecks of gold glitter in the dark depths, warming them.
I’m fucking transfixed, even as my body tries to turn itself inside out.
“What’s wrong?” he booms, the demand thick and consuming. I couldn’t deny answering him if I wanted to. And I don’t.
My wolf yearns to draw closer.
“First shift…” It’s all I can get out of my raw throat. Swallowing jagged glass would be less painful, but I’ve survived a hell of a lot in my twenty-one years, and I’m not about to let this shift break me. If I can get through this, everything will get easier. If the old wolves are to be believed, every subsequent shift after the first hurts less and less until it’s as easy and natural as breathing.
A flash of fire consumes the frost kissed air, warming it until I shiver from the change in temperature against my skin.
God, he’s such a drama queen with these combustible entrances. Is it really necessary right now?
Starlit blue eyes search mine as the burning man from earlier today studies my face, looking for a lie that’s not there.
“You’ve never shifted before?” More shock and confusion. I’ve never been this awe-inspiring before. Mysterious and confusing aren’t two words anyone in this pack would associate with me—unless they were talking about the animal ready to rip its way out of my chest.
“Why does everything I say confuse you? I’m not the one who keeps reappearing in a burst of fucking fire here.” It doesn’t come out as snarky as I wanted, the pain is stealing my breath at this point.
“We can’t take her,” the burning man whispers.
“We—”
A groan of agony ripping up my throat cuts Aric off, and both of them side-eye me like my pain is really getting in the way of a very important meeting right now.
“We’re taking her, Latham.” Aric turns fully to me and just as I stumble, my backbone twisting and shifting abnormally, he catches me. “There’s no fucking way I’m leaving her with this shitty pack.”
He saves me once more.
Only to toss my ass over his shoulder like yesterday’s trash, ready for the dump.
“Let’s go, Love.”
“I-I’m going to do something bad,” I confess as rage and snapping snarls fall from my lips.
“Don’t we all?” is all he says.
“She’s not ours to take,” Latham argues, but it’s a rather careless statement. There’s no fight in his words. Just total calm in his warm tone.
It almost makes me forget about the agony clawing into my back with each passing second.
My head bounces off of the hardness of Aric’s spine, and I barely realize we’ve stopped.
“Back for more already?” Aric’s low tone is sarcastic in a deadly way, but it’s only when I catch the same familiar musk I’ve grown up hating that I comprehend who must be standing ahead of us. This whole not being able to see thing has it disadvantages, but as I stare at Aric’s ass, I know I’ve got the better view.
My captor shifts me on his shoulder like he can easily kill Kyvain with one hand and hold me hostage with the other. I don’t doubt his multitasking skills, but right now, I can barely focus through the violent magic tearing through my body to decide which man is the lesser of two evils.
“Where the fuck are you taking her?” Kyvain growls savagely.
“Home.” The word falls from Aric’s lips like he won’t entertain any further conversation on the subject. It’s not up for debate. It’s a fact, but I also think it’s a lie.
“She can see herself home. My father, the alpha, wasn’t aware we were receiving visitors this evening. If you want to keep breathing, I suggest you pay him the respect he deserves, state your intentions, and submit.” Kyvain smiles cruelly, like he’s bested Aric somehow.
“We’re just passing through,” Latham states while Aric simply snarls. I have a feeling rules mean nothing to either of them. I envy that freedom.
“Then be on your way,” Kyvain orders darkly. “And leave my property behind.”
“I’ll never be your property,” I snap harshly.
“Try again, Rhys. The deal is done. By daybreak, you’ll be mine, so you better go home and get some rest.” His promise sends another shuddering chill down my spine. “But before you go, I just wanted to tell you one more thing,” I hear Kyvain say in a voice far too animalistic and smug for someone shifting into a beast the way I am.
Gods, did he take a fucking magical Tylenol before this shit?
“Fuck off!” Aric growls, his hold tightening around me.
“I wanted her to know whose mating mark claimed me tonight.”
My jaw splinters with pain as the bones beneath my skin shifts and sharp teeth fill my mouth, but I’m listening past the agony. My fists dig into Aric’s shirt, letting him know I want to hear what the asshole has to say. Because he wouldn’t come back to taunt me unless he had a bomb ready to destroy my life.
“Your sweet little friend Bea claimed my mating mark.” His words chill me, freezing my heart in a block of ice so thick it might never recover. “Her wolf found me. Ran right up to me like the good little bitch she is.”
I angle myself as much as I can, only to find a beautiful raven-haired wolf sitting at Kyvain’
s feet. Her head is lowered down, but bright blue eyes peer up at me. It’s her. The same floral scent she’s always had tickles my nose, even as the bones there break and start to reform. My lungs squeeze in on themselves until they’re no longer functional and all I can think about is how she crushed on the shyest boy in our village for the last two years.
Only to claim Kyvain as her mate.
“The moon hasn’t finished claiming me yet, but my time is coming soon. I can feel it. Any minute now, the mating will be complete,” Kyvain says proudly as his already sharpened fingers dig into Bea’s beautiful fur at the back of her wolf’s neck.
No! No, no, no!
“And I’ll be finding you soon too,” he whispers with a cruel smile cutting across his lips.
Aric steps forward hard, his chest knocking into Kyvain’s.
He’s ready and waiting for violence all the time it seems.
But so is my wolf.
Magic strikes through me with the force of lightning, leaving hot embers burning through my veins. Warmth sears every inch of me. A rush of power and pain collide in a distortion of cracking bones that overtakes my body.
In a gracefully swift movement only my wolf could make, I leap off of Aric’s back and attack. My nails dig into skin as I launch myself forward hard. My jaws open as a growl straight from hell tears up my throat. Hot blood fills my mouth as my teeth sink into weak flesh, the scent of Kyvain seeming so much stronger as he bleeds. A scream of agony is a whisper of sound in my ears as my pulse pounds louder and louder, but it gets lost in the sea of cries from all the wolves shifting for the first time tonight.
The pack doesn’t know their precious golden son needs help. The shadows of night cloak us, and this chance at revenge is a gift I can’t refuse.
Powerful jaws wrench sideways as my wolf shakes her head, her whole body following through with the violent movement, and meat tears from the limb in a satisfying slick sound.
Kyvain cries out once more before he stumbles away, leaning on a stunned Calvin for support while a familiar dark wolf whimpers at his feet. They don’t cry out to bring the enforcers down on my head. They just stare, shocked.
Blood soaks through my enemy’s shirt, darkening around his upper arm where his flesh that still fills my snout is a divot of muscle within his shoulder.
Russet eyes lock on my blue ones. Aric must see the pain and rage reflected inside my gaze, because his becomes downright murderous when he looks to Kyvain again.
But the moon will claim us all tonight.
Kyvain drops to his knees with more screams that bleed into the cries of others going through the same torture. Calvin stumbles back from his friend, his own shift on the brink, and Bea lies down, her eyes sad and forlorn. Cracking and cries snap through the night as his wolf breaks his feeble body.
It happens much faster for him.
The golden alpha boy doesn’t suffer nearly enough.
I linger and watch as his clothes shed to the snowy ground in tattered strips and flesh rips away from a timber colored wolf possibly three times my size.
My white fur reflects in the depths of his cold blue eyes as his beast looks upon me for the first time.
And something unimaginably terrible happens.
Kyvain’s howl rips through the night in a way only an alpha’s could. It draws a crowd, the other pack members and wolves on the hill heeding his call.
His wolf brings one large paw forward, he comes ever so close to me… and then lowers his head as far down to the ground as he can manage.
“The mating pose,” a woman hisses like a curse.
What. The. fuck.
“Kyvain’s wolf, the alpha’s son, chose the outcast,” someone else whispers.
No.
No. No. No. No.
The big innocent eyes of the raven-haired wolf look up at me. Bea looks at me with a new kind of pain and hurt.
Her mate… chose me.
I shake my head hard.
A whimper crawls over my lips, but I can’t say a word to my friend. My best friend. My only friend.
I step away from Kyvain. One foot after the other, I move through the crowd that hisses and whispers. Aric and Latham are nowhere to be found now that there are too many people surrounding us, but I feel them nearby all the same like guardian angels.
The crowd parts like I’m a leper, and they let me go.
Until Kyvain’s wolf becomes a bigger asshole than himself.
The wolf strides toward me. I know what he wants.
He said it himself. He wanted to make me his whore. I just don’t think he anticipated his wolf making me its mate. But I know he’ll take what he wants regardless.
My wolf snarls. Magic blooms through me, and then I’m running. My feet move at a pounding rhythm that seems faster than the beating of my heart. My wolf wants to turn around and rip him to shreds, but I just can’t allow her to do that.
I can’t kill him.
A growl of disagreement snarls up my throat. She’s furious I’m running away, saving her from the tortuous death our pack would give us if I let her kill him.
Every prickle of sound stings my ears. I hear their war cries. The alpha calls out for someone to capture the woman who harmed his son.
He clearly doesn’t know his son is hell-bent on doing that himself. A barking command sounds somewhere just behind me, but I don’t pause for a single second to look back at my tormentor. The pavement is slick as the grassy land disappears, and I come to the intersection of the town square.
A white light shines up ahead, and the doors to the school are haloed just beneath the bright lamp.
Shit.
I look to the right and left, but cottages surround us. Homes and families and maybe even small children may be inside by now.
I can’t bring a dog fight into someone’s fucking living room.
Once more, my wolf grunts in disagreement.
I mentally roll my eyes at her fuck-all nature.
My paws pound over the icy road and up the small front steps, and I take the deepest breath just before the enormous white wolf of mine launches herself through a solid sheet of glass. The door shatters around me, debris raining down across my fur.
But I keep on going.
A clatter of sound tells me Kyvain is hot on my tail, and there’s the smallest part of me that’s ready to let my beast turn and confront him just like she wants to.
I just… I can’t kill him. I can’t kill someone. I can’t do it.
Dark tile floors shine in the densely dark hall. I hear his nails clicking closer and closer. Sharp claws sink into my back. Magic roars to life inside me, and it sparks so violently it blows out in waves. A shattering of glass crackles to the floor on all sides. Papers and pens fall around me. Assignments drift through the shadowy hallway.
Because my wolf stops dead in her tracks to look upon the man who dares dishonor her.
Easy girl, I coo thoughtlessly.
She doesn’t even acknowledge me as her sharp teeth snap at the cowering wolf who stands in the middle of the chaotic mess I’ve made.
If he attacks, if he tries anything stupid—and let’s face it, it’s just a matter of time for this asshole—my wolf will rip his throat out without a second glance.
And I’ll be forever a lone wolf, rejected from her pack.
Or dead.
Kyvain’s head is lowered, but he stalks carefully around me. I sense him, and I sense his curious stupidity too.
Easy, I say once more at the back of our mind.
But she shakes her head slowly with a rising growl that hums across the gray metal lockers.
Kyvain lowers in a pounce that says our time is running out. I lower my own stance as well. I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him for every single thing he’s ever done or would have done to Bea and myself.
Time slows as I assess every move he makes.
His body tenses to a crouch, his teeth bared. Then he leaps.
A flash of fire burns through the da
rkness. It sparks across my fur as strong arms wrap around me from out of nowhere. A new calming scent washes over me, and even the recklessness of my beast relaxes against his chest.
“Let’s get you out of here, Love,” the burning man whispers like a promise.
And in a hot flash of hellacious flames, the world burns away into dust.
Or so it feels.
Chapter Six
A Fairytale
Aric
He cradles her naked body against him as if he actually fucking gives a shit about this one.
I’ve been running realm tasks for Hela for thousands of years. Not once has Latham ever gone out of his way for anyone.
“Why’s she naked?” Torben grunts.
“Because shifters can’t summon a wardrobe with the snap of a finger, dumbass,” Latham answers, but he doesn’t give a fuck enough to glance his way.
Torben thinks he’s the leader every time we step foot out of Hell. It’s the half giant in him. They think everything they stomp on is theirs.
I’ll let him think whatever he wants. No scales off my tail. But Latham, I think he was born to hate the gods.
And Torben, he might live in Hell, but he’s every bit a warrior of the heavens.
“The bigger question is why is she a shifter at all?” I whisper as I look down on the beautiful blonde-haired vixen.
Her lashes never flutter, but something feels off…
“Who are you guys?” she asks as she casually opens her eyes to the three men staring down on her.
She looks to each of us without an ounce of terror or fear brightening her gaze.
She’s either fearless or has known fear too often within her life.
“We’re hell sent,” Latham answers freely.
Her brow scrunches, and this shit is not going the way I imagined. I thought we’d have to drag this girl to Hell. She’s lounging in Latham’s arms right now like he’s a fucking man-hammock.
“Is that a pack? Where is it located?”
My lips twitch with a smile.
