Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles) - By Nancy Holder Page 0,116
body. Then by sheer force of will, she did a slow chin-up, then leaned forward, just like in her dream. The wind blew against her face, wafting away the smoke. And she looked down.
It was her dream.
Her nightmare.
Werewolves were burning. Racing in and out of a ring of fire, they were crazed, biting at each other, bleeding, smoking. And in the center, rising from his knees, Justin raised his hands over his head. His shirt had been torn off and he was covered with blood and soot. His hair was slicked back. To his right, past the wall of flame, the bayou was alive with animals fleeing the fire. The smell of silver coated her skin like oil. Someone had dumped silver into the water, just as Luc had said.
Justin threw back his head and saw her. He reached up his hands but she was at least twenty feet above him, and she couldn’t go back down the vine. It had caught on fire and flames were traveling like a dynamite fuse toward her perch.
There was a splash like a cannonball in the water. She craned to see, and her vision telescoped. It was Doug, Regan’s husband. Somehow he had fallen into the bayou brimming with toxic silver.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Katelyn swung to the next tree, scrabbling for handholds. As soon as she was sure she was poised above the bayou, she sprang off. She executed a simple swan dive, moving too fast to see where Doug was, then shot into the water. Something bumped against her beneath the surface and she reached out a hand. She touched something slimy and jerked her hands against her chest, kicking hard.
She broke the surface and looked around. The world was glowing. Doug’s head was in the water; he was lying face down. His body shimmered with red light and she grabbed him around the neck and tried to flip him over as best she could, but he lay so still. She started swimming to shore, grateful that she was still in shape. There was no fire on that side of the bayou, but the trees danced with the reflections of the inferno behind her. Who could survive that?
Then her feet kicked against sticky, mucky silt and she stepped into what felt like quicksand. Something made her turn around to see a large shape undulating through the water. Alligator? It was coming at them. She felt for her gun. She didn’t have it. She had lost it.
“Doug, Doug!” she tried to shout, but she was too hoarse. She tried to drag him but he was too heavy for her. She reached into the water and tried to bend his legs at the knees to get them onto the mud bank. She had no clue if that would do any good.
It was still coming.
Silver is poison, she thought as she bent over Doug. She put her ear to his mouth and felt at his neck for a pulse.
No pulse. She immediately began compressions.
The snout of the alligator appeared from the water, black and glistening against the firelight.
“No, no, no,” Katelyn rasped, freezing. Doug stirred faintly. She shouted, “Alligator!” as she ran around to his head and grabbed him under the arms. “Doug!”
The alligator’s head rose out of the water. Doug’s head flopped forward. He vomited down his front.
“Help!” Katelyn cried, tugging at him. “Justin!”
Doug gasped and tried to scoot up the bank. But he lolled helplessly, slack and barely able to move, as Katelyn kept hold of him. She could see the alligator’s eyes. There was no intelligence in them, only intent.
Her instinct for self-preservation told her there was nothing she could do for Doug. If she wanted to live, she had to abandon him. But her sense of decency forced her to stay. She growled, trying to stare down the alligator as her bones throbbed with pain. She could feel her body shifting.
Now, now, now, she thought. Change. Kill it.
But the sensation ebbed. The alligator was glowing; the bayou glistened with silver and scarlet and Katelyn began swearing at Doug, begging him to help her, losing her balance and falling hard into the muck.
The alligator darted forward.
Then it began to writhe. It jerked again. Its jaw opened, closed, then it fell awkwardly to one side. Someone was shooting at it.
It bolted hard, jaw snapping, almost catching Doug’s foot. Then, slowly, it began to slide back into the water. Doug was screaming in terror.