catch it just before it hits my throat, and a slow grin curves my lips, while a growl bubbles in my chest.
Her eyes widen in horror, along with the eyes of the males behind her.
“Finally. I’ve been needing a good fight. Twenty shifters? Sounds fun,” I state with a growing grin.
Predictably, they all recover from the surprise and immediately attack. It’s almost too easy to counter their moves, and I feel cheated the good fight I was expecting.
Without even summoning my wolf, I effortlessly dodge strikes and remove heads, my claws stretched and sharp as daggers. In the midst of severing a body through the middle, I hear an explosion, and the ground rattles under me, momentarily distracting me.
The billowing smoke in the distance is the same direction Talbot went to land the helicopter.
Pain slices through my chest, and I choke on air when I see the silver sword poking through the wrong side of my chest. They always aim for the heart.
They usually miss, since my heart’s not where it should be.
Guess Idun hasn’t sold all our secrets.
My elbow swings back, catching my attacker in the face, and even with a sword stabbed through me, I manage to thin the remaining flock very quickly.
Just as I spin, removing the final head, Talbot comes racing through the trees ahead of me, blood smeared all over his face. His clothes are singed, and his face is a mix of ash and green blood.
“You were just going to land the helicopter and come find me,” I tell him, as I grab the oversized, double-headed axe from the ground.
“Yes, well, we’ll be walking home. I wasn’t prepared for a shifter with a bazooka. The world is entirely too fucked up these days,” he says on panted breaths, as he bends over and grabs his knees, heaving in fresh air.
“Idun wouldn’t have armed them with hand-to-hand combat weapons if she’d expected us to find this place,” I say as I swing the axe, barely making a dent in the metal. “They didn’t come out until I struck metaphorical gold. They hesitated when they realized it was me, but shifters fight to the death, once engaged in conflict.”
“Well, that’s food for thought,” the ghost chimes in.
Talbot eyes the bodies with some confusion, as he gestures around me.
“I took down two and you took down twenty, all while discovering what appears to be an underground dungeon. And you did all this in the five minutes it took me to escape a bazooka, lose the helicopter, and nearly die three times. My days aren’t usually this eventful. By the way, we really do need a new way home, and hitchhiking didn’t look to be much of a feasible option. I didn’t notice many roads in this section.”
I swing the axe down again, wincing in some pain, even as I strike the same spot just hard enough to break a split in the metal.
“Fuck’s sake, there’s a sword sticking through your heart. A silver sword. How are you not dead?” he asks as he comes closer. “Isn’t this a kill method even for an alpha?”
It’s not even Van Helsing silver, so it barely stings, unless I move too freely.
I swing the axe again, this time breaking the fucking weapon, while making barely a dent in the metal.
“Violet’s going to be beaten to death in a game of tag. Instead of wagging your chin, perhaps you could fucking help out,” I bite out, my anger steadily rising, as my wolf tries to surface.
“Go get the sword out of your chest, since that’s probably not very safe. I’ll work on this,” he says as he picks up another axe and gives me a nod, his eyes dipping to the blade poking through my chest.
“If you’ve never seen battle, how are all the legends about you true?” I ask the possible imposter.
“I’ve seen plenty of battles and stabbed a lot of hearts. Most of them die. They don’t immediately start stabbing into metal,” he says, as I turn my back to him.
“Pull it out. It’s silver. It’ll likely work better against this metal,” I tell him, glancing back to see him staring at me in some mild horror.
“Could you at least pretend this is causing a significant amount of pain instead of being nonchalant about it? I have big balls too, but I still cry when I’m stabbed. Wolves are more especially allergic to silver.”
Damien Morpheous has to be his idol. It’s like speaking to a true protégé.
After a breath of