Shadowlands Sector,Three - Mila Young Page 0,1

the real enemy outside.

I leap at the first man, suddenly feeling like I’m flying from the strength in my body. I crash into him, headfirst into his gut. He groans, but still lands a punch to my back. My knees wobble, but I never cower away.

My body tingles, and I pivot around and lunge up to bite deep into his shoulder, ripping away flesh to the bone, blood gushing free, splattering the dead leaves around us. The coppery taste is like dirt across my tongue, my body trembling with uncontrollable fury. The need to rip them all apart soars through me.

Something white flashes behind my eyes, an unsatisfiable rage, blinding me.

Another attacker smacks into my side hard, throwing me off my feet and to the ground with a thud. I’m shaking violently, my head still spinning.

His weight presses down on me, and footfalls close in around me.

But I won’t be caught, not ever again.

I fucking won’t.

I buck against the idiot and snap my head around, ripping my teeth into his arm. Tearing away with skin and fabric, I don’t relent as he cries out.

Heat lashes over me, and I scramble to my feet, growling. I recoil from the four approaching monsters. Mad strides forward, his white hair blown off his face from the wind, the bastard looking older, more exhausted than when I last saw him. But a fuckhead is still a fuckhead. His twisted expression is one of a man who is disgusted by what he sees; me standing up for myself.

I can’t look away from the syringe he grasps. They already jabbed me once in the neck, and it forced me into a transformation. I somehow doubt that was their intention, or that they expected me to put up such a battle.

My legs tremble beneath me, and adrenaline pumps through my veins, keeping me going. Except, my wolf suddenly drives me aside, and I refuse to stop her. I’m stumbling on my feet, snarling at myself until I crash into a tree.

“What the fuck’s wrong with her?” someone asks.

“Stop fighting,” Mad’s voice cuts through the madness in my head. “I can take care of you. Protect you.”

I growl in response. Liar!

“Your choice, Meira.” He lifts the syringe. “Come with us calmly and I promise to release my stepbrother and his two men. Keep fighting and we’ll take you by force. And with that, I can guarantee I will kill them.”

He suddenly pauses as do his men, each of them glaring at me like I’m nothing but a means to an end. I know exactly what he wants from me… my blood. They think I am the cure to a zombie infection. Sad fucks have no idea how wrong they are.

My heart pounds in my ears, my wolf growling in my chest shuddering with violent need, but it’s four against one. Even I'm not that foolish to believe I’ll win. Another reason I need to pull back my wolf. Especially now that a wounded wolf is climbing to his feet.

I swallow hard as my breaths speed up.

Mad’s expression darkens, and underneath the storm in his eyes, there is desperation—one I’ve seen on power-hungry Alphas before. He’ll do anything, kill anyone to get what he wants.

Really, I have one option: get to Mad first and tear him apart while not losing myself to my wolf.

Easier said than done.

Electricity hums over my skin just as it had when my wolf first pushed out of me. She had my skin ripping, forcing herself to come out. The pain is gone now, knitting my wolf and me as one soul, one being, yet she fights me. This can’t be right.

I recoil, my sight never leaving Mad’s. This isn’t the time to stumble. I step back, bumping into a tree, and I shudder.

My wolf growls her threat at me. She doesn’t back away… well I fucking do.

They close in. All five of them. Three are in human form, and two have taken wolf form.

Dread taps fast in my chest. I frantically look around for a way out, for anything. Looking down to my men, they don’t stir, and worry sinks through me. What had been in the injections to knock them out so fast?

Tension leaks in the air, while rage bubbles to the surface inside me, bringing with it a lick of fire down my back.

I loathe Mad. Wrath rises through me at what these men deserve.

But pain stings my side from where the bastard slammed into me earlier, pulsing across my ribs.

“Get her!”