Page 86 of The Wolf

“Here to finish your nephew off?” Arwen asked, a crazed grin on her face when she realized how much more fun it would clearly be to watch uncle dispatch his own flesh and blood nephew. She waved toward Brine. “I must admit this is getting rather boring.”

Brine swung his gaze from his grandmother to Bright and then back again.

So this was it. This was truly the end.

Bright attacked his mother, an enraged howl filling the room

“You really shouldn’t have killed my twin, my other half,” the older wolf snapped, the blow from his broadsword hitting dangerously close to fatal. Arwen yowled in pain, clutching at her stomach, but darted back just quickly enough to be able to continue fighting despite the blood pouring from her wound.

“You wolves are all the same,” she said, venom dripping from her gaze as she tried to work out her next move. “Stupid, vulgar, disgusting things.”

“So why does it look like you’re shifting?” Bright fired back. He launched another attack. Brine was still too in shock and exhausted to rejoin the fray. Arwen parried the blow. “How large your eyes are, mother.”

But what Bright had said was true. Before Brine’s very eyes Arwen’s pupils contracted to slits, her irises turning amber. “Silence!”

“How tall your ears are,” Brine needled, shaken out of his shock.

Her elven ears grew fatter and longer, covered in bristly fur the color of her midnight hair. Her shoulders quivered, her back bent awkwardly as her body elongated and changed shape. The switch was grotesque and clearly against Arwen’s own will. Through her leather boots the points of deadly claws poked through, destroying the material and scratching up the floor.

She shrieked at them.

Out of the corner of his eye, Brine saw Scarlet making a slow and steady journey toward the door, out of the fray. Brine wished she would run off and never return, safe with their baby but out of his sight forever.

“Why, grandmother…” Brine said, turning his attention back to the fight. A feral smile spread across his face as he took a step toward the monster that was Arwen. “What big claws and teeth you have.”

“Go to hell, the lot of you,” she seethed, leaping for Brine in a frenzy. But Brine and Bright were both ready for her, and together they jabbed, slashed, and parried their way around Arwen, boxing her in until there was nowhere else for her to go.

The final blow was nothing special. A careful slide into her heart, Brine’s dagger going in to the hilt, and that was that.

The life drained from the woman’s eyes, and she tumbled to the floor.

Brine felt nothing. Not even satisfaction.

He’d help slay the monster from his nightmares yet there was no relief.

Bright spat on Arwen, revulsion shaking his entire frame.

Brine could only stare at his uncle. “I had no idea you hated her so much … all this time.”

“She killed your father,” Bright muttered, not looking at him. “My brother. Myonlybrother—what else would you expect from me, Brine?”

“So why didn’t you kill her sooner?”

“For the same reason you hadn’t done so yet. For the same reason you ran away all those years ago. I lacked the strength, and the people to support me. The moment you returned, I knew her days were numbered. So thank you, Brine. I—”

“Brine,” came a soft voice from the door. Brine turned; Scarlet was still there, the most composed out of the three of them. Brine didn’t even care to try and work out if it was all a front. The sight of her made him sick.

She’d tricked him.

“Get out of my sight,” he growled, unable to look at her any longer. “Stay in the cottage. I’ll deal with you later.”

He felt Scarlet bristle at his tone, but she remained silent and resolute until she turned tail and fled the room.

“Nephew—” Bright began, but he cut his uncle off.

“No. I just need … some time to think,” Brine said, wiping a bloody hand across a bloody brow for all the good it would do to clean himself up. “Talking can come later.”

It was clear Bright did not agree to this, but Brine didn’t give him a choice. He left the study, in the opposite direction Scarlet had gone, in order to meet up with Pyre and Damien and Tempest. He had work to do; things weren’t over just because his grandmother was dead. But his heart rang hollow and heavy.

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