Page 80 of I Am the Wild

One bite.

Deep into my neck.

My throat closes shut with blood.

My eyes twitch.

All I think is…

Nothing.

The beast rears its head. Letting me go. And I fly across the room. Past the pillars. Out into the sky.

I am falling, and yet I know, I will not fall.

I know it with a certainty I have always had. A certainty for things yet to come.

And a flash overtakes me.

More powerful than I have ever felt.

I don’t fight it. Not as I have before.

And as the energy courses through my body, I realize, it is not just visions I have. Not just a feeling of what will happen. It is power. Raw, uncontrolled power.

It takes hold of me.

And I do not fall.

I fly.

I am me,and yet I am not. There are things I do, and things done through me. My voice is mine, and not my own.

"I amthe woman in the wild!" I scream into the shrieking wind. As I speak, lightning flashes, the fire of the torch blazes, and the clouds swirl around me. The pendant from the kitsune blazes at my throat. I am suspended in mid-air. My skin and clothes glow white, smooth and clear of any blemish, illuminating the dark sky. Illuminating the werewolf, who stands at the edge of the cathedral, jaw slack with wonder.

"I am the blood sister of the moon! I am the call of the night and her secrets. The radiance left from a star. I am all that you need and more than you know. I am the hidden that shall now be found. I am the magic that you seek. I am the wild!"

The wind thrashes at my words, so hard it pushes the beast backwards. He growls, barring his teeth. He bends his knees, preparing to leap.

“Do not move,” I warn. “Do not try.”

He howls one last time.

And jumps.

He swipes his claws forward mid-air, aiming for my neck.

He is nearly at me, when I raise my arm, and a gale of wind strikes down from above, so fierce and quick, it draws the clouds toward it like a tornado, and sends the beast falling down.

He does not land smoothly.

One might say, he does not land at all.

His body hits the tip of a gargoyle wing.

And the stone pierces his flesh, bursting from his chest.

I don’t recall the gargoyle wing being there. It wasn’t there last I looked.

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