Page 51 of Jack of All Trades

Chapter Fourteen

Jack held himself downover Maltin, but Maltin wasn’t having that. He moved away from Jack, standing in the fray. Jack was about to follow him, unwilling to let his mate use his finite powers, but then, the craziest thing happened.

As lightning bolts landed all around them and a scream came from his mother, the smell of hair burning, furniture being dissolved into rubble, he felt his entire body shake. It wasn’t in fear. It wasn’t from the earthquake of powers being thrown back and forth by the witches.

It was him, his body, and it was changing.

Bones cracked loudly, but he felt no real pain. His arms bent the wrong way, his jaw distending, forehead retracting, fingernails growing into long, razor-sharp claws.

Maltin’s scream made Jack look away from his own hands to see he wasn’t the only one changing. His mate’s face was malformed, bubbling like he was melting, but he wasn’t. He, too, was changing.

The witches, seeing this, stopped their fighting, and Jack’s mother screamed again, only it was in shock. Jack was lowering, his hands landing on the ground as they changed to heavily clawed paws, and he felt the bones in his skull displacing, and from his peripheral, he saw he was growing the horns he’d seen in the illustrations in the book Ms. Tempest had given them.

“Jack! What’s happening to you?” He heard his mother screaming.

“He’s shifting, you daft fool,” his father yelled.

Trudy and Rodney were stepping away from them, but they weren’t afraid. They were just making room for the two because they weren’t only changing, they were growing.

Jack was nearly six feet tall, but that was nothing compared to how he grew. On all fours, he was nearly as tall as he was standing on two legs. A snarl came as he tried to speak, and his eyes…all he could see in front of him was the world covered in a red light.

When he was fully transformed, he turned his head to see Maltin, but Maltin being red, he was nearly invisible to Jack. All he could clearly make out were Maltin’s two glowing eyes.

Turning back to his parents, the ones that had treated him so poorly, everything inside him made him want to pounce on them and tear them apart, to taste their blood on his tongue, have their flesh stuck between his teeth, but he held back, knowing it wasn’t their time.

How he knew that was a mystery, but they didn’t know it, and that was good enough. They were crawling backward from him and Maltin, fear scenting the air like boiling copper.

Trudy stepped in front of them and held up her hand, and suddenly, the entire room was put right, the furniture recreated, the sounds of wood scraping on marble loud in his sensitive ears.

“I won’t hurt you,” she said. “I know this has been a shock. Jack is good and as you can see, more powerful than you couldhave imagined in your bigotry. My son has made me proud all his life, and he continues to do so now. Treasure your other children. May they never know your hatred like Jack’s had to feel.”

Jack turned and started to run, feeling his mate behind him. Crashing through the double doors, he was out of the house and free, running across the lawn, feeling great clumps of sod being pulled up from his claws.

The air was soft and cool, the breeze whistling through the curl of his horns. He felt alive, happy, and loved for the first time, but more than that.

He felt power.

He could tear through anyone, crush their bones or he could run by them, letting them live another day, another ten. He had the power of life and death, which was the strongest power of all.

And no witch could hurt him. No power on earth could touch him.

He was free.

Beside Jack, Maltin ran, and he felt happiness pouring off his mate. They ran together, tearing through his parents’ precious land, jumping, playing, and biting at one another until they both lay on the grass, and Maltin was purring. Then he realized, he was too.

“You two stop all that foolishness,” Trudy called. “We have one more stop to make, and you both owe me a thousand dollars for a massage!”

Once they turned back to being human, Rodney provided them with clothes, and Trudy led the way back to the limo. Jack rushed to walk along with her. “Thank you, Mrs. Graves. Thank you so much for all you said and did.”

“I didn’t do much. I could have killed the two of them. I maybe should have, but it’s not my place.”

“I don’t think they knew what hit them.”

“Of course, they did,” Rodney said. “They know power. They now know we have more than they do.”

Jack laughed happily, and Maltin was smiling right along with him. “Maltin, did you see? They were scared! I’ve never seen them scared!”

“They were in awe of you! As am I,” he said, taking Jack into his arms and kissing him hard, holding him harder. “I shifted.”

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