Page 67 of Scarred Resolve

Another came barreling up, and I was forced to really think about how much stronger and faster than me they were. It snapped at my shoulder, but I swerved in time to get away from it. My balance was off from the movement. Skidding over dead underbrush and through bushes only slowed me down. I was a single, young werecat, and I couldn’t kill four normal werewolves. I had killed Rainer, but that was with the help of Landon and by tapping into power that I wasn’t supposed to have. Like this, against these four, I had little chance of winning. It was as hopeless as beating the werecats who had ambushed me in my territory years ago.

I used the slowdown in my favor, knowing I needed help. I continued to shift slightly to my right, and at the last moment, before the werewolf behind me could get its awfulhandson me, I spun and left it going in the wrong direction. I took off at full speed again, dodging the last two in front of me as they tried to jump on me, letting each of them hit bushes and trees. They were faster in an all-out sprint, but they weren’t fast enough to react in time when I was setting the pace of this chase and knew how I wanted to move. I had a fleeting image flash through my mind of the tiny impala that could shake a cheetah’s pursuit.

Unfortunately, I was the impala.

I hauled ass, knowing the werewolves were going to be back on me, and my brothers weren’t going to have a lot of time, but my legs were beginning to burn. Sprinting at full speed, while trying to keep enough control over my momentum to dodge my hunters, was draining. There was a reason most predators didn’t do much more than a quick burst of energy, and if a chase took too long, they would give it up.

As I neared the trail to my brothers, I was grateful to see that Niko had finished the Change and Davor was nearly done. Niko rushed up, taking a defensive position in front of Davor, and I tried to stop myself, having to move or I would have crashed into both of them. Right as I passed Niko, he collided with the werewolf that had been able to make up for my U-turn the fastest. Fur flew as blood hit the ground as the two monsters engaged. A second later, I spied the next werewolf, deciding now was it.

“Let’s see how you deal with three of us,”I snarled into its head, and it was actually taken off guard by the words, giving me the slightest opening to attack, getting my jaws on its thigh and crunching down. The wolf clawed at me, nails sinking in as it tore flesh and tried to pull me off, but I knew just how much a predator needed its legs, and I put more power into each small snap I could do without losing my hold. I shook violently, ignoring the pain in my shoulders and back, keeping my eyes closed and protected. With one more crunch, I heard the satisfying sound of its femur breaking as the two ends of the break slid, and the leg felt much less stable in my mouth. As it howled in pain and went into apparent shock, I twisted my body violently and released it, letting it roll away into a log.

By the time I was done with it, Davor had finished his Change and was fighting another while Niko continued to roll in a violent flurry of blows against the one he had started against.The fourth, too late to take advantage of the numbers they had on us, finally arrived, coming straight for me. I braced for the impact as I saw it running for me. It seemed a little wounded already as it hit me, and I began the wrestle of snapping at it and trying to keep its jaws from my neck. It wasn’t giving me the same power as the first.

A broken howl distracted the one with me just enough to let me push it to its back and go for its neck. I nearly had it and growled in pain as it nearly broke my jaw with a blow. As I went again, the paw-like hand didn’t come up, and I got ahold of its neck, sending my long fangs through its air pipe and all the other important parts it had been trying to protect. Knowing it couldn’t ever heal from that, I shook only once to break more before releasing it. I looked up to see that its left arm had been torn off, but I didn’t think about it as I ran to help Davor with his, jumping on its back as it focused on my brother. It slammed to the ground with me on its back, and in the next second, Davor lunged. His bite-and-shake combination was seemingly so precise and calculated, he ripped its head off with ease.

I stepped off the dead one and looked for the one I had broken in the beginning, seeing Niko was near it. It was now very dead, its neck torn out just like the one I had killed.

We all panted for a moment, standing in the middle of death. It wasn’t long before Niko and Davor were initiating the Change back to their human forms. I waited, keeping my eyes on the trees, hoping not to see any more monsters headed our way—like a certain werecat.

“Let’s move,” Niko said in a gasp, pulling on only his pants. Davor didn’t say anything but wore as much as Niko, and we started running, their arms full of clothing. Niko didn’t take us off the trail, and I realized he didn’t intend to.

“Niko, we should regroup for a moment.”

“No. We need to take them while they’re in shock of their lost pets,” he snarled in response. “We’re going to barge in, get our things back, and fucking kill all of them. You just need to distract that werecat for long enough that Davor and I can get through the witches and get our weapons back. Or steal theirs. If it’s not there, help us clear the witches out of the way.”

“Why not be werecats?”

“Because we can’t talk like you,” he answered sharply. “Davor needs to be able to communicate with our family as fast as possible, even if we’re in the middle of a fight.” He growled, but not really at me. It was aimed at whatever we were going to find. “And I want to usemyclaws. I didn’t want to risk it against multiple werewolves in their Last Change, but… I would be really happy to use them against some witches.”

His bloodthirstiness at the end was all I needed to stop asking questions.

29

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

There were voices yelling as we approached. Men and women shouting questions, answers, and orders, breaking through the ambient silence of the wilderness. We heard them from a good distance, able to discern what they were talking about long before they had a chance to know we were getting close. As the voices grew louder, we moved slower, and through the trees, we saw the two-story cabin that must have been their base for whatever they had been doing here, like murdering a couple of people.

“Stay low,” Niko whispered, putting on his silver claws, designed and crafted for him by Davor. I wondered how Davor felt seeing them, felt about making them for Niko, who clearly liked to fight in his human form more than his werecat form. “Jacky, find another angle and report on what else you can learn about what’s going on while we get into a good position to attack from our own angle.”

I turned, looking at what we could already see.

“They’re going to be here soon,” a man snapped at someone carrying a large box. “Move faster!”

“I’m trying, but you know we’re not going to get everything out!” The other man was struggling with the box, and I noted the papers threatening to fall out or get taken by the wind. “It took three trips to get everyone and everything here. We weren’t supposed to leave for another week!”

“Then you better move and hope you can get a spot on the plane!”

They were frantic, and whatever exit they were attempting was rushed. I crept low, knowing my brothers could see these two, and was able to follow the tree line around the cabin, staying safely tucked behind it by ten or so feet. I reached the end of the trees and saw a large clearing. What I would have guessed was a dirt road had no vehicles on it. There was a small plane, much like the one my brothers and I had taken to the reserve to get to the campsite, which started all of this. It struck me as a little odd that they didn’t just drive into the region, instead flying in when there was a perfectly good dirt road.

Since that was a good distance off, I shifted my attention to the cabin once again, seeing silhouettes in the window. I listened, hearing people running around inside, furniture scraping across wooden floors, heavy things getting dropped. After a minute, a woman came running out with a briefcase, heading toward the plane.

“Damn werecats,” she muttered. “Ruined everything, the flea-bitten monsters. I can’t believe they got to us so fast. They even killed the guard dogs.”

“They have a small plane over here, and that’s what they’re loading,”I said quickly as the woman muttered her tirade, looking back toward my brothers to make sure they would hear the words and only them.“I think we need to pounce now.”

I wanted the woman running for the plane with the briefcase with such ferocity, I was having a difficult time holding back and waiting on Niko’s signal. Thankfully, my brother didn’t make mewait long. After only three long, terrible seconds, he gave me what I wanted.

“Go!” Niko roared.

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