Page 122 of Her Tortured Beasts

The gunsman exhales, his finger flexing on the trigger?—

Right before his head explodes in a shower of flesh, bone and blood.

Chapter 75

Savage

My head is out the window, my hair flapping wildly as I scan the sky because I know our regina is close. The road is empty this early in the morning, with dense forest on either side of us. I listen carefully to my spirit.

A hint of phantom pain hits me like foreign claws in my spine.It’s her.

“Next left!” I shout to Lyle. “They’ve found her!”

Lyle doesn’t answer. Instead, the car lifts off the road completely and I let out a whoop as our lion shoots us down the road like a bullet. The very skin of my face seems to fly backwards under the force of it, and I have to open my eyes wide to maintain vision. A dirt road appears through the forest on the left and Lyle swerves violently. I hold onto the edge of my window with all my might, the aggression of it riling me up, getting me ready to reclaim my regina.

“Slow down,”Scythe commands.“We’re near.”

Lyle halves his speed and I scan the forest for any sign of movement.

In the distance, a falcon shrieks in pain.

“Aurelia!”I scream.

Lyle and Scythe let out snarls of pure fury and I feel Scythe go cold.

I almost break the door wrenching it open. Lyle stops us and drops the car abruptly and my brain rattles as I slam into Scythe’s seat from the force of it.

Lyle and Scythe are already out of the car and leaping into the forest as I explode into my wolf form and dive after them.

We run like the devil himself is on our tails, desperate, enraged. We come on them quickly and I crash through the bush into a small clearing, leaves crunching under my paws.

It’s not every day you see a lion fly through the sky and take down a falcon in its jaws, squeezing it until it squirts blood and guts.

But we are the Boneweaver pack.

“Give me a go!”I cry to Lyle.

The lion’s rabid eyes flick to me while he gnaws on the bird and I feel myself lift. “There!” I indicate to one of the birds and Lyle doesn’t make me fly, the bastardpiffsme, like a football, right at the thing.

Soaring in a giant, deadly arc, I open my jaws wide as I slam into the mass of feathers, chomping in every direction until I feel flesh and bone. The birdy screeches and I throw him down to the ground, just as I hurtle for the ground too.

“Lyle!”I growl.

He catches me in the air just before I hit the ground and then lets me plonk onto the dry grass. I immediately jump back up onto my paws, my head snapping left and right, looking for more enemies.

“Where is she?”

That primal instinct guides my nose left and forward, where Scythe is already bent over a falcon, a human male lying with its head in pieces next to him. My heart near flies out of my chest and I shift into human form, rushing towards them. “Regina!”

Scythe holds up a hand to pause me and it makes me rage to think I’m being stopped from getting to her. But I realise he’s telling me to be careful.

My growl spreads out through the clearing as Lyle comes up next to me, breathing hard. Scythe cradles Aurelia to his chest as he stands, turning around to show her to us. Lyle and I immediately crowd him, cooing and reaching out to pet the feathers of the one we live for. Her eyes are closed where she rests against Scythe’s chest, her beak slightly open, panting for breath.

She’s in pain.

“Aurelia,”I say telepathically, panicking a little. “My regina. Are you okay? You are not okay, I’m sorry, I know that, we’ll make you better, you’ll see?—”

Lyle puts a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Hush, wolf. Don’t overwhelm her.”

---