Page 25 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part Two

No!

No, no,no, no, no!

“Stop it!” I screamed, rushing toward him as if that would do anything. Now I really was being stupid, but what other option did I have? Run away and let this asshole murder all my friends? Maybe I could distract Alric long enough for someone stronger to do something. I’d lost my childhood because I was a coward. I refused to lose the first true love I’d felt in years because I chose to run away. “Let go of him!”

My blood rushed furiously through my veins once more, and every step I took sounded like a clap of thunder to my ears. I wasn’t even halfway to Leo when Alric looked at me, seeming more curious than threatened.

A reasonable enough reaction, since I was an unarmed human sprinting straight toward a powerful warlock. What possible threat could I present to him?

“And who is this?” he asked.

I wasn’t quite prepared for how melodic his voice was. I didn’t bother to answer as I kept running toward Leo, but then I suddenly pitched forward as something wrapped around my ankle. I hit the floor hard as the twisting metal wrapped around my leg and yanked me down to the cracked marble. Thank God I hadn’t been pushed into one of the crevices. I didn’t even want to think what that would feel like. Perhaps it wouldn’t feel like anything at all, because I would be dead after being impaled on something sharp and pointy.

Not that I was in all that much better a situation at the moment. I was no longer being dragged backward, but rather hauled up into the air. Pain shot up my right leg as all the blood rushed to my head. I really wasn’t a fan of viewing the world from this upside-down angle.

“Looks like a human, smells like a human, but doesn’tfeellike a human.” Feel like a human? What the hell did that mean? “Not a shifter, either, but also not one of our thralls.”

Perhaps it was a bit egotistical of me, but I couldn’t help but notice that, at least for a moment, Alric had stopped squeezing his multiple victims. I had no idea what he was going on about, but, hey, if it helped my companions, I was all for it.

“What was it you were saying?”

It was so strange how the man was talking to me like this was our meet-cute. His smile was charming, his tone pleasant, and there was even a cheery glint to his bright, blue eyes. It was such a strange juxtaposition that I didn’t answer him until he gave me a good hard shake that made my knee pop.

“Let them go,” I rasped, hoping I was indeed providing the perfect distraction for someone to come in from the wings andsave us all. Because I had to admit, I was doing way better at holding Alric’s attention than I had expected.

“Ah, see, I thought that’s what you said, but then I was sure you had to have some compelling argument. You may have taken down my brother, but Nikolas was a spoiled baby. The years our mother spent coddling him and telling him he was her most special prince were bound to have consequences.”

Wow. I hadn’t expected him to sound so callous about his brother’s death. This family clearly had drama. But also, his reaction made me think he didn’t quite know who we were. That was probably a good thing, but maybe I could use it to further rattle him? It was a gamble, that was for sure.

“It wasn’t just your precious Nicky,” I said, my lips curling back from my teeth. “It was Chadwicke, too. And…” I reached deep into my memory for the names I’d only heard a couple of times in passing. “Kirklin and Finneus. Your whole family is falling one at a time. This is your chance to head for the hills before we take you down, too. Consider it a rare mercy.”

I didn’t know where I got mychutzpah, but Alric’s magic wavered, and the bond around my leg loosened a bit. Unfortunately, that meant I suddenly dropped a few inches, which sent a bolt of fiery pain jolting up from my ankle to my hip, but the metal bindings tightened before I could bash skull-first into the floor. As I’d hoped, that momentary lapse in power was enough for Leo and two others to burst free from their bindings and charge at Alric.

For a brief moment, I allowed myself to think Leo was going to leap onto the man and end yet another evil warlock.

I should have known better.

Alric was so much more experienced than anyone we’d fought before. He paid full attention to all of his surroundings instead of focusing on one target. I couldn’t help but wonder ifhe was the eldest and everyone else we’d gone up against so far had been easy mode.

That hypothesis flashed through my mind and was almost instantaneously proven true when more metal pipes burst from the floor and shot up to impale the limbs of the three shifters rushing toward him. A look of unbridled fury crossed over Alric’s handsome features.

“T-that’s impossible! We…” he trailed off, and his writhing mass of living metal carried him over to where Leo was hoisted, spiked through his left foreleg. “It’syou!But how? We cursed you!”

As if to prove his point, metal tendrils like the tentacles of an octopus reached out from the mass of material at the brother’s feet and pried Leo off the spike. I watched in horror as they wrapped around each of his limbs and began to pull in separate directions. It was like he was being drawn and quartered right in front of me.

A raw, animalistic sound tore out of my throat, but my screams were cut short when a wad of metal wrapped around my head, sliding between my teeth like a gag.

Alric turned his attention from me to Leo, squeezing and shaking him harder. I tried to protest, to beg, but all that came out of my mouth were muffled noises.

Leo’s wolf form slipped from his grasp as he turned into a battered and bleeding human. My heart lurched in my chest, but no matter how much I struggled against my bonds, I couldn’t escape.

“I don’t know how you did it, but I’m going to end this right here and now,” the warlock seethed, his pleasant expression having shifted into an unhinged snarl. “No more of this drawn-out nonsense. I’m going to rip you limb from limb and burn every piece, then use the ash to fertilize my mother’s gardens.”

Fear surged up within me as I saw the metal coils around Leo tighten, the tension already evident in his limbs. But there was something else... a roiling, undiluted, virulentrage. It was unlike anything I had ever felt before, scalding the back of my throat and coating my tongue in acid. My stomach roiled, and the blood rushing through me turned into an inferno. It felt like I’d run ten miles, but instead of being exhausted, I was pumped full of adrenaline.

And just like that, I was done.

Done with being a victim. Done with having to run around the sideline because everyone was so much stronger than me. Tired of evil people getting away with hurting so many just because they could.

---