Page 296 of Sigils & Spells

They’d waited at the opening of the alley right next to the bar, leers plastered across their boy next door faces. “Hey pretty girl. You looking for some action?”

“Nope.” She kept on walking, thankful she lived only a few blocks away. God why was it always the ones who looked normal that ended up being assholes?

It just figured.

She gave a mental eye roll and proceeded down the sidewalk, her mind already shifting gears back to the exam looming over her the next day.

Then she heard it. A scuff of a sneaker that was way too close. Mari paused in her footsteps and someone yanked her backwards by her hair, making her yelp and getting her off balance.

“What the? Hey!”

One of the men grabbed her from behind and slammed her into the rough brick wall of the pub next door.

It hurt. A lot.

Tears stinging her eyes, she blinked them away and kicked the guy in front of her in the nads. He dropped and another one took his place, his hands getting a little too inquisitive for her comfort.

“Let go of me you asshole.”

“No.” The fresh faced frat boys weren’t so innocent after all.

The rest was a blur. Tearing clothes. Hands on her body and her screams echoing into the night. They were too strong and she didn’t know how to fight them. Glowing eyes and teeth that shouldn’t be that sharp ripped at the soft parts of her flesh, their fingers searching out places that she’d never shared with anyone, let alone being forced in a dark alley. It was all too real. Like the monster movies she’d been terrified of as a child, because part of her was afraid they were real.

“What are you?” She’d sobbed. “Let me go!”

“I think not, precious.” The fiend leered at her again and she watched him change. A snout appeared where a face had been only moments before. Coarse hair sprouted from his skin and she heard his muscles crack as he lifted his head to howl.

The others joined in their jubilation but stayed human, their eyes and too sharp teeth the only real evidence they shared his proclivities. They toyed with her. The men, now partially shifted into wolves, let her up, giving her the illusion of escape only to catch her a few feet down the alley and have at her once again. Her fear bled from stark terror to a gut clenching hate.

Their guttural laughter made her want to kill them. The revulsion kept her alive and the knowledge that if she ever did get up, she would find a way to make them pay for what they had done. Bloody and raw, she lay there, the unyielding concrete at her back waiting to bleed out.

Shock and horror warred with the hate and it won. It was the safest place she knew and she clung to it, trying to convince herself that the rest was a figment of her overworked imagination.

At least that’s what she wanted to believe.

One of them moved, giving her the opportunity to run if she could have moved, her eyes riveted on the hazy street light on the main drag. Then two more male forms came into view, their faces tight with rage. The taller man was a brooding presence with long dark hair that reminded her of that guy in the Bram Stoker Dracula movie. The other a muscular golden haired god with liquid eyes she wanted to fall into. If he these were the angels of death, then she would go willingly.

“And here you are. I thought I heard the barking of dogs in my alleyway.” The dark haired man spoke with cultured menace, the power in his voice sending shivers down Mari’s spine.

His teeth glinted in the half light.

What was going on?

“Your alley, Roark?” The golden haired man regarded him with a sardonic smile.

The men, now almost completely wolves, crouched down over Mari’s body, low growls reverberating from their throats.

“Well, it isn’t theirs.” Roark barred his teeth and hissed, lunging forward with his walking stick aimed at the beasts. He struck the middle one between the eyes stunning him.

“Fenris?”

“Got it.”

The smaller of the three wolves lunged at the muscular blond man and he knocked the creature back on his haunches. Then the fray began. It was a blur of movement and startled yelps.

When all was done, one wolf lay still and unmoving at the Fenris’s feet and the other two had vanished from sight.

Fenris kicked at the carcass in front of him, his lips twisted in disgust. “The Protectorate Council won’t like this.”

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