Page 95 of The Wolf and the Chimera
What are you doing?I demanded.
An image of cracking bones and flesh becoming fur flashed in my mind.
Yeah. He’s a werewolf—of course he can shapeshift.
Did my inner beast possess some kind of prejudice? She had no problem with Ryder’s two forms.
“Elle,” Kieran greeted. “You found me—great! I was getting a little nervous.”
Tired of my chimera’s games, I remembered shoving the sorceress out of my mind and gave my beast the same push. She whimpered but retreated, and I was able to speak.
“How could you agree to this?” I asked Kieran.
“I know,” he said and dragged a hand through his hair. “It was risky, but look at you! You’re doing great.”
I ignored his praise. “I already found Melanie and Bo. Do you have any idea where the others are?”
“No,” Kieran admitted, “but I’ll help you find them.”
I stepped toward him and froze. Roaring and thrashing in my mind, my beast wrestled for control. Another image flashed, this time of a creature with long, white tusks, green, serpentine skin, and sinister, round eyes. The creature stood on two legs but hunched inhumanly at the haunches.
Before me, Kieran replaced the image.
Pulse pounding, I studied my friend more closely.
Though he smelled and sounded and acted like the werewolf I knew, his face wasn’t as freckled as I thought it should be, and his eyes lacked their usual mischief. Something about his smile was off.
“Elle,” he chided, “you remember you’re on a timecrunch, right?”
“Right,” I muttered, “silly me.”
Kieran grinned and revealed perfectly straight, unchipped teeth.
That’s not Kieran.
My beast grumbled, as if to say,you think?
Not Kieran’s smile shifted into a sneer, and he pounced on me. As my beast lurched us away from the swipe of his claws, I didn’t fight her for control. Not Kieran punched, swiped, and clawed, and I fell into a rhythm that was both foreign and familiar. For a moment, there was nothing but the power in my veins, the soft exhales of our breaths, and the shuffling of feet in the sand.
Screeching like an animal, Not Kieran swiped for my wings, and agony tore through me. He seized the moment and wrenched me to the ground. As his clawed hands gripped my throat, Not Kieran’s eyes darkened and widened. In their reflection, I watched myself struggle to breathe.
“It’s been ages,” he said in a hoarse, deep voice that reminded me nothing of my friend, “since I’ve gotten to kill one of your kind.”
Stars danced in my vision, and my lungs ached with the need to breathe. I scratched the creature’s arms, but the gouges I dug didn’t tear its focus from choking the life out of me. All I managed was to draw its golden, sap-like blood. I struggled and kicked and fought, but nothing freed me from the all-too-heavy creature atop me.
Images flashed in my mind, of that same green-scaled creature from before and focused on its dark, endless pools of eyes.
Using the last of my strength, I worked in tandem with my inner beast to buck my hips. Though the movement didn’t free me, the creature lurched forward. Not wasting a second, I broke my wrist from Not Kieran’s hold and jabbed my claw-tipped fingers into his eyes.
The creature screeched like a barn owl and tore free frommy deadly assault with a sickening squelch. Its sticky blood rained down on me and burned my eyes, but when I rose to my feet, Not Kieran disappeared in a flash of light.
“Elle!” Kieran shouted.
Straight ahead, the werewolf grinned, and when I noticed his crooked, chipped canine, I loosed a sigh of relief. The next breath, Circe’s magic carried Kieran out of the maze. I checked the timer on the looking glass.
Two hours.
I had two hours to find my parents and Ryder and save them from whatever traps they were in. Trusting my beast to lock in on their scents, I raced through the maze again.
