Page 43 of Blood Lust
“I didn’t ask to hear this piece of shit shaman talk.” Lucas looked at Edgar, “Shut his mouth before I do it myself.”
“Enough with your threats, Lucas,” I said. I looked at Edgar, “Leave Shane alone. Unless, of course, you’re all sensing this was some trick. If this is just your righteous indignation talking, don’t threaten anyone’s life.” I glared at Lucas’s vamped out, pissed off expression toward me, “We’re all trying to make the best of a bad situation. You weren’t here when I almost killed the Banners. So are you trying to say the wolves are bad now when you’re the one who suggested we get their help in the first place? Which is it?”
“You all made innocent mistakes,” Lucas said through gritted teeth. “Innocent mistakes that created a fucking monster, sweetheart. That monster is you.”
“Fuck that,” Braden growled. “Lucas, we’ve been friends and allies since we turned on Enzo, but I will fucking kill you right now and not lose sleep over it.”
“What are you talking about,monster?” I asked, eyes darting back and forth between the dangerous expressions on Edgar and Lucas’s face. “Don’t you think us having this power—me having the so-called power I gained from bonding with my two alphas—will come in handy when we fucking kill that witch?”
“No.” Lucas’s face oddly grew sad, “Elle, if you tap into the power you truly have, you’re not ready for it. You will—I fucking mean it when I say you will—be controlled by your power, and God only knows what will happen after that.”
“Well, I think I’d kill the first threat.” I glanced out the windows to the red, black, and dark gray mist being blown in different directions. “The Shifted. After that, I’d hunt the witch down and make her pay for everything she did; and once that was over, I would take my juiced up ass over to Enzo and wipe all of them out too.”
Lucas folded his arms while Cole wrapped one around me and I shook it off immediately.
“This is what he’s talking about, babe.” Zane looked back at me. “Look at Cole’s arm.”
I stood in shock, staring at Cole’s arm as it started smoking and then combusted into flames. “My God, NO!” I screamed, and just as I imagined myself slapping out the fire that I somehow created on his arm, it was gone, and Cole stared blankly at me.
Cole looked at Lucas, “What the hell do we do? She can hurt herself with this.”
“It just keeps getting more powerful in her, like a little growing flame that will become a fucking wildfire with the help of that hybrid growing in her. You all seriously fucked up, and killing the baby is the first order.”
I instinctively covered my stomach, protecting my child. Feeling a steel wall going up around the thing that was most likely sprouting into some kind of lifeform to where no one could touch my baby. “No. The person who kills my baby will die before they can follow through with the act. I won’t let you.” I glanced at all the severe expressions in the room, “I won’t let any of you take my baby and kill it.”
“Your child is fueling the monster you are. Your child is part of this problem.”
“Zane,” I looked to the father of my baby for help.
“He’s right, babe, the fucking witch is right,” he said with a sigh. “You aren’t ready for this, and Cole and I fucked up. Yeah, we’re fucking juiced up and could kill Lucas with the snap of our fingers right now, but we know that, feel that, and also know it’s wrong. We have control over the power, you don’t.”
“So you’re insinuating that the weak human can’t pull this off?”
“It’s the truth, Elle,” Lucas said in a calmer tone. “One day you will be able to harness this power, but until you’ve grown more accustomed to this life, this will consume you. I’m sorry we didn’t see it all going down like this.”
“Fuck all of you,” I spat out. I looked at Jen who stood there with a look of disgust on her face, and I knew she was alive only because I hadn’t commanded my alpha wolf to kill her. All of my negative feelings for her bubbled up inside me, and I wished she had never fucking existed. I didn’t want her to get fucking killed by Zane; strangely, I wanted to kill her myself.
Jen reached for her throat, and her eyes bulged out with red veins popping throughout them. Blood spilled from her choking lips, and I stood in awe of what was happening to her.
“Jesus Christ!” I gasped as Jen dropped to the floor, lifeless.
“This is what I’m talking about!” Edgar said as he rushed to her, trying to feel for a pulse before shaking his head in defeat. “What you think can be manifested. She’s dead.”
Zane looked back at me with regret. “Her blood should have been on my hands, not yours, Elle,” he said, gripping the back of his neck. “Your power has to be stopped. You’ll do things you’ll regret.” He wiped a tear from my cheek I hadn’t even realized was there. “Shane, take the child,” he said in a low voice. “Do it now.”
I was mentally shaken. I felt like I was vibrating with uncontrollable energy. We all were silenced when the shaman cried out, gripped his head, and fell to his death right before bracing his hands over my stomach.
“What the fuck is happening? Am I doing this to everyone, or is the baby?”
The room remained eerily quiet, and I felt the weakness and fear of all the powerful beings who stood around me. I killed the shaman. I’d wished it earlier: Anyone who tried to kill my baby would die first.
It’s what just happened to Shane. Holy shit, I was out of control. How did this happen so fast? I didn’t mean to kill Jen, and I sure as fuck didn’t want Shane to drop dead. What the hell. How were we supposed to fix this now? Reverse it. Lucas was right to be pissed at all of us, but in all honesty, I think if any of us saw this new change of events coming, we wouldn’t have touched each other with a ten-foot pole. I would have fed on the wolves and never tested fate.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Zane’s eyes peered at me like I was his enemy, but when I returned the lethal expression out of self-preservation, he cowered and dropped to his knees where Shane lay lifeless on the floor.
“Goddamnit, man,” he growled as Nakia and Bren joined him in trying to shake the shaman back to life. “Fuck!” he leaned up and roared into the air.
