Page 78 of The Wild Moon
Johnathan bared his teeth and took a step toward us just as the floor shook beneath us.
Reacting faster than us for once, Johnathan scrambled backward as the ground around us collapsed, dropping our small form while he stayed high.
We landed among the rubble, and I tore my brain free from the meld again, looking around frantically. We weren’t injured from the fall, and I got up to all fours. We were in a tunnel. I wasn’t sure if it were natural or manmade, but I could see both sides of it.
Above me, Johnathan growled and jumped down to an outcropping. He was still coming after us. That bastard!
Picking an option, I bolted down the tunnel entrance, claws scrabbling around wildly on the hard floor. It was tough to pick up much traction, but it didn’t matter. I’d gone perhaps twenty feet when I nearly ran into a cave-in, my wolf eyes having a hard time seeing with the lack of light this deep in.
I turned and ran back, narrowly evading Johnathan as he leaped the last twenty feet down to the ground, jaws snapping for us. The other tunnel went on for some time, and for a moment, I thought we were going to escape.
I rounded a corner and accelerated, heading for–
Without warning, I smashed face-first into an unseen barrier, coming to an abrupt and very painful stop. My wolf body collapsed to the floor, yelping in pain.
Behind us, Johnathan came around the corner, his deep rumble filling the hallway. I backed up as he came toward me, saliva dripping from his jaws. I locked eyes with him, and what I saw terrified me.
He’s lost his mind, I realized when intelligence didn’t stare back at me. The thing wasn’t Johnathan. It was a feral beast. With only one mission.
Kill me.
He took a step forward, and I backed up, but I couldn’t go anywhere. The invisible barrier blocked my path. It was a dead end.
Literally.
Chapter Forty-One
Desperately, I tried to push through the barrier. I fought with all my might, straining against it as claws slowly click-clacked their way toward me.
I didn’t want to die here. Nor did I want to fight him. I couldn’t submit to it either. Meanwhile, my wolf was frantic, searching for some solution. She still wanted to throw herself at him, accept the Soulbond and live the life we dreamed of growing up. But just by looking at him, she knew that this wolf wasn’t going to let us live. We would never have that life.
For different reasons, we both knew we had to get away from him. In this, we were on the same page at long last. The irony of that wasn’t lost on me. That when it was too late, we were able to work together.
We shoved harder as terror overtook us, a wave of never-ending fear as our doom approached us, stalking us,torturingus with his slow approach. It gave us nothing but time to contemplate our end as we dug our claws deep into the ground, straining.
There! It gave an inch, compressing ever so slightly. I swear I had felt it give on this latest push.
I still couldn’t see what was stopping us, though. The tunnel was clear ahead, but we simply could not pass. It was blank. Like an invisible wall. After that first inch, nothing happened. It was like pushing against steel.
Hopeless.
Which meant escape was no longer an option. We were going to have to stand. And fight. I bowed out to my wolf at this, opting to ride in the back seat of our mind while she took control. If we were going to haveanyhope of escaping with our lives and our fur intact, it would be because of her.
Not that I held much hope. I’d shifted preciselyonceoutside of the now nine Wild Moons that had passed since my twenty-first birthday and my first Soulshift. Johnathan, on the other hand, had been shifting for nearly two years. He and his wolf were much more in tune with one another.
But I had to try.Wehad to try.
As we turned, an icy spike of fear choked off any sound we might have made. He was less than ten feet away, a huge, furred form, fangs out, saliva dripping from them as he snarled and growled.
We can’t win in a straight fight. We need to surprise him. Do something he won’t be ready for. Submit!
I sent the idea to my wolf, telling her to let go. To bow down to the junior Alpha and truly submit. To open herself to him.
She resisted. If we did that, she wouldn’t come back. He would overwhelm her with his Alpha power, and she would be as good as dead. A puppet to him.
I’ll protect you, I said, reaching out to shield her mind with my own, a layer of defense.
It was our only hope.
