Page 48 of Savage Blood
Icy dread enveloped my muscles, filling them with concrete. “What’s that?”
Another creature emerged from the shadows between two crooked buildings across the street, scales and patches of gray fur wrapping his lean form. Instead of a huge burly beast, this one had a slender frame, muscles rippling with every step, and a triangular head with small spikes running across his jawbone.
“Those aren’t sub-demons.”
My head jerked in Ruin’s direction. “Then what the hell are they?”
I raised my nose into the air and inhaled, bringing their scents into my nostrils. Frost sank through my bloodstream, and my stomach roiled.
“Shifters.” My voice came out in a hushed whisper, like saying the word too loudly would make the moment too real.
Enid’s mouth curved into a snarl. “The Collective Nosterium.”
Not one of the members had shifted in front of us in the manor. I could see why.
Alicia cursed. “What happened to them?”
“The Infernal Sol and all of those demon rituals distortedthem,” Ruin said as more slinked closer, revealing their warped animal forms.
Their monstrous transformations unveiled twisted abominations, their very essence corrupted. Thick fur shed in ragged clumps, exposing glistening, armor-like scales. Bony spikes protruded from the shifters’ bent, elongated spines. Their paws swelled, talons and spikes curving like obsidian blades that scraped the cobblestone with each step.
Some of them, especially the wolves, resembled revolting versions of Fane’s demon wolf.
A tawny shifter jumped from a low roof onto the cobblestones in front of an abandoned shop, his gleaming irises changing from bright yellow to a deep, blood-red orange. He had lupine features—definitely a wolf—and as he shook his lean body, brown fur shed off his skin to uncover more scales.
Acid oozed up my throat, and the four of us tightened our formation. As the gray shifter prowled forward, my shoulders stiffened. I’d fought that wolf before, when he attacked me in the mystical forest in Silver Ridge.
“Torin.”
He licked his jagged teeth with a forked tongue as another monster, pulsating with the same arrogant energy, sidled up next to him.
Burning rage slid down my back and leaked through my muscles once I recognized his father, Wes. The psychotic duo would thoroughly enjoy sinking their teeth and claws into us.
They wouldn’t kill me.
But were the others fair game?
“What are we waiting for?” Alicia’s lengthening canines distorted her voice. “If we run, they’ll chase us. We have to fight.”
Without no weapons but my teeth and claws, I’dhave to shift. My lack of experience in my wolf form could lead to my capture.
Fuck it.
“Let’s fight,” I said.
The odds were usually stacked against me, and most of the time, I came out on top. Why should this be any different?
As the mutated shifters crept forward from all sides, I called on my inner wolf. The transformation took seconds, and by the time my hands hit the cobblestone, red and black paws had replaced them. My onyx sickle claws and the spikes protruding from each knuckle gleamed under the dim moonlight and the few scarlet lights that still worked.
“Well, that’s impressive,” Alicia muttered as her spine popped and she jerked forward, still in the midst of her transformation.
A series of horrifying howls circled the square as The Collective Nosterium salivated for battle. There were only four of us, but we’d still give them hell. Staying out of that dungeon was excellent motivation.
Ruin turned his attention to me as pure black eclipsed his gaze. “Don’t show them mercy, Tate, because they won’t show us any. They’ll keep you alive for sure, but your imprisonment will be much worse the next go-around.”
I dipped my head in a nod. He was right, of course. After trying to escape, Barric would probably keep me under constant supervision until he needed me for his ritual.
A vicious roar erupted through the town square, puckering the flesh beneath my fur as anticipation choked the atmosphere. Without wasting another second, I bolted for Torin, my talons tearing into the cobblestones.
