Page 105 of His Claim
He howled, half-man, half-monster, and backhanded me across the face. The world blurred. I tasted blood.
Mariah surged up behind him, fur matted with blood, and bit down hard on the back of his lower leg, locking onto his Achilles tendon. He spun unsteadily, trying to throw her off, but she held on, snarling and dragging him backward.
I stumbled to my feet and grabbed a fallen rifle near my boot. It was heavy, the metal hot from the nearby fires. I chambered a round, raised it, and fired.
The first shot hit his shoulder, spinning him. The second hit his chest, staggering him back into the wall as Mariah let go. He roared, slamming his hand against the wound with a loud grunt.
He looked at me, eyes burning like coals. “You can’t kill me,” he roared. “IIII’m in-vin-ci-ble.”
“No,” I answered, stepping forward. “You’re not.”
Mariah lunged for his throat from the side, bracing all four paws against his shoulder and side, arching her spine and flexing her muscles as she tore into him. I took careful aim and fired again and again. Bullets ripped into his body, one after the other. Finally, one of the bullets caught him square in the heart. Mariah let go and rebounded off his body as he lurched backwards, screaming through the blood filling his ravaged throat, the sound reverberating between the buildings surrounding the courtyard.
Then he fell.
The impact shook the courtyard. His body convulsed once, twice, again.
And then he went still. Voss was dead.
For a moment, all I could hear was the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.
Mariah staggered to me, bloody and shaking, her fur retreating and bones snapping back into human form as she came. She gasped, clutching at her side, her skin streaked with blood and ash.
I caught her before she hit the ground. “It’s over.”
CHAPTER 28
Mariah
The fighting stopped in fits and starts over the course of the next several hours.
Gunfire sputtered out in stuttering bursts, then faded into silence. Smoke drifted through the streets as fires burned down to glowing embers. I stood beside Varek in the center of what was once the Council’s square, now a graveyard of broken weapons, overturned vehicles, and the bodies of the dead.
The remaining Council wolves—the ones who hadn’t fled or been cut down—began to lay down their arms. One by one, they dropped their rifles, hands raised, eyes hollow. Some looked relieved, others afraid.
Commander Soren’s voice carried over the radio, strong and resolute. “Ceasefire confirmed across all sectors. Repeat: ceasefire confirmed. The enemy has surrendered. Repeat: the enemy has surrendered.”
Rowan and Silas were already moving through the lines, making sure the prisoners were treated as soldiers, not spoils. There were no executions. We would shed no more blood here.
I looked toward the remains of the labs, the memory of Elsie’s face flashing before my eyes.
I remembered her laughter, fierce and defiant and maybe a little bit crazy, and the order she’d issued:You finish it.
And we did.
We questioned the Council soldiers, then sent teams from the Resistance and the Watch fanning out through the city, finding every warehouse, every vault, every hidden chamber for any more stores of the rage serum and the fertility drug.
We destroyed every drop we found.
As soon as we were able, we saw to the captive human women. Soren had sent in a team to free them hours earlier, slipping in during the battle and taking them to a safe location just outside the city. There were hundreds of them. Some cried when we led them back into the city. Some just stood there, as if afraid to move. Others—those who remembered my face—came forward and hugged me.
“You’re safe,” I told them. “It’s over.”
But even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t really over for them. It never was after something like this. The effects of what happened to these women, what they’d suffered, would remain with them for the rest of their lives.
Days later, when the smoke cleared, the wounded were tended to and the dead were buried, the remaining wolves gathered inwhat used to be the Council’s plaza. Their ranks were greatly reduced. The silence among them was heavy, respectful.
Silas and Soren stepped forward, together.
