Page 39 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

The sound of a wolf’s howl is part of what made us hate them. So eerie, so crystalline and perfect, soaring through the air, reminding us of our frailty. That the dark of night had big white teeth lurking within it. Well, I was about to remind Linnea and my father of their frailty.

The fire burned the drug away first, bringing a kind of clarity I quickly regretted, but with that reminder of the ill done to my body came something else. The knowledge of how to repair it. I was being punished for a crime I didn't commit, and even if I had, I would no longer tolerate it. The fire in my blood burned all the way through me, repairing torn muscles, replacing blood and skin until I was whole again.

“What in the…?” my father said.

“This is the devil’s work!” Linnea hissed. “This is witchcraft!”

She was going for broke; I’ll give her that. A claim of witchcraft would begin with a trial and end with my death. The only way I could prove my innocence was to die by failing their tests of drowning. But I would not die today.

My father and Linnea, however.

I heard the whistle of the branch, my father willing to begin again, if that’s what it took, but I was different now. It was no longer solely his daughter that resided in this body. I was something else.

Something just as cruel, just as harsh, so I turned around and caught his wrist in my hand, holding it with little effort as I straightened up and stood tall. Taller than before, it seemed, it felt like I loomed above both of them, and wasn’t that nice?

“Darcy…” Father began to say, his eyes going wide.

“Shut. Up.”

I bit off each word, my voice having transformed too into a strange kind of growl that felt like it echoed through the room. My eyes jerked up as I heard a thump at the door, a muffled masculine shout that I recognised immediately. My mate. But I had business here to attend to before I could claim them as mine and I refused to be rushed by it.

I pulled my father’s arm up, the one he’d used to beat me, pulling, pulling until he was forced to stand on his tiptoes, then just a bit more, until I heard the joint begin to creak, his little whimpers such a lovely sound.

“You beat me.” I tightened my grip until I got a frantic nod from him. “You beat me until I bled. You beat me until you tore the muscles beneath my skin and you weren’t going to stop.” I paused and waited for that nod. “You were so angry that I’d become an obstacle to your ambitions, on some level you wanted to remove that. If there was no Darcy, there was none of this mess.” I frowned then, just slightly, hearing more hammering sounds at the door that let me know my time with my father and my former governess was coming to an end. “I’d be dead or so badly broken, I wouldn’t even serve my purpose, but you couldn’t see that. All you could see was you.”

“Darcy, daughter…” He panted the words out, oh so desperately, but I could see his point now. They didn’t affect me at all, just as my pleas and cries hadn’t turned his head.

“I need you to stay alive,” I told him. “To tell the tale of what went on here, but you can’t hurt people like this anymore.”

The fire inside me, it knew exactly what to do to incapacitate him. I broke both his wrists with the same effort an ordinary human might a breadstick, then as he screamed, I gripped his hands, crushing the bones in so many places there wouldn’t be enough complete ones to splint back together. Then I threw him against the wall, watching him slide down, frantic little high-pitched pants letting me know just how deeply he was hurt.

I’d made those sounds when I was seven, after he’d beaten me severely for some infraction. He’d just laughed at the sound of it and then sent me on my way. I stalked over, lifted his chin with my finger and stared into his eyes.

“If I hear you’ve been beating women again,” I said, “I’ll be back. I’ll break so much more if I have to.”

He just stared at me, his small mind unable to comprehend what I was now. I’d face that problem often, the fire told me. What I was hadn’t been seen in the world for some time and it was completely unprepared for it. But I jerked back as my now sensitive nose was hit by the acrid scent of urine as my father’s bladder let go.

Then I heard Linnea’s little whimper.

She regretted the sound as soon as I turned to her, clapping her hand over her mouth but unable to stop the squeaks from coming, especially as I stalked closer. My head tipped to one side, my neck twisting in response to what burned inside me. She was prey, that was clear. All pale and weak and… Prey was tricksy though, running away on little bunny feet, doubling back to throw us from its scent, hiding deep in briar patches. And this one? She was a twister of words, of actions.

“You drugged the two-souled,” I growled, getting only an incoherent shriek in response, so I helped focus her attention. I grabbed her by the throat, the wimple bunching under my hand, and shoved her up against the wall. Her pulse jumped oh-so-distractingly under my thumb. “You worked with Kris.” She opened her mouth, but no words came out. “You set me up.” I shook her then, like a wolf did a rabbit to get its attention. “Answer me.” And somehow my voice freed her of her fear and the rabbit’s fangs were bared.

“Wilful girl,” she snapped. “Always doing just as you liked. Your mother was nothing like you. When she died, I told her I’d devote my life to raising you, ensuring you grew into womanhood, a picture of elegance and humility, just as she was. Instead, you were… angry and wild. You didn’t love me. You didn’t love anything other than your own iron will. The gods cursed milady that day, dying so young trying to bear the son you should’ve been—”

“I don’t care about that,” I growled.

“I drugged the wargen, let that fool, Kristoff, into the keep. I knew he’d get nowhere with his stupid plan, but it’d be my opportunity to finally show His Grace what kind of viper he’d let live here. He should’ve beaten the flesh from your bones. He should’ve—”

Her speech was abruptly shortened as I threw her with all my now considerable might at the other wall. I heard something crunch, saw her land, then slide down, a red stain on the plaster marking her passage and that’s when the door was torn open.

“What the fuck did he…?”

Weyland’s voice was rough, his eyes glowing, fur spreading across his face, his claws forming and he couldn’t have looked any more beautiful. I let out a harsh little breath, a feeling rising, rising inside me, as alien as it was complete.

He was mine, as were the others that spilled in, half in, half out of their warg forms. “My mates…”

I gasped and that’s when their entire focus shifted to me and whatever burned within me spluttered and then flickered out.

“Get me out of here,” I rasped out with what I had left, the world slowly growing darker and darker. “Take me and run for the border and don’t stop until we’re home.”

Then everything went dark.

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