Page 42 of The Sacred Wolf

The crowd members who hadn’t run for the hills were tightening around Damien.

“I called the police!” The owner of the bodega across the street shouted as he hung from his doorway, shaking his fist at us before calling over his shoulder to someone in the store. “Manny, grab my shotgun!”

“No!” Kiana insisted, her lips curling high above her fangs. “I can’t let him do this to us again!” She took a step forward just as the mob of men moved, each of their left feet stepping forward simultaneously, like an army on parade. “Damien’s the murderer. I can’t run from him anymore.”

“Yes!” Damien cried, his eyes gleaming in the last rays of sundown. “We must send these bitches a message that they can’t have our city!”

“It’s not your city!” I sent my fury at Damien and stepped up to join my sister, eyeing the men in the throng.

Their faces were more slack than angry, and they took a collective step toward us. I shuddered, remembering the dead look in Kenzo’s eyes when Damien grabbed his mind. That day, Damien had been subdued by truth serum and could still attack shifters who were on guard. These humans stood no chance against his Beta powers.

“Shit, he’s got them, Kiana. They’re doing his bidding. You can’t fight them all.”

She cursed, unleashing a howl of anguished surrender. “This isn’t over, traitor!” She called. “One day I’ll taste your blood. My face will be the last thing you see on this Earth.”

Snarling, she turned and sprang behind my back through the lobby and into the theater. As we skidded through the door, Evan stood there in human form.

He was alive! And Kiana hadn’t seen him shift. No matter her purpose in serving as our rescuer, I knew she wasn’t ready to hear that news.

Or I wasn’t ready for her to hear it.

He stood in his tattered shiftskin, helping a shaking Jayla up from the floor. My eyes swept over both, sure I’d find torn flesh or shattered bone, but Evan was only covered in blood. There were a handful of shallow lacerations scattered across his neck and torso, but he was okay. And as she tottered to her feet, I could see that while Jayla’s fragile human flesh was bruised and scraped, she too was unbroken.

“Thank Leto you’re both ok!” I thought, relief lapping at my jittering adrenalin.

When she saw my sister and me, Jayla’s lipstick smeared mouth opened as if to scream, but then she stopped, her eyes connecting with mine.

“Elyse?” Her voice was as wobbly as her legs. Her head swiveled from me to my sister, the wolf who’d saved her life. “I…I,” she faltered, her words failing upon reentry.

“Evan, we have to go, right now!” I insisted.

“Let’s go, Jayla,” he said, grabbing her hand and waving at Kiana. “I can explain this later. Trust me. She’s on our side.”

“She is on our side, isn’t she?” He directed this at me, the question floating in a reek of his frustration and confusion.

My stomach tightened. I was certain that despite not hearing the words, Kiana could smell his distaste for her as clearly as I could. I prayed she wouldn’t question me about it. Even though she was my sister and all that made me a shifter, I should have been on her side. I empathized with his pain. How often would my friends be subjected to near-death experiences because of my family drama?

“She is for now,” I responded wearily, unable to say more. “Let’s go!”

Leaping over the shredded corpses of the stranger wolves, we tore down the ruined aisle toward the emergency exit doors beside the sweeping arch above the stage. My throbbing lungs begged me to stop running while my right leg, still emptying itself of blood, lurched and planted uncertainly like a wooden marionette. This was one time when having three more was more than convenient. It was lifesaving.

A wave of outraged shouting crested as the doors behind us slammed open, unleashing a river of angry people.

“Go! Go!” I urged Evan, nosing at Jayla as they ran. Her swollen knee had hobbled her worse than my half shredded one. “They’re not in their right minds.” I added, hoping he’d understand, that he’d trust me. These humans wouldn’t spare her because she was one of them. Damien had given them only one order: kill.

CRACK!

A sound like an explosive reverberated in the massive room, louder than the shouts of the crowd streaming like lava down both aisles.

A hot plume of air sang just over my head, and I ducked, looking back over my shoulder confused. In the darkness, I made out a man standing, legs akimbo, arms raised with one supporting the other from beneath in a stance I’d seen in a million movies. The gun in his hand glinted in the dim light of You’ve Got Mail.

My stomach clenched, and I flattened my ears against my skull with each successive shot.

“Don’t stop!” I thought to all of them at once. “He’s got a gun!”

A bullet zipped by to my left, so close the air smelled singed.

I shifted right, my breath whistling through a closing throat. Leto protect us!

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