Page 41 of The Sacred Wolf

Chapter Twenty

The ebony wolf left Evan and bounded past Damien and me, heading for my sister.

“Don’t try it!” I warned, but I needn’t have bothered.

Kiana met him, jaws wide, and grabbed his throat, bearing down and twisting so that his own momentum tore his flesh wide, blood exploding over what white was left in my sister’s coat.

Oof!

Pain knifed through me, emptying me of air, as Damien thundered over my prone body, his back paws landing squarely on my broken ribs. He hurtled past Kiana up the aisle, heading for the lobby doors like a boulder shot from a catapult.

Kiana dropped her last victim and turned, bolting after him and snapping at his gray heels. My head was swimming. My chest burned with each breath like I was being branded, and blood still streamed from my back leg, but I scrambled up and chased after them, determined to help end Damien, the lust for vengeance willing me forward through the pain.

I burst through the swinging doors just as Damien crashed through the glass panes of the gold-trimmed front doors, shoulder-first. A firework of glittering shards lit his silhouette as he shifted back into human form and rolled, his momentum carrying him almost into the darkened street.

Kiana started after him with a triumphant bark, bounding through the shattered doorway.

“Help!” Damien screamed, jumping to his feet, waving like a man possessed to the passing cars and knots of pedestrians enjoying the warm spring evening. “I’ve been attacked by shifters! Somebody please, help me!” Blood painted his sandy hair ochre and cascaded in sticky rivulets down his neck, lending grisly veracity to his apparent hysteria.

“Hey!” A man shouted, pointing at my sister. “Look! It’s true. That monster’s after that man!”

And then the screaming ensued, piercing my sensitive ears. The humans that were not screaming and running one by one started to hold up their phones. Videoing everything going on.

There would be no doubt after this that shifters were real.

I followed Kiana out the door and grabbed her by the mane with my jaws, tugging. “We have to go!”

“I’m not leaving until that bastard is dead!” She snarled, nipping at me.

“I want him dead too!” I keened, skittering away from her jaws, and holding on for dear life. “But you’re covered in blood, Kiana. Look at yourself!”

She stopped fighting me, and I released her, my aching jaw popping open with relief, and I gasped, shuddering. Holding her back was like trying to stop a dam from bursting. Her blue eyes darted, taking in the crowd gathering beneath the streetlights around Damien. All eyes were locked on us.

“Can’t you smell them?” I asked her. Suppose my breath hadn’t already been tiptoeing around the fire in my lungs. In that case, I’d hold it to block the cloud of repulsion filling the atmosphere. My sister’s nose twitched as she scented the air.

“Humans always smell disgusting.” Her fur rippled as she took a step forward.

“Kiana, no! They didn’t do anything to us. It’s all him!” I pleaded.

“Dios mio! Hay dos!” An older woman screamed, her fist going to her mouth in horror as her eyes connected with mine. “Look at all that blood!”

“Stay back, Elyse!” My sister ordered, stepping in front of me. “You’re not ready for this fight.”

“I’m not leaving you!” I insisted, shoving her.

“You’re a liability at best.” She shoved back, hard.

I yelped, overtopped by a wave of embarrassment.

“I’m stronger and you know it,” she said, adding insult to my injury. “Now, get your filthy human friend and go!”

“Holy shit, run!” A pair of dark-haired teenagers in matching high-waist jeans and black Converse sneakers that had been strolling down an adjoining street stopped, eyes widening at the sight of us before bolting toward the train station, shouting at people in the distance to turn and run.

“Get back!” A man yelled at a young couple pushing a pink stroller. “Get the kids the hell out of here!”

The mother grabbed her daughter, knocking the stroller onto its side with a clatter and sending bottles and diapers cascading onto the sidewalk as she ran, screeching. The father backpedaled, his eyes locked on us, arms wide as if to block our attack, despite the human fence forming between us in the street.

“Kiana, please!” I begged, reminded of all the phones recording. “We can’t be seen like this!”

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