Wicked Soul (Ancient Blood #1)(35)

Wolf.

A growl rumbled from the creature, a threatening sound that made every hair on my body stand on end. It was answered with a howl from the other side of the path—from the bushes right by my side.

I squeaked as pure terror finally set in—and I sprinted as fast as I could down the path.

More growls sounded from behind me, as well as breaking foliage, but I didn’t stop to look this time. I ran as fast as I could toward the exit of the park, but even as I did, I knew it was too far away.

And suddenly, two huge wolves with bright yellow eyes broke out from the underbrush ahead of me, blocking the path. Heads lowered and canines exposed, they snarled.

I halted as my terror pounded in my veins, and lifted the phone I still clung on to like a lifeline to my ear. “W-Warin…”

“I’m coming.”

Something large and heavy hit me full-force in the back, and I fell forward with a grunt as the air got knocked out of my lungs. I hit the ground with a smack, sending my phone clattering out of reach.

Strong jaws locked around my arms, my hair, and the back of my coat, pulling at me so hard the pain lanced through my body. I wheezed and fought for breath, kicking uselessly at my furry attackers while they dragged me off the path and into the bushes.

Fractured twigs and branches tore at my clothes and face, brambles ripping at my skin, but the wolves paid no attention to my cries of pain. My scalp burned from where one of them had dragged me by the hair, and I was pretty sure the one pulling me by my right arm had punctured the skin.

Once we were deep in the bushes, they finally released me.

I scrambled to get up, but didn’t make it further than my knees before a hard push at my back sent me back down on all fours. They clearly didn’t want me standing.

I cowered on the ground as I stared wildly at my attackers.

There were five of them, the biggest wolves I’d ever seen, more the size of ponies than canines.

I’m going to get savaged to death by mutant wolves. What an undignified end for a city girl.

Cracking sounded behind me, but not like branches. It was deeper, louder, and followed by the sound of something tearing. I spun around, still huddled on the ground—and nearly threw up at the sight that met me.

One of the wolves was… was breaking in front of me. It was the only word I could think of to describe what was happening to the creature. Its muzzle was peeling back, skin splitting apart to reveal raw flesh and carnivore teeth. It howled as its body split, contorting beyond its original scope. The flesh along its sides was tearing, too, reshaping itself around broken bones that seemed to fuse again in a new order. Fresh skin spread over bare muscle, until finally, a naked man crouched next to the remaining wolves, his sides heaving.

“A-are you… okay?”

I don’t know why I asked him that—maybe my freaked-out mind thought he’d been inside the wolf, like goddamn Little Red Riding Hood. Maybe it was just relief over seeing another human being, hope that there would be a way out of this madness. But when he lifted his head, those same yellow eyes stared back at me, and I realized with a sick sense of dread that he wasn’t going to help me.

No one was.

“Deadwhore,” he snarled.

“Really? You’re… you’re what, some sort of a werewolf, and you’re still a goddamn evangelical fanatic?” It wasn’t that I wasn’t still about to wet my pants from fear, but the unexpected insult from something that was clearly not even entirely human surprised me enough that a small measure of indignity rose in my gut amidst all the terror. I clung on to it with both hands.

“You are accused of conspiring with vampires against your brothers and sisters. How do you plead?”

I blinked. “Uh… what? Is this… is this a fucking trial? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

He lowered his head, his lips peeling back in a warning snarl. Despite his human mouth, his canines were still eerily elongated. “How do you plead?”

“Not guilty!” I snapped.

“Liar,” he hissed. “We’ve seen you with the dead thing. We saw you at the slaughterhouse. You are a betrayer. And we sentence you to death.”

My eyes widened at his last word, my precarious grasp on my indignation slipping as pure terror took hold once more.

Death.

They were truly going to kill me.

The wolves behind me howled and snarled, and I spun around to face them. Not that it mattered. They all leapt as one, heavy bodies knocking me down as jaws filled with sharp teeth snapped and tore. I fell to the ground, instinctively curling in on myself to protect my throat. Not that they needed to pierce my throat to kill me.

They ripped into my limbs, pulling at me from all sides.

They’re going to tear me to pieces.

It wouldn’t be an easy death—it wouldn’t be quick.

Out of nowhere, anger welled up from somewhere so deep I’d never known it existed. These strangers, these monsters, would rip me to shreds without a second’s hesitation because I’d befriended the wrong man. Like the fanatics who’d kidnapped me had tossed me into Warin’s cage for reading the wrong book.

Like my family had torn me apart since I was a kid for simply being wrong.

The injustice of it all, the absolute fury, burned through my veins. My life—they were trying to take my life, and here I was, curled into a ball, sobbing and pleading for mercy.