Chapter 37

CHAPTER37

The snow bursts from the ground to the left of our battlefield. A massive white shape sails into the air like a deadly whip. Smooth scales shift and glisten through the chaos of the storm.

Everyone scatters, no matter what side they’re on. No one wants to be caught beneath the body twisting and falling through the squall.

The snake strikes a wolf closing in on me with her fangs and he whines, dropping to the ground in a shaking heap of fur.

Zida lands on the bloodstained snow and locks her silver eyes on me.

A flash of metal catches my attention. A dagger strikes Zida in the side and she turns toward Ashen with a vicious hiss.

I meet Ashen’s eyes for just a moment, but I see his desperation. I feel it in my chest.

“Lu! Run!”

The serpent faces Ashen and he raises his sword to take her on, but there are more werewolves coming down the hill and the howl of hybrids closing the distance below us. He can’t fight them all and win. Not with her in this battle too.

I take off down the hill.

“Zida!” I call over my shoulder. I run as fast as I can. I’ve got to draw her away from him. “Come and get me!”

I hear Ediye’s magic blast snow and trees behind me, and I know that Zida is following.

I keep running. I don’t look back. There’s a game trail that veers to the left and I take that for a distance before I reach a wide clearing. Even though the trail ends, I don’t stop. I race across the open space and back into the cover of the trees. I pass through another two meadows before I can’t hear or feel her behind me anymore. Even then, I keep running down the hill, using gravity to propel me through the woods.

I reach a small clearing filled with deep snow and stop abruptly in the center.

I know this place.

The smell of pine needles. The sting of snow on my sweaty face. Woodsmoke and Ashen’s scent, clinging to my hair as it whips across my face.

The feeling that I’m not alone.

I bend my knees and ready my blade.

Snow ripples in a serpentine as the snake whips toward me beneath its cover. She bursts from the powder, her mouth gaping, fangs dripping, her venom spitting at me with fury.

I roll to my right and come up with my blade braced across my shoulder. The toe of my sword slices through her scales as her momentum carries her body past mine.

Zida drops to the snow in a writhing mass, hissing in pain and rage. Steam billows from her hot blood as it melts the snow.

I stand and watch her, my chest heaving with pumping breaths. Her writhing subsides until just the end of her tail swishes in the snow. I look down at the sword in my hand and back to the snake.

“This is either really dumb, or really fucking smart,” I say out loud as I sheathe my sword and approach the demon beast. I bite into my wrist and she keeps her eye on me as I draw close. Her pink tongue flicks and she hisses when I touch her glistening scales. “Shut up now, snake. I’m trying to help.”

I place my hand on her again and drip my blood into the wound.

“Gasaan tiildibba me zi ab.”

Queen who gives life to the dying.

“Itti memes sa zumri uri u musaati sa qate uri lissahitma,” I whisper, closing my eyes as I drip more of my blood along Zida’s wound.

With the blood of my body and the cleansing blood of my hand, may it be taken away.

“Sharuuh laani epsis lukur dusangu.”

Powerful is the figure who makes an enemy into a friend.

I repeat the lines of the incantation, working my way down Zida’s body until I get to the end of the long slice. I finish just as the sound of howling hybrids flows toward us from the cover of the woods.

I look down at the snake and I know she’s looking at me. Her tongue flicks. The split fibers of her flesh are knitting back together.

“Sorry about your brother. My bad.”

The snake gives me a lethargic hiss.

“Right. It was worth a shot. You’re welcome, by the way,” I say with a salute before taking off through a break between the trees, leaving Zida to heal in solitude.

I start running up the mountain, trying to veer back toward where the others should still be in the thick of the fight. It’s slower going, which I guess is no surprise. The snow, the mountain, the exertion of the battle and the effort to heal the snake… it all takes a toll. I go slower on the way up but I still make decent time getting past two clearings. I manage to make it to the first meadow I crossed on my way down before I finally find what I was looking for.

Semyon Abdulov stands between me and the mountain.

“Koroleva piyavok,” he says as a smile spreads across his face. His dark, slicked-back hair and his charcoal wool coat look untouched by the elements. “You seem a little worn out. I have something that might help.”

I unsheathe my sword. “Douchebag. I bet you do. It’s running through your veins.”

Semyon laughs. “Well, what a surprise. You got your voice back. That must have been fun.”

“You bet,” I say as my grip tightens around the handle of my katana. “I can show you, if you like. I know how fond you are of medical experimentation.”

He laughs again, his icy Alpha eyes glowing bright in the swirling snow between us. Two more of his pack materialize from the trees behind him in their wolven form. “I’ve got other plans for our reunion, koroleva piyavok. But you could make it easier for the both of us by just coming with me.”

I bend my knees and raise my sword. “Hard pass, motherfucker.”

Semyon’s eyes grow brighter. “Suit yourself.”

The wolves surge past him as the mist cascades across the field toward me. But I hear another sound too, coming from my left. Hybrids, crashing through the woods toward us.

Shit.

I keep my focus on the wolves closest to me. They attack with better coordination than the pack members further up the hill. They take turns snapping at me. They jump beyond the reach of my blade and come back hard. One grazes my calf and tears my jeans but misses the skin. I manage to catch it in the leg as it darts away. I take the chance to press on after the other wolf in an aggressive attack. No sooner do I kill them both than two more make it down the hill to take their place. But I keep my eyes on my prize across the field. Semyon Abdulov.

The first of the hybrids break through the trees. It’s a pick your own freakshow, inbred carnival kind of situation. Some are in their human-slash-vampire form, which isn’t so bad. Some run on all fours like a wolf, but with humanlike aspects too, like patches of missing fur where human skin shines through or blended facial features. They are straight-up hideous. Regardless of where they lean on the yuck spectrum, all of them set their sights on me, and it’s not giving me loads of confidence about this completing the transformation business.

I’m massively outnumbered.

I’m betting on a plan that might turn me into a freak.

I’m definitely super fucked.

Just as I’m about to rush at Semyon in some final Hail Mary play for the Alpha, a whirling blade misses my face and lodges into one of the werewolves dancing around my sword.

I glance to my right. It’s a member of Ember’s Mean Girl demon club. He meets my eyes, and I’m not sure if he meant to hit me or the wolf.

Fuck it,I think. I’m already up shit creek.

“Don’t let them bite you!” I yell to the unfamiliar Reaper as three more join behind him. “Their venom is Angelwing!”

He narrows his glare at me before he throws another blade, hitting a hybrid in the eye as it starts the rush across the field. It doesn’t bring the beast down, but it slows it a little. I watch as the hybrid claws the knife from its eye and I’d be willing to bet that shit’s going to heal itself.

I cringe. They are definitely tougher than werewolves. This is super not good.

I refocus on my goal and cut down the next werewolf that stands between me and my target, glaring at Semyon as he draws a silver longsword from beneath his coat. More werewolves pour toward me and I cut them down as the Reapers meet the first of the hybrids in the snow.

A glittering black orb of magic cuts through the wind and strikes down one of the wolves in my path. Another hits a hybrid in the distance. Cole bursts out of the woods with Ediye on his heels and they rush into the battle.

When I look back at Semyon, he raises his sword. But I see a flash of fear in his eyes. His body can’t hide it from me.

And finally there’s a clear break between us. It’s like a single shaft of sunlight that cuts through the clouds.

I run toward him as fast as I can. His hand tightens around his sword. He’ll hit me hard if I make it there first. I already know how much strength he has in his human form. I saw it in the brickworks.

But what he doesn’t have is a demon mate with the element of surprise.

Ashen lodges his blade into Semyon’s spine, just high enough to paralyze his limbs but not high enough to risk instant death. He holds onto Semyon’s arm as the Alpha’s legs go limp and lowers him to the ground. Semyon’s eyes are wide with shock and it sends the wolves and hybrids into a frenzy of howling and whining and growling.

“What is it your girlfriend so eloquently said in Sanford right before I ripped out her fucking throat?” I ask with a smile of fangs as I squat down next to him. “Ah, right. I remember. Distraction yields destruction. I’m assuming that was your girlfriend, anyway. The one with the obsidian blade, high ranking pack member, kinda pretentious like you? Am I right?”

Semyon glares back at me as Ashen hands me the vials of serum and I draw a syringe from my back pocket.

I take the first serum and uncap the needle, drawing out enough liquid that I can smell it. I toss it behind me. “Nope, already had that.”

Semyon glares at me before spitting in the snow next to my knees. “Fucking koroleva piyavok.”

“So gross,” I say as I withdraw golden serum from another vial and then bring the scent to my nose. “You know what else is gross? Angel blood. And this definitely smells like angel blood. So I’ll take a pass. It probably wouldn’t sit well in my system anyway, considering my latest relationship status.”

I smash the vial on top of Semyon’s head. The golden liquid drips down his skin as the Alpha swears in Russian. His eyes are filled with fury as he homes his glare on me. I give him a sad pout.

“Oh no. It was the only one I saw like it on the shelves. That wasn’t limited edition, was it? My bad. Now hold this, would you?” I stab the empty syringe into Semyon’s paralyzed leg and take out a fresh one, drawing enough liquid from the next vial to smell it. “Ah, now this is the one.”

“What are you doing?” Semyon asks through panting breaths as he watches me. That fear is back in his eyes. Ashen cuts down a werewolf that tries to attack from behind us, the dog’s head rolling past us on the snow.

“I guess you could say I’m finishing what you started, except I’m choosing sides. Mine. But timing is everything, don’t you think?” I fill the syringe and pocket the vial, then press the plunger enough to rid the fluid of bubbles. Ashen kills another wolf as I lean in close to Semyon’s ear. “Now hold still, little pup. Let this koroleva piyavok show you how it’s done.”

I tear into the Alpha’s throat and my venom floods his veins as I pull and pull and pull in the blood. It tastes like werewolf blood always does to me. Smoky. Musty. But I know he’s ancient, and powerful. I taste that there too.

Semyon’s heart slows. His breathing shallows beneath my palm. I feel his jaw slacken next to my face. In the moments before his death, I draw my fangs away.

I look up at Ashen.

“I love you,” I say.

He smiles. The way he looks in this moment, with that dark hair wet from sweat and snow, those tattoos that climb up his neck, the radiance in his skin, it will be one of those memories that’s a beacon in darkness when so many sorrowful years try to pull me beneath the sea of time.

“I love you too, my Lu. Always,” he says.

I thrust the needle into my jugular and press the plunger down. The moment I feel it start to burn through my veins, I rip out Semyon’s throat.

I was right, timing is everything.

I just wasn’t fast enough.