Vorare

Vorare
  In all the time I had known Higan, I thought of him as vain, shallow, and arrogant. Despite him being my supposed mate, I could never understand what about Higan was meant for me. Especially as I grew to realize his affinity for petty cruelty.
  Yet there he was. Nothing more but a boy planted right at the edge of a nightmare of his own making, pleading with his shame-filled eyes.
  I could feel Ethan’s mind pushing to read mine, but it was now a steel trap snapping shut around instinct.
  Higan's not my problem, not right now.
  The real threat grew menacing behind Higan, and we all needed to deal with it or Springville would be devoured.
  I dashed to the people pressed down by the pressure. Their eyes appeared to be in a hollow daze as their will seemingly diminished by the minute.
  Taking a page out Ethan's book, I called my wolf out using my authority. The werewolves in the clearing all half-lifted their heads at the same second.
  “Prepare to move out,” I barked out, hoping it was enough to push back some sense of urgency to leave the scene.
  Then, guided by instinct alone, I dropped my hand to the ground. I pressed both of my palms flat to the cracked asphalt. The cut on my palm had healed, somehow neutralizing the potency of that Ivory knife's effect.
  Probably a loophole because I'm a Lupomancer. The term tasted odd.
  Connecting to the ground, I could suddenly hear the wrong frequency scratching at my ribs, but I pushed regardless. My sorcery stirred with one command. ‘Block it out’.
  With a breathy, yet chilly exhale. Frost spiraled outward from my hands in veins of silver-blue. It raced down through my palm into the ground, reaching hastily to the circle and the irregularly formed entity Higan had unleashed.
  It wouldn't be enough to kill it, heck, I barely knew if we could kill something so vague and twisted in nature. But my intention was to build a wall thick enough that whatever it hungered for, it wouldn’t get from the werewolves still finding their footing.
  At least that was what my Sorceress whispered in the back of my head relentlessly.
  Higan’s eyes widened in horror like the worst of his fears had manifested right in front of him. I frowned at his reaction. His surprise was something I expected, but his reaction was just plain hurtful. It didn't matter anyway.
  “Back up,” Ethan barked with his authority at the closest werewolves. Khalid and the rest of the men, except Lorcan, were already moving, motioning the Moonstone holdouts to drag the Crescent stragglers with them.
  The block of ice thrusted like shards of crystals poking higher and higher off the ground, inching closer toward the circle.
  “Move him!” I snapped at whoever was listening, nodding at a horrified Higan.
  Grunts followed as Khalid grabbed Higan by the collar effortlessly before he could sputter out whatever nonsense his mouth wanted to form.
  To my shock, Higan didn’t fight it. Rather, he stumbled like a drunk with his eyes locked on the ice approaching him, too busy with whatever was haunting him.
  My teeth clacked together under the pressure, but my block of ice held away the thing as it grew denser and darker, taking a shape that dangerously resembled a person.
  I blinked, and it twisted out of proportion once more as though the silhouette I saw was never there.
  Ethan’s hand brushed my back once, pulling me back to the moment. “That’s enough. Come on!“
  I peeled my skin off the ground, breathing out heavily as my body shook from the cold. I staggered back shakily just enough to feel his arm hook around my waist. Then, he hauled me away from the scene where a wall of ice cut the parking lot in two.
  We all stumbled through the nearest half-collapsed storefront that hadn’t yet been chewed hollow by the chaos that shook Springville. Broken windows and knocked-down shelves marred the store regardless.
  I leaned back against a wall with an open window bristling with glass dust. My eyes were set far away into the parking lot, and we ran from some miles away where the entity continued to brew awake.
  A thump pulled me out of my focus, and I veered my head to Higan, who pushed against a cracked counter with a growl tucked in his throat.
  “Sit,” Khalid ordered icily.
  Higan bit down on his protest, but he braced his arms on his knees, staring at the floor with sweat pooling on his temples and agitation in his squared shoulders.
  In what seemed about five minutes later, the Crescent pack poured in next to align right by Higan. There were seven in number. Maybe, with the same girl that looked like Tess leading  them, and Adolph, one of Higan's Beta, lingering behind.
  “Crescent’s pretending they still know how to hold a street in the west where there's some odd movement from a smaller group.” I recalled Abigail mentioning it. 
  How did they get to that part of the town?
  Some of them limped, some stood half-naked with blood and dirt on their skin. What they all had in common was a glint of guilt in their eyes and a hollowness that wasn't there last night.
  Adolph, with a healing gash over his cheek, pushed forward first. He hastily dropped to a knee in front of Ethan. His eyes flickered to me once before settling on the floor.
  I straightened my back at that before approaching slowly. It was not every day you witnessed one of your bullies kneeling to someone.
  “It’s our fault,” he admitted first in a tight tone that made his words raspy. “We… It was us. We thought.”
  “You're failing to make sense,” Khalid cut in with a serious glint. “What did you do?”
  The beta swallowed, side glancing at a hunched-over Higan. “Alpha Sinclair… Higan came to us when some Melbringers pushed us from the West. He said he found a way to push them out. Push you out, too.”
  He threw an apologetic glance at Ethan. 
  Ethan didn’t blink.
  “He said he had a way to call something older. Stronger than any sorceress or any werewolf.”