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In a swift swipe of his arm, David cut the pig’s throat, spilling blood onto the stone floor. The pig squealed, thrashed, and tipped over, gurgling in the throes of death as it choked on its own blood.
David closed his eyes and inhaled, smiling wickedly. Then he stood and approached the table. “Now, I will conjure the potion that will induce our Lycan state. Water blessed by the Moon Goddess. Unicorn horn, the purest conduit of magic. And fresh unicorn blood, from whose healing magic, will fortify our bodies through the transformation.” One by one, the ingredients were mixed into the bowl of powdered unicorn horn until it produced a thick, glittering, red substance.
I couldn’t stop shaking as I watched David administer sips of the concoction to his followers. To each of the three dragons, and then to Kipling, and then finally himself. Mine and my mothers’ sacred products were taken and used by these horrible men. Now, the irreversible process would begin.
All five of them doubled over, groaning and growling as the Moon Goddess blessed their bodies, bequeathing upon them the Lycan transformation. David’s head wrenched up, and he caught my eyes wide with horror as his body contorted.
The glass walls of the atrium suddenly shattered.
Startled, I stared into the trees beyond the atrium and saw a horde of bodies materialize out of the darkness.
“Kiara!” cried a familiar voice, strained with the very same agony I felt.
My heart skipped a beat. He was finally here, my fated mate. But… it was too late.
The Lycan ritual was already complete.
Chapter 28: Colt
F
or seven hours, we had deliberated where my father and the dragons would be hiding. The manor was among the last places we checked, simply because it seemed too obvious that they would go back there, but around 4 PM, the recon team confirmed the heavy presence of wolves and dragons. Then we conceived a new plan, and at the risk of rushing in unprepared, we took an hour to thoroughly consider our approach and every possible outcome. Part of our team returned to the mine, confirming that Lothair was still there. We had given his daughter to Everett and Aislin’s mothers to watch over. Then by 7 PM, we were finally ready to go to the manor, but knowing that we were approaching nightfall, we chose to wait until the Lycan transformations were underway. We would strike when their bodies were shifting—when they were most vulnerable. And the entire time, I was in so much agony I could barely think.
Kiara was still alive. I would have sensed it if she died. But she was still alive and suffering—most likely at the hand of my father—and I felt it everywhere he made her hurt. In my fingernails, in my toes, in my ear. Each pang of pain made me hate my father even worse. My strength drained from me the longer it went on, but I insisted that I wanted to be part of the raid. Billie wanted to stand beside me too. Together, we were going to slay David. I fought back the dizzying anguish and waited among the trees, watching from afar as my father’s body twisted and jerked, sprouting black hair across a grotesque human-beast anatomy.
We charged forward, firing into the glass walls of the atrium. I never would have suspected this room my father banned us from entering would become the site of his sacrilege. As the glass shattered, the other shifters in the room leaped into action while the five recipients of the ritual crumbled to the ground in the heat of transformation. Nearby was Kiara, hopelessly bound by ropes. “Kiara!” I called for her. My packmates and the dragons met us head-on, and in an instant, the scene devolved into chaos.
As soon as I was close enough, I threw a dart at one of the dragons writhing on the ground. I recognized the fanged tattoo on his arm—Kipling. Miraculously, the dart stuck in his chest, and Kipling gasped, a guttural and fiendish noise welling out of him. Before I could fling another dart, one of my packmates lunged at me, knocking me to the ground. My two darts flew out of my pocket and scattered as I grappled with my packmate in human form. She wasn’t anyone I spoke to regularly, a younger girl who had been dragged into the fray, probably coerced into serving David’s cruel goals by her parents who believed in him. I didn’t want to hurt this girl. Throwing her off of me, I left her for the Mythguard to deal with while I gathered my two darts and pushed toward the atrium. Glass crunched under my sneakers. I launched into the room through the broken window and faced off against another packmate, an older man. He punched me in the jaw, and I kicked his knee, dropping him to the floor.
“What are you doing, Colt?” growled my packmate. “You should be fighting alongside us, not against us!”
I panted, clutching his shirt and forcing him to the ground. “This is wrong, and you know it!”
“It’s the only choice I have!”
“No! You always have another choice. When I let you go, just get up and run. Get out of here. Leave this behind, or the Mythguard will exterminate you too!” I warned.
My packmate stared up at me, but all around us, the Mythguard were tranquilizing or, if necessary, killing those who fought against us. Watching our packmates and the dragons fall was enough to convince him to give up. When I let him go, he scrambled to his feet and fled.