“Riley, jump,” Max yelled, and Kraft turned to see Max looking terrible. Pale and almost emaciated, which made no sense. Max lifted a large gun and shot at the beast when Riley jumped off its back.
He struck one of the creature’s eyes, which had it howling.
Max rushed it and continued to fire until the beast bit into his midsection and clamped down.
Riley howled and launched herself at its face, biting and digging into its muzzle with so much ferocity the thing released her cousin and did its best to dig at her with his claws.
So much rage, building, growing.
Max crumpled on the ground and didn’t move, even when Paz rushed to his side.
Rolf’s battle had spilled closer, and Kraft saw the draugr everywhere, clawing and killing and drinking down lycan blood. Like a god of death, a blur of blond hair preceded a wash of red spilling everywhere.
Kraft tried, but when he saw Riley tossed high, then caught by the creature’s teeth, her flank in a painful bite, rage tore through him.
And that would not end well. Not for any of them.
* * *
Riley and Maxhad been doing their best to let the creature consume their blood without killing them for what felt like forever. But Max had reached his limit, so he’d gone for the gun.
A smart move. She could tell the hell beast had started to feel the poison’s effects. She was woozy but still mobile. Mostly. Watching Kraft battle took her breath away.
She hadn’t realized he’d arrived until she’d seen Khent hovering in the midst of hundreds of dead birds, while others pecked at traitorous lycans and Sebastian, who fought Khent with magic.
Kraft had arrived, the size of a giant wolf, a glorious meld of vampire and canine, his teeth huge and bared at their enemy. The hell beast saw his challenge and met it, the pair ferocious as they snarled and growled, biting and clawing at each other with sharp teeth and nails the size of an arm.
She watched and dug in when she could, trying to weaken the creature. But he healed so fast, it was nearly impossible to slow him. Until they started letting him bite, drinking their blood.
But now Max wasn’t moving. Paz lay by his face, a paw slapping at him. But Riley couldn’t see her cousin’s chest rising or falling any more.
She stumbled before calling on her vast strength and roared as she attacked.Oh boy. This is gonna hurt.The beast caught her in its mouth and bit down, ingesting her poisoned blood as it tried to bite through her.
The agony caused her to howl, and it threw her away.
She landed hard on the ground, unable to move, and did her best to try to heal.Paz,she howled weakly.Give Max...
She would have to shift forms to grab the vial from her pocket and speak to the demon. And she could barely do more than breathe.
The battle challenge that left Kraft’s throat, in a roar so loud it shook the buildings and earth below her, scared her. She’d never heard anything so powerful, not even the growls from the hell beast itself.
A ruby light lit the wolf’s eyes, and it charged the hell beast in a rampage, not caring what he stepped on to get there. He nearly went through Khent in his attempt to reach his opponent.
Kraft ripped into the monster, uncaring of the damage he took. And he didn’t slow down.
Riley focused on getting her health, what little she had left, back, so she could get the vial to her cousin. She didn’t think she had it in her to survive, not at the cost of her alpha—or soon to be alpha’s—life. It just wasn’t in her to be selfish. She had to put pack first. Had to put the world first, she thought as she watched Khent doing his best to destroy Sebastian and coming up short. Too many reanimated dead lycans kept shoving their way between Khent and the sorcerer.
She watched as Rolf continued to decimate the packs foolish enough to align themselves with Sebastian and Julian, who had disappeared when the vampires had arrived.
Rolf killed the lycans, and Sebastian raised them as his own, while Khent did the same, fighting on two fronts. Vampire to sorcerer, and reaper to evil aligned with hell.
If she could interrupt Sebastian, perhaps Khent could get hold of the artifact. And then she could get control of the hell beast and save Kraft and her cousin.
Paz, come here,she bellowed in her berserker best and fortunately caught the kitten’s attention.
It looked from Max to her and darted to her side, neatly avoiding getting squashed by the raging giants who continued to bite and battle.
Riley. You look terrible.He cringed.And you smell awful. I can help with the smell though.All at once, a tingle overwhelmed her. She sneezed a few times and heard giant sneezes from Kraft’s wolf echoing around the bazaar.
