On any given day, Lazare would have him dead to rights, as Lazare can shift at will and Damian can’t. But on this night, Damian is nothing but pure, destructive rage in this form, having set himself up like a bullet aimed at his intended targets just before moonrise.
Unlike Lazare, he can stand on his own two feet in his shifted form, and his claws retain the advantages of opposable thumbs, making him far more industrious with his destruction.
Ignoring me, he flies at Lazare, going straight for his throat. Lazare rolls, putting Damian’s head under water. He rolls away to catch some oxygen, giving Lazare a chance to reset from a shallower spot on the shoreline.
Before Damian can get back to his feet again, Lazare, bloodied, launches himself at him, his powerful jaws latching onto his throat. I wince, knowing how violent this is about to get.
I forgot, however, of Damian’s advantages. He reaches up to Lazare’s jaw, pulling it back, a cracking sound terrible across the still waters of the lake. My wolf falls into the water, shaking his head, his jaw weirdly loose. Damian wastes no time, sending a mighty kick into his rib cage. More cracking sounds fill the still air.
Lazare’s breathing becomes labored, then wheezy, then burbling, as though blood has entered his lungs. He heals quickly and is able to attempt a howl as his jaw finds its wholeness again. But his howl is a sad, sickly thing. Damian seems to almost grin, if werewolves are capable of such an expression, as he steps on Lazare’s neck, pushing his head underwater, leaving his snout right at the surface in a half-state of drowning and oxygen.
A barking howl sounds out from across the canal. Toulouse is pacing, desperate, the witch’s fence lamentably the perfect cage for his beast.
And then I feel it—Lazare’s beating heart. I wondered in this last twenty-four hours what that pulsing was. So unfamiliar, having gone many decades without that sensation. Any remaining doubt that he might be my fated, my mate, dissolves in the knowing that the pounding heart in my body is his.
And while it had been speeding up, I can now sense the distinct drop off as his nose drifts farther and farther under the water.
My family was all turned together at the same time, and our dynamic has been frozen in place for centuries now. I only mention that because we were, and still very much are, a genteel family. People of privilege and power and money, never ones to be violent.
It's not that we haven't on occasion killed someone. It’s that I’d somehow forgotten who I was. The slowed drubbing in my chest helps me to remember this critical fact:
Of the three of us in this scenario,I am the apex predator.
My rage, so carefully held in a tight fist for centuries, races out through every synapse, tightening my focus as it builds. My nails grow into long sharp points, and my fangs snick down into place. The power that has been sublimated all these many years flows freely through my veins.
This werewolf might have the advantage this one night of the month, but I've had centuries' worth of nights in my veins, and my vision sharpens, my hearing perfect. He is so focused on drowning my love that he, too, has forgotten about the other killer in this scenario. Silently I reposition myself and take aim.
My first target is his knee, and I impale it with my long claws, then rip outward, removing the joint entirely. He screams in agony and immediately releases my beloved. I know I must act fast because he will heal quickly, so I take Lazare’s unconscious but still living body and push toward the shore. Remembering, at the last moment, a fact about werewolves under the full moon. I look at Lazare’s bloodied neck mournfully. Lillian appears on the back porch, running for us, lightning at her fingertips, and I hold up my hand. “No. He's mine.”
Damian has regained his footing, the blood, sinew, tissue, and bone reasserting themselves as he howls in agony.Good.
I don't have enough time to gloat, however, so I go at him again. Claws extended, straight for his chest, between and under the ribs, impaling his heart on two planes. It's still not enough to kill him, but it'll take him a minute to restore his beating heart. I then tear away his throat as he tried to do to my beloved, and the frightened sheen of his eyes feeds my soul, unlocking a part of me I'd caged all those years ago.
Still, it’s not enough. I have no gun or silver bullets on me, so I must go through his neck. I began tearing at him with my bare hands, attempting to rip his head from his body as his healing quickly undoes the damage as fast as I can inflict it.
“Remy!” Lillian shouts, her voice echoing across the bay, holding up a knife. I nod, and she tosses it. I leap to pluck the knife from the night air, and in the half-second it takes to grab it and regain my footing, Damian is no longer where I left him.
Miss Lillian’s scream fills the night air for one horrific second before it is silenced with a wet crunch. I pivot as the bastard drops her body to the shore. I'm on him, and a second later, his head is in my hands, my knife bloodied.
But I can't bring her back.
I open up the vein in my arm just in case, but it splashes on dead lips, eyes having already lost their glow.
11
Lazare
Iblink and remember drowning as I looked at that the full moon. Remy's arms are around me, his cool, bloody tears falling on my face. The night is sharper and more beautiful than I've ever seen it. The stars glow, and the moon is enchanting, as if it wishes to tell me her secrets.
Toulouse in his werewolf form is there.
“Damian!” I say, sitting up rapidly.
Remy wipes the crimson from under his eyes. “Dead.”
I let out a long breath. “Who killed him?”
“I did,” he says, his voice shaking.
