“It wasn’t just your precious Nicky,” I said, my lips curling back from my teeth. “It was Chadwicke, too. And…” I reached deep into my memory for the names I’d only heard a couple of times in passing. “Kirklin and Finneus. Your whole family is falling one at a time. This is your chance to head for the hills before we take you down, too. Consider it a rare mercy.”
I didn’t know where I got mychutzpah, but Alric’s magic wavered, and the bond around my leg loosened a bit. Unfortunately, that meant I suddenly dropped a few inches, which sent a bolt of fiery pain jolting up from my ankle to my hip, but the metal bindings tightened before I could bash skull-first into the floor. As I’d hoped, that momentary lapse in power was enough for Leo and two others to burst free from their bindings and charge at Alric.
For a brief moment, I allowed myself to think Leo was going to leap onto the man and end yet another evil warlock.
I should have known better.
Alric was so much more experienced than anyone we’d fought before. He paid full attention to all of his surroundings instead of focusing on one target. I couldn’t help but wonder ifhe was the eldest and everyone else we’d gone up against so far had been easy mode.
That hypothesis flashed through my mind and was almost instantaneously proven true when more metal pipes burst from the floor and shot up to impale the limbs of the three shifters rushing toward him. A look of unbridled fury crossed over Alric’s handsome features.
“T-that’s impossible! We…” he trailed off, and his writhing mass of living metal carried him over to where Leo was hoisted, spiked through his left foreleg. “It’syou!But how? We cursed you!”
As if to prove his point, metal tendrils like the tentacles of an octopus reached out from the mass of material at the brother’s feet and pried Leo off the spike. I watched in horror as they wrapped around each of his limbs and began to pull in separate directions. It was like he was being drawn and quartered right in front of me.
A raw, animalistic sound tore out of my throat, but my screams were cut short when a wad of metal wrapped around my head, sliding between my teeth like a gag.
Alric turned his attention from me to Leo, squeezing and shaking him harder. I tried to protest, to beg, but all that came out of my mouth were muffled noises.
Leo’s wolf form slipped from his grasp as he turned into a battered and bleeding human. My heart lurched in my chest, but no matter how much I struggled against my bonds, I couldn’t escape.
“I don’t know how you did it, but I’m going to end this right here and now,” the warlock seethed, his pleasant expression having shifted into an unhinged snarl. “No more of this drawn-out nonsense. I’m going to rip you limb from limb and burn every piece, then use the ash to fertilize my mother’s gardens.”
Fear surged up within me as I saw the metal coils around Leo tighten, the tension already evident in his limbs. But there was something else... a roiling, undiluted, virulentrage. It was unlike anything I had ever felt before, scalding the back of my throat and coating my tongue in acid. My stomach roiled, and the blood rushing through me turned into an inferno. It felt like I’d run ten miles, but instead of being exhausted, I was pumped full of adrenaline.
And just like that, I was done.
Done with being a victim. Done with having to run around the sideline because everyone was so much stronger than me. Tired of evil people getting away with hurting so many just because they could.
And I was done watching the man I loved get hurt.
Yes, maybe I had been a coward when I was younger. Maybe me running and hiding had resulted in the death of my mother. But my origins were not my prophecy. Icouldchange it if I really wanted to.
And I really,reallywanted to.
“Let them all go,” Leo choked out. Deep, red marks marred his skin where his limbs were being stretched, and I had to swallow down the bile that crept up my throat at the sight. “It’s me you want to hurt. It’s me you want revenge against. None of them had anything to do with this.”
Pain laced every syllable in Leo’s words, and it fed the frenzy within me. I felt like I was cooking inside my own skin, something bubbling up from my gut that I couldn’t describe. It was like that wonderful, magical feeling I got when planting a seedling, except it was defensive rather than jubilant. It wasn’t quite bloodlust, but it was an adamant inner demand to protect. To finally getjusticefor all the terrible harm these warlocks had caused.
“You think you have any room to bargain here? No. I’m going to make them watch you die, and then I’ll kill them all one by one.” Somehow, his gaze took on an even more malicious gleam as his grin widened. “Who knows, maybe I’ll keep a few. Replenish that harem you stole, fill out the ranks of my security again.”
His words continued to fuel the fervor within me. The rage had grown so much it felt like it was pouring out my skin, spilling across the ground and spreading through the earth like actual blood from a wound. It made me burn so hot I was surprised I didn’t combust. At the same time, I felt soconnectedto the world around me. Like I was hearing it’s heartbeat and truly feeling its lifeblood for the first time.
“You’re disg—” Leo screamed as the metal coils pulled even tighter, and a sickening crack filled the air. That was a dislocation if I ever heard one.
He was going to kill Leo unless someone stopped him.
Suddenly, the rage within me snapped, and the tempest that had churned so fervently beneath my skin exploded out in a shockwave. At least that was how it felt. In reality, nothing happened for several long beats besides Alric continuing to torture Leo. My alpha. My lover.
“Stop!” I shrieked, though it was no use. The metal in my mouth held my tongue down, and all that came out was a garbled cry. With everything in me, I just wanted the warlock tostop.
Then the most peculiar thing happened. A rumble started and grew rapidly. It was enough of a disturbance to give that bastard of a warlock pause, and Leo slumped against the bonds at the sudden lack of tension.
Suddenly, vines erupted through the cracks in the floor.
It was as if I had copied the warlock, except my pipes were made of greenery instead of metal. Other plants joined the fray, bursting up from the floor in waves of verdant emerald.
It was a visual cacophony of green as every plant grew rapidly, some developing spiny points that oozed with a sap I had no doubt was poisonous. Bushes popped up, growing wide and high enough to provide stable footholds for those who were still dangling in the warlock’s grip. Leaves whipped this way and that as if challenging someone to box them.
