“Oh shit.”
The Veyn snarled, claws digging down as he pushed itself up from the pavement, wingspan continuing to stretch. A gust of wind, strong enough it knocked them all back as the Veyn began to lift off.
Jax erupted from his skin, his beast appearing in a burst of colour. Jax was one of the darker beasts, a blue-black with streaks of silver. His scar was prominent even in that form, the red mark slicing his eye to slightly distort the upper lip of his snout. His markings pulsed with white light, a perfect echo of the tattoos from the man repeated in coarse fur. Similar to the Shadow-Veyn he had prickles along his spine, long needles only slightly thicker than his fur.
Kace stilled, breathing through the urge to shift too. Saliva coated his tongue, the hunger for blood and death strengthening as he held on to the edge of the man by the skin of his teeth. It was a constant static buzz, the only reprieve when he gave in to his beast’s bloodthirst.
Jax launched himself across the distance, his tail separating into several distinctive whips. They wrapped around the Veyn, pinning the wings to the ground as Titus and Kace launched their attack. They saw it a second too late, the Veyn’s back leg dislocating to bend back at an impossible ankle, the paw knocking Titus back.
“Tee!?” Kace shouted, his knife struggling to slice through the scales as he dodged the other back leg. The blade became lodged in bone, but rather than fight for it he twisted out the way. He caught Titus as he fell to his knees, his chest torn to shreds.
“Fucking ow,” Titus hissed through his teeth. “That’s a new move.” Green mucus oozed from the wounds, his body rejecting the Veyn’s poison. It dropped down his front, eating away at the leather before it fell to the floor, hissing like acid at the contact. Whatever coated their claws wasn’t as potent as their teeth, the damage already beginning to slow down.
Jax wrestled using his own claws and teeth, concentrating on severing the wings to keep it grounded. They couldn’t follow it into the sky, and they definitely couldn’t let it escape.
Their beasts were big, twice the size of shifter wolves with thick forearms and paws as powerful as lions. Yet the Veyn dwarfed Jax in size, the biggest they had ever fought.
Click. Click. Click.
The bones snapped back into its chest one by one, the vapour moving to sink in between each individual scale. Jax snapped with his jaws as he struggled to break through the scales that had somehow solidified into armour. The paleness of the ribs disappeared, as did the hollow void of its nose as scales and vapour moved to protect.
Clink.
The dagger Kace had thrown and stuck in the shoulder fell to the floor.
Clink. Clink.
Kace launched himself onto the Veyn’s back, being careful of the thorns that protruded from the spine. He caught Jax’s attention, the beast harder to communicate with.
‘Keep it steady,’he shouted telepathically, hoping the beast wasn’t beyond words. Kace pulled himself onto the shoulders, having to tighten his thighs either side as he was bucked hard. With no fur he had nothing to hold on with, so he reached down and wrapped his arms around the Veyn’s throat, only just able to reach fully around the thick neck.
The Veyn flailed beneath him, pulling back from Jax as he swung his thick body from side to side. Jax tore forward, moving to attack its flank.
Don’t shift. Don’t shift. Don’t shift,Kace chanted to himself, ignore the fur he felt just beneath the surface of his skin. His beast was more powerful, but he could easily become lost in the rage, unpredictable.
Kace tightened his hold around the Veyn’s throat, holding it for a few seconds as the thorns lengthened, the pain short but sharp. He released his hold, pulling at one that had pierced through his thigh.
“Fuck!” It was stuck, but kept him steady as he reached around and hit the only blade left, careful not to get too close to its teeth. The knife sunk further into the eye socket, the pained scream of the Veyn reverberating in the open space. His second hit sunk the knife fully into its skull and the death was immediate, the Veyn sagging to the ground with Kace riding its back.
Jax was there a second later, his body slick with sweat as he used one of the discarded knives to slice at the thorn still piercing through Kace’s muscle. He pulled it clean out of his leg with one tug, thankful it had missed his femoral artery. It wouldn’t scar, his body made to repair methodically as if a machine.
When he was first forced through the ritual of his beast all the evidence of his childhood suffering had been erased, the scars he adorned gone as if he had imagined them. And even now it didn’t matter how much damage he suffered to his body, he never marked. It always repaired perfectly, ready for him to try again.
The only exception was Jax, who received his scar after they had been cursed.
“You good?” His leg was steady when he stood, the wound already healing as he stepped back just as the creature began to break down, disintegrating as each piece was absorbed back into the earth.
“Have you seen anything like that?” Jax asked, his voice deeper with the beast despite now being the man. His eyes were mirrored, the same liquid silver that he felt was across his own irises.
“That bastard defied all logic,” Titus muttered, still on his knees as he panted through the burn of his chest. “How could it fly?” His wounds were worse than they had initially realised, his blood coating the pavement.
“Since when does magic follow a rule?” Kace asked, rolling his shoulders until they clicked.
Jax crossed his arms, not bothering to cover his nakedness. “It looks like that Veyn was mutating.”
Titus groaned as he shakily pulled himself to his feet. “That’s all we...” Jax caught him as he collapsed.
“Kace, call for backup,” Jax said casually as if Titus wasn’t passed out in his arms. “I think I can see his lungs and don’t want to move him.”
