I’m on my own here.
Worse, no one outside these walls will hear me if I call for help.
The intruder lunges. Instinct and the last few days of practice take over. I roll to the side, dodging his first swipe, pivoting like Cade drilled into me. Getting back up, my elbow snaps up into his ribs—solid, like hitting stone. He doesn’t even grunt. His fist connects with my shoulder, spinning me into the wall so hard I see white as I stumble.
I push myself back to a standing position, chest burning, and slam my knee toward his gut once he comes close again.
But he catches my leg midair, twisting. Pain shreds up my side as I crash to the floor, breaking a chair in the process. My wolf snarls, but her presence is still dulled as I stagger back up, teeth bared.
He’s stronger and faster. Every hit he lands sends me rattling, but I refuse to stay down. Fury keeps me upright. I won’t go out like this. Not today.
I move to attack again, this time aiming lower. If I have to fight dirty, then so be it, but before I can kick him square in the balls, he reaches for my loose hair, yanking my head back like I’m nothing more than an annoyance.
Red floods my vision.
My hand scrambles over the ground, trying to find the strength to get back up and break his hold on me, but instead, I find splintered wood. A broken chair leg. I wrap my fingers tight around it, ignoring the sting of tiny cuts into my palm, and shove myself upward.
One of my hands clamps over his shoulder, and a white-hot pain lances through my palm like I’ve pressed it to a coal. It sears—brief and electric—but I don’t let go. My rage is all-consuming, and this guy is going to be stopped.
He releases my hair, wavering on his feet before I’ve even hit him, but I don’t pause. I arc my arm back and strike.
The wood pierces through his stomach, blood gushing onto the rug next to my bed, and he leans into me.
The heat beneath my palm intensifies and moves through me like it did at the creek, but it’s not as overwhelming. Still, the sensations are the same, just shorter-lasting. My heart pounds and power licks along my skin, yet I’m doing nothing more than standing here, watching him bleed.
At least until even that changes.
His breath leaves him in a harsh grunt, eyes widening beneath the hood. I try to step away, intent on going to the door and calling for help, because even though this guy was likely trying to kidnap me, I don’t really want to be a murderer.
Before I make it to the first step, his knees fold. He collapses like a rag, the cloak swallowing him into a heap on my rug.
What the hell?
I stare at him, panting, every nerve on fire. The wood juts from his side, blood dark and blending against his cloak. Too much blood.
“No,” I whisper, dropping beside him. My hands hover uselessly above the wound, trembling. “No, no, I didn’t—I didn’t mean?—”
He doesn’t move. No chest rise. No shifting breath. The hush in the room presses in, heavy and absolute.
I thought I’d only slowed him—stopped him long enough to get help. The stillness says otherwise.
He’s dead.
Yet, he shouldn’t be.
Cade repeated several facts to me during our training sessions until they felt like law. One of which being that supernaturals don’t die like humans, not unless their hearts are ripped out or something catastrophic happens. Heads snapped off, bodies torn apart—things that leave obvious marks.
There’s nothing here like that.
It’s going to be okay, Wolf says, her presence back to normal somehow.
How do you figure?I screech in my head because there’s no way I’m shouting and drawing attention. If she’s back, the room might not be sealed any longer.
Just go get Cade,she urges. He’ll fix this.
I shake my head so hard my vision blurs, my gaze snapping back to the body sprawled at my feet. My stomach twists.No. No way. We’re burying this guy in the woods. Nobody here is going to know I killed someone.
I can’t handle the thought of one of them looking at me with any sort of doubt in their eyes. I don’t want to be the doom and gloom. I want to just be Rowan, the newly formed shifter, who isn’t going to destroy the world.
