11This bitch has nine lives
Molly’s crycut straight through my heart and had every single person in the cabin running toward her … and then stopping short when we realized there was nothing we could do to help her.
Her body contorted in every direction all at once, bones and cartilage crunching. Her face scrunched in pain, and a second scream ripped from her throat.
“Oh my God. What can we do?” I asked, panic rushing my words together.
Brock was already shaking his head sadly. “There’s nothing we can do. She has to do this on her own—every wolf does. I’m surprised she started shifting this quickly, but now that she is, we’ll find out soon enough if she’s going to survive my wolf bite.”
My pulse thudded loudly through my head, willing her to fight this with everything she had and pull through.
I lost track of how long I watched my purple-haired friend fight the way the wolf worked to shape her body into something it’d never been before. Sabine came and went, taking Molly’s vitals and marking things on a clipboard. Somewhere along the line, Haru had untied Molly’s ankles, and Cass had placed his stubby hand in mine, and we’d commiserated together. I didn’t expect Johnny to stay this long, but he was still here. As was my father. We were all just looking on and waiting, hoping for the best. There was nothing else we could do.
After some time, I became almost numb to Molly’s cries of pain. I had to push them away so they wouldn’t make me crazy. Was this how it’d been when I’d first shifted into my fox? No wonder Cass had been so freaked out afterward.
Haru and Reo winced with each one of Molly’s screams, until finally, after what seemed like an eternity, her cries lessened, and she simply whimpered. And when the whimpering ceased, a gorgeous white wolf with a black right front leg stood next to the couch, panting with exhaustion, ribcage heaving.
I’d half expected her fur to be purple.
Despite her physical exhaustion at the pain she’d had to endure, a steely strength blazed from her sky blue eyes.
‘Our girl did it,’I whispered in awe to Cass through our connection.‘She fought and she made it.’
‘That she did.’I sensed Cass’ proud grin even without turning to look at him.‘Our apprentice kicks some serious ass.’
‘You can say that again,’I said, then turned to find Brock grinning, his smile lighting up his whole face.
“Molly did it,” he said aloud, and Tianna whooped so loudly that I startled before laughing to ease some of this ridiculous fucking tension.
The laughter of relief circled the room. Even Johnny chuckled a couple of times before Molly yelped, and we all stopped celebrating.
“It’s the demon,” Cho and Willemena said in unison.
“Now we’ll find out whether she has it in her to fight the demon and win,” Tianna said, clenching her jaw and setting it into fierce lines, as if she were the one about to take on a fog demon instead of my apprentice.
“Molly,” Johnny said, and the white wolf with the one black leg faced him, tilting her snout upward. “You have to fight the demon that’s inside you. There’s nothing we can do to help you. You have to get it out all on your own.”
“You can do it, girl,” Tianna encouraged. “You’re a badass wolf. Now all you have to do is kick that demon’s nasty ass back to the underworld.”
Molly dipped her head; her shoulder muscles flinched as she seemed to take what the woman said to heart.
“That’s it?” I whispered, meeting Tianna’s gaze. “She just has to force it out and it goes back to the underworld?” I didn’t want Molly to hear me and be discouraged.
My dad beat Tianna to the answer: “Not exactly. But once Molly evicts the demon, the witches and warlock will have to contain it, and either trap it back in the underworld by sending it through the gate, or obliterate it entirely.”
“I’m all for obliterating it entirely,” I mumbled.
“Hell yeah,” Cass said. “Time to rid ourselves of this thing once and for all. There’s no redemption for a fog demon. They’re one of the darkest monsters of the underworld. We need to kill it.”
“I can get on board with that plan,” Tianna said, and cracked her knuckles.
“All right, Molly,” I said loudly. “This part’s on you. Kick some fog demon ass for all of us.”
And that’s exactly what Molly did.
After how torturous and prolonged her shift had been, I figured the fight with the demon would be similar. But Molly growled like her prey was right in front of her instead of inside her, and then narrowed her eyes in concentration until she started panting from the effort once more. After a few moments, a black, putrid-looking green mist rose from her fur.
Holy shit.She was doing it.
