My human half winced at what was about to happen, but my wolf had no such displeasure. Flesh was flesh.
I leapt, opening my jaws, and the room took in a collective gasp. When I felt the bulk of his skin and muscle in my mouth, I clamped down.
Hard.
One ball-less mohawked troll-fey, coming right up.
I shook my jaws like a dog trying to break the neck of his favorite stuffed toy, and the flesh came away cleanly, along with the cloth of his pants.
An inhuman howl cut through the barn; the knife dropped to the floor with a clatter and the troll shook violently, falling over to the side and passing out. When he went completely limp, I spat the flesh from my mouth and didn’t wait for the giant to get up. This motherfucker brought a knife to a fist fight.
That meant prison rules, bitch.
His waxy skin glistened with sweat as I pounced on his chest and peered down at him. The crowd chanted with an insane fervor.
Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!
I glanced over at Walsh, eyelids lowering as he got weaker and weaker, and knew that I needed to end this quickly so that we could get him help.
But my wolf hesitated.
I couldn’t kill someone when they were defenseless and knocked out cold. Right? I turned back to look at Trip. His eyes were glittering with malice. Could he call off the fight? Or was death the only way out of this cage? I probably should have asked that before—
A firm grip wrapped around my throat and squeezed so hard that my windpipe felt like it was crushed into a fine powder. I turned to look at the troll-fey, eyes wide, and was met with the most horrifying black eyes I’d ever seen.
“You fuckingbitch!” he snarled, spittle flying from his mouth and onto my muzzle. He panted, no doubt in a world of pain, but that didn’t seem to stop him from having a vise-like grip on my throat. My wolf bucked backward, trying to struggle out of his grasp, but it was no use. He was too strong, and I was in a shitty position with no footholds or anything I could use to my advantage. With his other hand, he reached to the side, patting the mat of the cage wildly, no doubt looking for the knife. I panicked, unable to breathe and starting to feel weak.
“I’m going to dissect you, organ by organ, and when I’m done you won’t—” He froze, looking up as a shadow passed over his face.
I was starting to see spots, blackness dancing at the edges of my vision. I needed air.Now.My wolf wanted to turn ghostly, to disappear from his fingers and go spectral, but it would out what I was to everyone.
‘Hang on,’my human half said, and I blinked, shifting to her vision.
“Looking for this?” Walsh grunted, knife in hand as he stood over the troll. The beast was lying flat on his back, groin area bleeding freely with my wolf on top of his chest.
He released my wolf immediately, trying to scramble upward, when Walsh dropped to one knee and sliced his throat quick and cleanly.
My wolf pulled in deep, ragged gasps of air as the troll-fey went limp.
The crowd went wild, some booing and others cheering, all while my shifter healing repaired my crushed trachea or whatever he’d done. The lump in my throat became less painful, and I was soon able to breathe normally. Money exchanged hands as Trip glared at Walsh and I through the bars.
We’d no doubt just killed two of his prize fighters, but he gave his word. That had to mean something. When everyone was paid, he walked over to us, holding a wad of gold coins in his pocket.
“I believe you owe us our payment now, sir?” Sage said boldly, glancing at Walsh and my wolf nervously as we limped out of the cage, which had just been unlocked. Walsh held on to his bleeding ribcage, but a thin, steady stream of blood exited out his fingers.
“My word is good,” he growled. “Fetch the horse,” he snapped to one of his lackeys. I could tell by the bulge of coins in his pocket that he could buy more of whatever he wanted.
I cleared my throat. “And release the Paladin wolf.”
He sneered at me through eyes blacker than oil. “And that.”
* * *
Ten minutes later,I knelt over Walsh’s limp and bleeding form as he clutched his side in pain. The Paladin wolf was curled in a ball at my feet. When Trip had unlocked her cage, she’d cowered in the corner, shaking. Sage tried to sweetly coo her out but it didn’t work. With Walsh near death, I’d grown impatient, and only when I put my hand out and commanded in a firm voice for to her to come to me, did she move. She hadn’t shifted to her human form and I was okay with that, because we had Walsh to worry about first.
Walsh groaned and my hands shook as I rummaged through the med-kit Sawyer had sent for something that looked useful. A whimper of desperation left my throat, and the Paladin at my feet curled tighter around my legs in response. I frowned, looking down at her while my wolf sat at the back of the carriage we were in and watched all of us with inquisitive eyes. We were supposed to ditch the Paladin at the end of the road ahead, but something wasn’t right with her. She was too meek, she’d be eaten by a coyote at this rate, and definitely taken by a dark fey. Besides, Sage was too focused on Walsh to even think about her family’s sworn enemy at my ankles.
Sage rode in the front of the eighteenth-century stagecoach, holding the horse’s reins as it galloped along the dusty dirt packed road and through the woods. “Should I try to stitch him up? Why isn’t he healing!” I asked, grasping a suture kit. Walsh’s eyes were fluttering open, closed, open, closed. I’d told Sage to get us away from the barn in case anyone tried to retaliate for what we’d done. Trip kept his word and let us go, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have someone chase us.
