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I wandered through the palace, looking for somewhere I wouldn’t be bothered. Luckily, there were several sprawling gardens built throughout the palazzo. They were elegantly maintained with manicured shrubs, marble statues and bubbling fountains.
I crept deep into one of the gardens, my boots crunching on the dry earth, until I found myself surrounded by perfectly squared hedges. The sky was splashed with purple and red as the setting sun bled its final farewells across the cloudless sky.
I rolled my head to the side, cracking my neck before rotating my shoulders several times to loosen up. Despite myself, my body was already quivering in protest. The conditioning had been working as far as building up a tolerance, but the excessive amount of damage I had been forcing myself to endure had created a trauma response. The first shift was always the hardest. It was as if my body and mind were at war. My mind said shift and my body said fuck THAT.
However, my mind always won. I was a stubborn son of a bitch. If I decided I was going to do something, it was happening.
Hopping from foot to foot and shaking my arms out next to me, I grunted, as I forced the first wave of the shift out from the core of my chest. My skin rippled beneath the restructium, and I felt the sharp sting of a thousand needles as my hair follicles exploded and fur forced its way through my pores. The heavy, deep-seated pain that grew in my bones as they engorged came next. They slid and ground against each other at the joints, making a sickening, wet ‘popping’ sound as I forced them to reshape.
I bit back a snarl as my spine elongated, stretching out my vertebrae. My spinal cord screamed as it stretched and pulled to accommodate the change and I marveled at the fact that it managed not to snap. Next, my teeth grew and burst through my gums as my skull reshaped. I swallowed back the wash of blood that filled my mouth, and my front paws struck the ground. I thrashed my tail behind me, unsheathing my claws into the dirt to make sure everything was as it should be.
Panting, I gave my entire body a shake, as I adjusted to my new form. The restructium armor had shifted with me, and the soft-release buckles on my nylon shoulder harness had slid open to accommodate this new form as well, allowing me to keep my guns with me. The suit of armor Raven had gotten me was my favorite new addition to my arsenal of murder shit. Not only was it nice to have the extra protection, but it was also convenient not to have to constantly buy new clothes every time I shredded through a t-shirt or a pair of jeans.
Prowling in my panther form through the garden, I tested out my joints, and rolled my head on my shoulders. I stretched out my forepaws before rolling onto my back, trying to massage out the kinks to keep the blood flow going.
My body was screaming at me.
I had been hard on it, but I couldn’t stop here. I needed to keep pushing. Still on my back, I stared at the sky and tried to remember the last time I had seen Kasha. Nothing helped me push through the pain more than anger.
“My pretty little chameleon,” Ash Nevra had purred, taking her hands off of Amon to sensually run her fingers over Kasha’s mouth.
My lips pulled back over my fangs at the memory. I should have realized at that moment that Kasha was mine. The sight of that fucking bitch’s fingers on her had been the last straw. I had ripped through the magick of The Flute at the sight of that action alone.
My heart hammered in my chest at the thought and another snarl tore from my mouth. My skin rippled and I exploded back into my human form with an agonizing shout of pain. I rolled onto my front and pushed back on my knees, swallowing gulps of air in an effort to keep myself from vomiting.
Those crimson nails tracing over Kasha’s lips played over and over in my mind.
Mine.
She was mine.
The cold rage was back, the need to kill something rolled through me, pumping adrenaline through my veins. I shifted again.
And again.
And again.
On the fifth shift, my body started to shake violently. On the sixth shift, I lost feeling in my fingers. My heart was no longer working properly. It stuttered in my chest, and I collapsed in my human form, fumbling in my pocket for a vial of hemoglo. My hands were shaking so erratically, it was nearly impossible to get my fingers to wrap around the tiny vial. After a few minutes of struggling, I rolled onto my back, swallowing a mouthful of blood that had been dripping from my nasal cavity down my throat.
I held the vial up before me and swore. There was only one small sip left. Likely not enough to reverse what I had just done to myself.
Shit!
I had been careless. I should have checked how much was left and brought another vial before heading out this morning. It wasn’t like me to be this stupid. In my defense, I was run down and not operating at my best. Even I could admit that.
Annoyed with myself, I downed what was left in the bottle and dropped my head back into the rough gravel pathway of the garden, staring up at the stars.
My heart sputtered in my chest again and I coughed, blood splattering down my chin. Fuck, I really hoped I hadn’t just accidently offed myself.
Idiot!
I cursed again, before the scent of coffee and gunpowder flooded the air. The crunch of boots on gravel met my ears as Jeremy approached me. I groaned and rolled my eyes as he came to stand by my head, his towering form blocking out the light of the moon as he looked down at me.
“What do you want?” I growled at him. He pursed his lips, and his gaze shifted to take in my limp arm, still clutching the empty bottle of hemoglo.
“Looks like you’re out of juice.” He said mildly, and I narrowed my eyes on him. He crouched down by my head, resting his elbows on his knees.
What was he getting at? I remembered how he had eyed that ammo in the armory. Was he going to kill me? I snorted. Honestly, I would be impressed as fuck if that was why he was here. He couldn’t have picked a better time to pick me off. I could barely fucking move.
