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He sends me a burst of his own energy, reviving my senses long enough to make a desperate attempt to call on the shadows. Because I don’t know where the witch is, I try to thicken the darkness around her, hoping that any part of her body will be in the shadows.
The old witch screams, her lips stop chanting the spell and her eyes break contact with me. A gust of air fills my lungs, reviving both me and my wolf. I don’t wait to see if I’m hurt. Relying on the shot of adrenaline that’s pumping through my veins to keep me standing, I stagger toward the witch. My knees wobble for the first two steps, but then the strength slowly returns to me, and I walk up to her on steadier feet.
Her ankles were in the shadows, and my thickening of them crushes her bones into dust.
Now she’s sprawled on the floor, her mouth open in a silent cry of agony.
Finish her, my wolf urges, although this time I don’t need his encouragement the way I sort of did before.
It would be probably safer to kill her from afar, to use the Darkness to end her, but I can’t be sure how much of it I might need later. My claws are at the ready and as I lean down to trail them across her neck. I do it with no regret or remorse.
The life in the witch’s eyes extinguishes faster than the rogue wolf’s. The age probably has something to do with it as well as her not having the healing powers of our species.
My attention gets yanked back toward the other side of the room when Alyssa cries out in frustration. Her fingers clench and unclench as she tries to get the shadows to answer her call, but she’s been fighting too many for too long. She’s spent.
She needs us, my wolf says, pointing out the obvious.
The urge to get to her intensifies to an overwhelming degree, and there’s nothing and no one stopping me from crossing that room. While I haven’t properly mastered the Shadow Camouflage yet, I have no choice but to try using the ability now. It’s the only way for me to get to Alyssa uninterrupted.
With a low groan, I whip the shadows into place, wearing them like an invisible robe, hoping that they make me unseen despite the occasional burst of light and fire blazing through the room. Worst case scenario, I’ll look to everyone like a figure donned in armor of shadows thick enough that they won’t bother trying to stop me.
I take a step forward and something unexpected happens. All of a sudden, I’m next to Alyssa and with no memory of crossing the room. If I hadn’t known better I might’ve thought that I’d somehow teleported through the darkness and its shadows.
Umbrageous Teleportation is extremely rare and incredibly dangerous, my wolf says, but he sounds just as shocked as I am at the turn of events.
“What are you waiting for? Grab her, Garren!” Alyssa yells, breaking me out of my dazed reverie.
My eyes follow the direction she’s looking and settle on the young witch with bleached blonde hair. Her small, thin body is carefully surrounded by other witches, which can only mean one thing.
“Hekate!” I call to get her attention.
Hekate turns her head my way, her green eyes locking onto mine. A distant part of me urges me to break the connection, but there’s something so strange and cold about her that I can’t. As if time has slowed down, her lips curl up into a small, emotionless smile, and she slightly bows her head in a mocking gesture.
Shake it off, my wolf growls, his words cutting through the cord that Hekate managed to hook around me with only a smile.
Only now that I’m free of her influence, do I realize that my body has been filling with a feeling of emptiness and despair. The sudden return of warmth makes me subconsciously bring a hand to my chest and rub it.
“She’s getting away!” Alyssa calls, the sound of her voice the last key to unlock the invisible shackles.
My body reacts before my mind does, which is mostly thanks to my wolf who got tired of seeing me being played for a fool. Without shifting but only through the power of sheer will and my temporary disconnection due to a spell, he doesn’t have much trouble controlling us. Calling the shadows as a shield around us, he rushes head forward into the danger that is the semi-circle of witches that have formed around Hekate.
We either kill her or we’ll die trying, my wolf growls, his rage blinding all common sense.
Like a dark hurricane, we close the distance to the witches and even allow ourselves a small, triumphant smile. We’ll break through the barrier of witches. We’ll stop the young leader before she manages to have even more of our packs killed.
What happens next feels like a lot longer, but in reality, it lasted less than two seconds. The protective circle of witches looks at me as one entity and weaves a spell. While, for once, it doesn’t target me directly, it still prevents me from getting to Hekate.
With the whole force and momentum of my body, I crash against an invisible wall that’s being held up by a small group of witches that must’ve been handpicked by Hekate as her personal security team.
My wolf lets out a low whine, sounding rather dazed by the impact. Since he had the majority of control over us, he suffered the effects of the crash more than I did.
My senses return to me just in time to see Hekate and her group of guards escaping through the window. Without thinking, I turn on my heel and sprint toward the way we came. Alyssa does the opposite and goes to the window instead. I don’t bother to check if she succeeded and only focus on getting down the stairs as fast as I can.
They’re in the back, my wolf says, still recovering from the hit. Trusting his gut, I take a turn toward the back door where we came in, which was also the same side from where we saw the movement on the second floor. It must’ve been that same window that they used to escape.
I come out of the building just in time to see the red lights on the back of the car as it disappears down the road. They’ve gotten away.
I curse under my breath and kick the trash bin, sending it flying down the street. Alyssa’s the first one to join me outside, jumping through the second-floor window as soon as the witches are too far away to hold up the spell.
