The girl looked right and left. She saw that a circle of space was opening around her. She was no longer protected by the “pack”. The Werewolf’s massive jaws opened. Rows of serrated teeth showed. Saliva rolled down the sharp, white teeth and dripped off of the jaws, forming pools on the stony ground.
“I need you to get everyone to run when I tell you to,” Caden said to Landry and her brothers. “Don’t hesitate. Just run. All right?”
“What about when we all get to the mountain, the Werewolf kills you, and we’re still stuck here?” she asked him.
“You’ll go up to the lair--”
“Where Raziel will roast us and eat us!” she objected. “Caden, without you, this plan to talk to Raziel doesn’t work so you can’t sacrifice yourself!”
“Raziel will recognize you, Landry. It’s seen you when Valerius was in the store, remember?” Caden reminded her. “It won’t kill you.” Not at first anyways. “You’re not a threat to Raziel. So Raziel will listen to you.”
“And what do you think Raziel will do when we tell it that you died for us?” she asked.
“I’m not going to die. I’m a spirit. Spirits are immortal, right?” He accidentally made that more of a question than a statement. “You didn’t die of hunger or thirst here, Landry, and you would have if that was possible. So… I’ll be safe from this Werewolf.”
“You don’t know it. You shouldn’t chance it,” she said.
“I can’t just let that girl--”
“She’s Humans First,” Ross muttered. “She wouldn’t care if you died. Trust me. You shouldn’t waste your time on her.”
“Yeah, if you heard a tenth of the stuff she says…” Harvey shrugged his shoulders. “She’s not your friend, man. She’s not even your ally.”
“The same could be said about you two!” Landry yelled at them. “And me, too! God, guys, can’t you see that we’re all just a big bunch of hypocrites! Not Caden, but the rest of us? He’s not just saving her to save her, but to save us.”
“Guys, I’m trying to save all of you. It doesn’t matter what you’ve said or done, I’m doing this because I have the best chance of succeeding,” Caden told them. “We can debate the merits of saving people later.”
“Speaking of the merits of saving some people,” Landry growled and tipped her head towards Jasper Hawes who was moving around the outer edge of the group farthest from the Werewolf.
“He always takes care of himself,” Ross said with a touch of something. Not disgust exactly, but mixed with a little admiration as if he wished he could be that selfish.
“He keeps walking without watching where he’s going, he’ll fall into the crater and I’m not saving him in there,” Caden remarked as Jasper’s right foot nearly slipped off the edge and only by flailing his arms did he stop himself from falling. “All right, I have to go--”
“Caden, I don’t want to leave you alone--”
“Landry, please do this for me. Please,” he begged her.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her nod miserably. She was a good friend. She’d made a mistake. She’d wanted to be special, be a Shifter. He got that. He understood it. But she’d been duped and had allowed the Behemoth to use her. But he could forgive her for that. He knew that she would never make such a bad decision again.
“Ready?” Caden whispered. He saw them nod. “RUN! EVERYBODY, RUN! FOR THE MOUNTAIN!”
And everybody, but Caden and the girl ran. The girl had dropped down to her haunches. She had brought up her arms over her head as if that would protect her from the claws and the teeth. They wouldn’t. Caden could easily imagine them being ripped off just as easily as the wings of a fly by a naughty child.
The Werewolf watched the human prey run away. The powerful muscles in its calves bunched and flexed, ready to send a burst of energy to its legs for it to dash after them. But it resisted the urge as the girl was right there.
And so was Caden.
He approached with a steady stride, not showing fear, hands in the pockets of his jeans, meeting the Werewolf’s gaze levelly.
“Hey,” Caden said to the girl, “what’s your name?”
She didn’t answer him at first, terror having stolen her voice.
“Listen to me, whoever you are, it’s going to be okay,” Caden told her. “I’m a Dragon Shifter, remember? Or maybe you didn’t know. But I’m the Ninth Dragon Shifter.”
He had no idea whether that mattered here. Yeah, he’d been able to jog without effort, but he was thinking about that. Maybe it wasn’t because he was still joined to Iolaire, but because he had perceived he shouldn’t get tired and so he hadn’t. While the others had perceived they should get tired and so they had. They remembered what their bodies were capable of. But here they had no bodies. They were spirits. So exhaustion and other physical limitations didn’t really exist.
So maybe that means that the Werewolf isn’t stronger than me, because it doesn’t have a body and I don’t have a body. Instead of mano-a-mano, it’s spirit to spirit combat, Caden thought.
