Page 65 of Wolfsbane

There was no way Viktor, new to magic he’d already spent in quantities vast enough to save his brother’s hand and summon impossible weather patterns, would last long in a one-on-one duel with an experienced witch like my mother.

She was speaking in German again, casting a spell I didn’t know the shape of, but it felt like the sacrifice ritual she threw us into. She’d wrap us up in it and kill us both.

Or . . . maybe, if I could get ahead of it, me alone.

Viktor had my magic. Mother had her own. She didn’t need him, but if she wanted a witchwolf, she needed me.

Us.

Since I’d figured out what the hell was going on, the wolf in my head hadn’t been so loud, or particularly demanding. Maybe he was happy to be close to Viktor again, even if he was stuck in me.

Maybe it was just that I was finally acting in accordance with our conscience.

My mother raised her fist in the air, and Viktor gasped.

I knew that move, the way she stole the air from your lungs and ripped it out, the dry, desperate attempt to survive it.

Stop her.

I tore my shirt over my head, and the next second, my paws hit the soft ground. The scent of rain hung heavy around us, loamy earth and the ozone scent of magic and distant lightning.

On four legs, the world made more sense.

Pack was in danger. The shape of the magic or who it came from didn’t matter. We protected pack.

I snarled, crouching down. Mother’s eyes flashed toward me, but the second her attention wavered from Viktor, he gasped in a ragged breath. He took a staggered step toward her before she regained control, but what was he going to do? The kind of spell he’d need, he didn’t have.

It was down to me⁠—

Us.

—on four legs with teeth and claws and a bite that could strip a witch’s magic.

If it was us or her, then she didn’t get to keep her magic.

I sprang around Viktor. The tension shooting up my back all the way from the base of my tail eased when I heard him take another gasping breath, and I bunched my back legs and sprang.

Mother screeched when I flew through the air at her, snarling. I reached, claws extended, to tear at her long black dress. Blood sprang up in rivulets as I grabbed for her shoulder, but she punched out and swept her hand toward the sky. The force of her magic hit me square in the chest and I went flying straight up.

With a grunt, Viktor hit the ground and skidded toward me, the tether holding us together.

But it put him on the ground, the air knocked out of his lungs, closer to my mother than he’d been before.

She spun on him, reaching for the silver athame at her belt, and raised it high.

I’d never run like I ran the second my paws hit the ground, but my body was flying. Through the rain and air and into her. I snarled, gnashing teeth until I felt the resistance of flesh beneath my fangs. Mother screamed, the sound high and piercing so close to my keen ears, but I dug in, grappling her shoulders with my claws, my back legs scrambling against her thighs. I tore cloth, skin, tasted blood. But⁠—

Not Viktor.

Not him.

He’s ours.

I felt her heartbeat stutter beneath my tongue as she realized what I’d done. I’d taken her magic. Maybe I’d killed her. Maybe⁠—

I flew back, not of my own volition or from any force acted on me, but because Destiny had caught Viktor in a spell, raised him off the ground, and thrown him away from Mother and me both.

The force jerked me away, and I flew, careening through the air until I hit Viktor. He grunted, his arms coming around me hard and fast to keep me from falling.