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Chapter Thirty-Two
Edie
“Novolunteers?”Ethansaid,his teeth clacking.
“I will not let you hurt them, Ethan,” I said.
“Edie,” he sighed.“Think about this.You’re on my side and you don’t even know it.”
“You used your power as a doctor to poison one of your patients,” I said, my voice shaking.“I amnoton your side.”
“You’re curious.Fixated.Isn’t that what you told me?Just like your father, you don’t know when to stop.You want to know why shifters can do what they do.I can show you.I can teach you.I can make you this.”
My revulsion was instantaneous.“You think I want to be like you?You’re a monster.”
He snarled, his skin purpling with fury.“You’re just like all the rest.You can’t see my value if I’m not a shifter.Sure, you’ll spread your legs for Jasper, but you won’t even let me touch you.”
I went cold, then hot.“Jasper is twice the man you are.And twice the shifter.You’re pretending at being both.”
Saliva foamed around his teeth as he growled.He pointed at Melinda with a trembling, twisted arm.“I’ve had to spend my whole life being less than everyone around me because she wouldn’t let me keep trying for a stone.She condemned me to a life of loneliness.I’ll never have a mate, just like I’ll never have a stone.And Melinda has to pay for that.”
I stood tall.“You’ll have to go through me.”
“Us,” my mother said, pushing past me to stand at my side in front of Melinda.She had her trimming shears in her hand.She was shaking, and there were tearstains streaking her pretty makeup, but her face was fierce and focused.I was desperately proud of her and terrified at the same time.
“No problem,” Ethan said, shaking back his pelt of tawny hair.
Behind him, the door swung open.I stumbled back as two shifters burst in, one coming low and the other high.“Jasper,” I breathed, too relieved to inhale.The other was either Micah or Flint—I didn’t care which.As they barreled into Ethan, driving him into the counter with a clatter, I vaulted the exam table and pulled Melinda down with me.“Get in the corner,” I said, shoving aside a chair and a lamp to tuck Melinda against two walls.
“Run,” Melinda said.“Get out of here.Take your mother and go.”
“Did you say Jasper?”my mother stuttered, staring as the two wolves wrestled with the monster.“Is that Jasper?”
“I’m not leaving,” I said.My fierceness surprised me.“I’m not leaving you, and I’m not leaving Jasper.Give me those,” I said, yanking the trimming shears out of my mother’s hand.“Get her in the wheelchair and get her out.”
I didn’t wait for a reply.I hopped up on the table again, looking for an opportunity to drive the shears into Ethan.My medical knowledge flashed through my brain, telling me the best spots to aim for maximum damage.But with the way the three of them were twisting, snapping, and gnashing, I couldn’t get a clear target.
Ethan had his back against the base of the table and was using his arms and legs to kick out at Jasper and the other wolf.Jasper feinted to one side, then darted in and got his teeth into the meat of Ethan’s forearm.Snarling, he shook and tore.
Ethan fisted his massive hand and punched Jasper, then again.On the third punch, Jasper’s eyes rolled back in his head and his jaw slackened.The other wolf darted in and sank his teeth into Ethan’s thigh, but he couldn’t hold on as Ethan bucked.Ethan kicked him hard in the chest, sending him skittering across the room.With a howl of rage, Ethan wrapped both hands around Jasper’s neck and lifted him, choking, off the ground.
I couldn’t wait any longer.I drove the shears hard into the side of Ethan’s neck.
He arched up, yowling.He dropped Jasper to grab at the shears sticking out of the side of his neck.He didn’t pull them out—he knew better.Instead, he scrabbled at the table with his bloody, clawed hands until he dragged himself to his feet.When he spoke, his voice was thick and heavy.“Going for the cartoid, Edie?Looks like you aren’t so smart.You missed.”
“Smarter than you,” I said, yanking my pen out of my pocket and going for his eye.
He grabbed my hand when the ballpoint tip was just centimeters from his cornea.His claw-tipped fingers sank into my wrist and I screamed.“Don’t you understand,” he said, his eyes bulging beneath his lowered brow.“I am beyond you.I am beyond any shifter.Look what I’ve done to your champions,” he said, gesturing to the Jasper and the other wolf.They were both injured and struggling to stand.“I offered you the chance to be one of us.Now your mate will get to watch you die.”
“What are you—Melinda, what are you doing?”My mother squealed.Ethan turned, but not fast enough to stop the wolf who was leaping for his throat.
She was thin and weak, her white-streaked fur patchy.But her jaws were fierce.Ethan beat at her with his fists, but she held on, eyes glowing green with ferocity.As Ethan thrashed, the shears came loose from the wound on the opposite side of his neck, releasing a gout of blood.The strength drained from his body as fast as the blood, but Melinda kept her jaws locked on his throat until long after he was dead.
“Mom,” Micah said, struggling to take a full breath.He’d shifted back into his human form and lay splayed against one wall.Ethan’s kick had taken him full in the sternum, and it had knocked the wind out of him.“Mom, you shifted.”
Jasper pushed himself up from the floor, one hand on his ribs.“Mom,” he said, relief and reverence mixed in his voice.“Alpha.”
With effort, Melinda let loose of Ethan’s neck.Her strength had only lasted long enough to kill Ethan, and now her legs wobbled beneath her.With one last heroic effort, she changed back to her human form.“I told you I’d kill you,” she slurred.
Then her head reeled and she collapsed.
