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Chapter 27
Sweat and water coated me. I trembled, unable to stop. Half my hair swung outward, mirroring striking snakes, targeting the shifters coming my way. I brandished my knife, but I wasn’t ready to kill them when they were innocents, trapped just like me.
The lioness leaped first, and I cried out. Two of my locks snapped around her head and torso, hurling her sideways. She winced, but I didn’t have time. In every direction, my tresses flung toward the attackers. A panther slid under the assault and ran into my legs, knocking them out from under me. My arms flayed out and I fell, but the bastard animal chomped down on my shin. Sharp, piercing torture shot through me, and I kicked the animal in the face with my free leg.
I screamed as a bear ran toward me on all fours, the ground thundering under him. My life flashed before my eyes. The last loose lock of hair struck him in the chest, driving me to a complete stop, choking him. He gasped for air, and yet the blue band around his neck glinted in the sunlight… If I removed those, they’d stop attacking me.
Another kick to the panther’s face, and I dislodged my leg from its mouth. Someone might as well have poured acid over my wounds because they burned to an insane degree, and I clenched my jawline through the pain, swallowing back the cries. Blood oozed out from the wound where the material and flesh had been torn. Agony lanced up my leg, my breaths sprinting.
The panther coiled back around to face me. Terror tangled with determination in my veins because while scared, I’d fight to live.
Shifters surrounded me while the gargoyle bucked and battled to free himself from my hair.
Gripping the blade, I staggered upward, hobbling on one foot. If I was going down, it would be fighting. Snarls and roars drew my attention to Kahlo and Reed in battle with White Venom. Reed had the scorpion barb in both hands, battling to hold back and from sticking Kahlo, who had his mouth latched around the lion’s neck. Blood smeared all over his white coat, tainting it. The monster groaned and whined. But the panther coming for me turned to help his master.
Where had Gage taken Faye?
Movement to my side had a cheetah staggering to its feet, still wrapped in my hair. With my blade in hand, I hobbled toward the battle, each move stinging across my leg. At once, my hair pulled me back. I looked around to find it was still locked on the animals I’d shackled down behind me.
“Reed, Kahlo, stab him!” I shouted. A knife had to work. I lifted my blade to toss it to them just as the cheetah leaped at me. I rejoiced, but it bit into my arm. I bellowed with excruciating pain and fell to my knees, the weapon dropping from my grasp. I shuddered and hit the animal in the face with my other hand, poking it in the eyes. But the sharpness throttling down my arm catapulted me into a world of pain, my eyes tearing up. Shaking all over, I cried out as Gage fell out of the sky and smacked to the ground feet away, slumped and beaten.
“Gage!”
Faye was in the arms of the eagle man and landed next to him with the grace of a bird. Her twisted lips curled upward, and she snatched a handful of Gage’s hair and dragged him to his knees. He didn’t make a sound, yet his defeated expression said it all. She grabbed a knife from her belt and pressed it to his throat. “Stop!” Her voice echoed around us. “Or he dies.”
The cheetah released me as if on command, and I cradled my hand, gnawing on my lip to ride the hurt. Except my heart split when I met Gage’s eyes. A gash under his eye had blood smudging his cheek. More littered his body as he stood there in only his pants, his gaze hooded.
Reed and Kahlo stepped back from the lion, who stumbled, likely due to his bleeding neck. The beast raised his head and roared loudly. Two more shifters around me pulled free from my hair. If we had more time, we’d eventually weaken White Venom.
Then stab the fucker in the heart.
From within the town, crowds of people watched, clearly terrified and keeping their distance.
My world spun as I stared from Kahlo to Reed to Gage, battered and injured but ready to fight to the end.
“Little girl.” Faye’s stare pierced through me. “I’ve underestimated you for the last time. Release everyone from your hair. Now!”
Gage grunted as blood trickled from the blade pressed to his neck. Panic gripped me, and in my head, I called to my hair.Release them. Free them. Please.
My insides died at seeing the terror in Gage’s expression.
“Don’t hurt him,” I pleaded. “Let all three of them go and I’ll go with you willingly. Please.”
“Just fucking do as I say before my hand slips!” she shouted.
The white lion approached her side, already shifting into his human form, and in no time he climbed to his feet, naked with blood dripping down his chest from the gashes around his neck. The sight of him sickened me.
“You protect these three shifters, but they’re bloodthirsty animals.” He belched, his nose creasing.
“And you’re any different!” I hissed, my arms stiff by my side.
He cracked his neck. “I admit I’m a fucking prick who loves to kill. But the animals you’re protecting will do the same. A lion butchered my family in front of me with no mercy because my father dared disagreed with his pride hunting down humans. For my parents’ good deed, they were killed. So fuck them all.” He growled, his shoulders hunching forward in a pose of attack. “Every shifter is a beast and deserves to be controlled. They will grovel at my feet.”
I shuddered, unable to believe him. He had condemned so many for retribution against a few? “You’re a fucking hypocrite.” Anger boiled deep inside me, churning, hungry for destruction. “You butchered my father, doing to me what had been done to you, so how are you proving anything, you psychotic bastard?”
He shrugged and half-smiled, wiping away a line of blood rolling down his chest. “Sacrifices. Some had to be made in the process. And you were a nobody who had no family, so you wouldn’t be missed. Now you and your hair are an integral part of my success. You should be proud of that.”
“Fuck you!” My throat thickened. Hate smothered me until I couldn’t see straight.
