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I understood plenty, I thought, as my face throbbed, the skin tingling. I understood I’d run out of patience. I’d run out of time to play nice, to wait. To hope we could get out of this without death.
Go,I told the monster. And it wasted no time, pushing forward through me with a speed that had me jerking in the chair.
I lifted my head, let Levi see what I was. That would be his punishment, or part of it. To watch his dream dissolve in fear, in the haze of my red eyes.
Horror smeared across his face like a stain, contorting his brow. “What are you?”
“Not like you,” I said, and the monster had us rocking forward in the chair, slamming my forehead into his.
Levi stumbled back to the kitchen island, swore. He braced his hand against it, then used the other to wipe the blood now pouring from his nose.
“You bitch!”he screamed, spittle flying with rage. The words were loud enough that I hoped someone would think to call the CPD, but I’d have to protect myself before he did.
Still tied to the chair, the fabric around my hands looser from working but not yet undone, I swung to the side, trying to strike him with the tall ladder back.
It grazed him, but he just reversed the momentum, throwing me to the ground. I hit the floor on the shoulder I’d injured at the Grove, pain ripping through it again. Nausea rose, but I refused to acknowledge it.
The fall had buckled the chair. Levi came closer, lifted his leg to kick, and I gathered up all the power I could and slammed it into the floor. The chair’s back shattered. The monster in the lead, we ripped my wrists apart, sending fabric remnants flying.
Levi and I lunged at each other. He grabbed at my hair and I kicked, catching his shin and twisting my leg to shift his ankle and unbalance him. But he grabbed me, brought me down with him. We hit the coffee table, which toppled, sending pottery and detritus flying. We rolled once, twice, until he was on top of me, hands pinning my arms.
“You could have had me,” he said, lips hovering near mine, my bile threatening to rise.
“I want no part of you, asshole.”
I aimed a knee between his legs, but he blocked. The move caused him to shift his weight just enough for me to scissor my legs, bring myself to the top. I crawled away, but he grabbed my ankle. The monster kicked back, smashing fingers under boots, and reveled in his scream.
I climbed to my knees, pain radiating in a dozen places, and then to my feet, my cheek throbbing with pain with each movement.
Levi had done the same, but he’d picked up a piece of the broken chair. I hoped to god Lulu hadn’t bought aspen.
He speared it toward me. I kicked, heard his wrist snap. The stake dropped, and he leaned down to grab it again when a roar filled the air, shaking the windows.
Too late, I thought, and I could feel the magic roaring toward us from the hallway. He was coming.
“The wolf,”I said, in a voice not quite my own.
Levi, face bloodied, leered at me. “Filthy bitch,” he spat, and with speed I’d never seen before, he darted to a window I belatedly realized was open. And then he was gone.
The loft door burst open, and I snapped my gaze to it.
Wolf,the monster said again, and retreated to heal.
Connor’s hair was mussed, his shirt torn, but he was whole. And he was furious.
“It was Levi,” I said, cradling my shoulder. “Clive’s brother. He went out the window.”
Connor ran to it, looked outside. “Gone,” he said and cursed viciously. Then he turned back to me, eyes hard and cold and blue, but anger faded to relief. He strode toward me, put his hands on my arms. And then he went rigid with anger I could actually feel percolating in the air.
“He hit you.”
I nodded.
“I don’t care if he’s too damaged to have kept his conscience. He is a dead man.”
“Between you, me, my parents, and the AAM, you’re probably right. I think I broke his wrist, maybe his nose.”
“Good,” he said, then looked me over. “Come sit down. I can feel your pain from here.” He led me to the sofa, and I used his arm to lever myself down to it.
