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It only took a few moments of mindful defensiveness for Noah to realize that the screech was a cheap ploy to catch him off guard. He had known about shifters with special abilities that they kept to themselves, cradling them in the dark only to expose them during the most dire of situations.
It was excruciating, but it provided Noah with some vital information … the man was desperate.
Noah moved quickly as the ground boomed beneath him. Dustin had shifted and was chasing him while he was still in his human form. He sensed the crowd had dispersed as he pried his eyelids open to the sight of a drooling, rabid monster.
Noah leapt out of the way of Dustin’s jaw in the nick of time, his brain feeling like a balloon ready to burst. He shed his remaining clothing in an explosion of fabric confetti, his ailing head instantaneously healing as he settled into his bear skin.
Dustin may be insane, but he still managed to move swiftly with an agility Noah could recall. He charged him again but began swatting with unkempt claws, a blind shadow-boxer.
“YOU WILL PAY!”Dustin screamed at Noah in his mind.
The quick shift was dizzying to Noah, who needed time to get his bearings. He couldn’t give Dustin any more of an upper hand than he had already given him. He slashed in the air, successfully clapping the back of his paw against Dustin’s fervent jowls.
He thundered to the ground. Noah retreated toward the forest and away from the village. Dustin was insane enough to follow, stumbling onto all fours with a crimson streak of rage in his eyes.
“COWARD! YOU PATHETIC COWARD!”
“WE DON’T NEED TO DO THIS, DUSTIN!”Noah roared back, edging the mouth of the forest.“SUBMIT, AND WE WILL SETTLE THIS WISELY!”
Noah used his words as bait, which successfully drew Dustin away from the people he loved most. He galloped toward Noah again, thrashing his front paws in the air, ignorant of any concern for precision.
Noah did not want to kill the man. Murder was wrong despite the violence that seemed to come naturally to many of his kind. He was angry about the threat the man held over his head, not so much for himself but for the sake of Becca.
It was Becca who flashed in his mind when he tripped Dustin and watched him tumble down the small hill and into a pile of leaves. The frost crawled over the brownish-gold droppings, a cold and bleak sculpture of death.
Noah followed him down, and he did not let Dustin climb to his feet that time. He lunged quickly and with intent onto the bony bear, who was slobbering all over himself as Noah pressed both of his strong paws against his fragile windpipe. He snarled at his opponent, staring deep into the eyes that he wanted to believe had once possessed a soul.
“YIELD, DUSTIN!”Noah begged. “YIELD! YOU HAVE LOST AGAIN! LET US DISCUSS THIS LIKE MEN!”
Noah had chosen mercy over brutality, which was the modeled choice of a sage alpha. What wriggled below him was no alpha. It was a sad sack of frail bones and hatred.
Noah felt grief purge his heart for a fraction of a second, easing some of his weight off the squirming bear below him. Dustin took advantage of his sympathy by using the ragged edges of his back feet to slash down Noah’s back like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Noah cried out as Dustin sank them deeper. He had to lift himself from his enemy to break free from the rusty swords, thudding onto his back and crunching through the discarded leaves.
Dustin took his chance then to end it. He soared upward with supernatural speed and zest, his mouth open wide, ready to gnaw at Noah’s windpipe like a dog on a bone.
But Noah was ready for him.
He unsheathed his own claws, which were sharp and polished, and took a single swipe through the air just before Dustin crushed him with his flimsy frame.
Blood spurted out like a fountain, staining the frost a radiant red. His unnourished body crashed onto Noah like shriveled vines. The heat from the blood poured over his fur. The only sound emanating in the forest was his own wheezing breath.
“NOAH!”
Becca called to him. His beloved. His sun and moon and stars.
Noah pushed the lifeless body off him, his back throbbing with long searing waves of pain, and stared up at the sky.
“Becca,” he croaked to himself. “I love you.”
Noah’s blood loss was staggering, pulling him into the velvet dark as someone crunched through the forgotten leaves of autumn.
EIGHTEEN
BECCA
She stared at him while he lay in the bed. Her stomach jumped in her throat, having lost track of how long he'd been asleep. It felt like it had been days.
