AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A sniffing sound came from my right. Snapping my eyes over, I saw Leif. What I found sitting near me looked nothing like the savage and deranged wolf that had attacked me and Kira. A man in human form sat on the forest floor, clutching his bowed head, rocking back and forth. He was crying and muttering to himself, but his voice was so low, I couldn’t make out the words.
Everything in my mind screamed at me to run, to get away before he came to his senses, but something about his demeanor drew me in. My curiosity might get me killed, but Ihadto know what the hell was going on.
“Leif?” I ventured, my voice raspy. I’d kill for a glass of water. “Are you okay?”
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…” The words repeated over and over, punctuated every few seconds by another sniffle.
“What…”
The words died in my throat as I finally took in the scene around me. After waking, I’d been too focused on the fact that I’d survived and that Leif sat next to me. Now? What lay around me sent a chill up my spine. Three other feral wolves were strewn about the clearing we sat in. Two had their throats ripped out, and the third looked like its stomach had been split open, its insides tumbling out in a steaming pile. I grimaced and looked away.
On the opposite side of the clearing, a massive mountain loomed above us, casting a shadow over our location. It was the dormant volcano, one of the most iconic images of Bloodstone Island. Up a slight incline, I noticed an opening, perhaps a cave? That weird mechanical noise was coming from the entrance. What the hell was this? Could this be the place Kira had talked about? The location where Zoe and the rogue shifter were camped out at?
“Fuck you!” Leif’s scream pierced the afternoon air.
Spinning back to him, I realized he wasn’t talking to me. He glared at a tree in front of him, his eyes glazed over. His teeth were bared, and a thin string of drool hung from one lip. Something had gone terribly wrong with him.
Self-preservation won out over my curiosity. I took two unsteady steps backward, putting distance between us. On my third step, a stick snapped underfoot, and Leif jerked his eyes toward me.
“Where are you going?” He slowly rose to his feet, the madness in his eyes slowly returning.
I held up my hands in a warding-off gesture. “Hang on, buddy. Leif? It’s me. It’s Wyatt. Stay cool, my man.”
“You can’t leave.” The last word turned into a howl as he shifted.
“Ah, fuck.”
I whirled and ran, sprinting into the forest. My escape ended at less than a dozen yards when Leif’s jaws clamped down on my boot. With a wicked jerk of his head, he pulled my legs out from under me, sending me crashing to the ground. My face slammed into the forest floor and stars exploded across my vision, threatening to send me back into the dark abyss of unconsciousness. Rather than immediately eviscerating me, Leif pulled and yanked at my foot, dragging me back the way we came. Blood oozed from my nose and my head rang.
After a few seconds, I got my bearings again and realized what Leif had planned as he dragged me up the hill toward the opening in the volcano. Something about those strange sounds made me uneasy. Some deep and instinctual part of me didnotwant to see what waited inside.
I brought my foot down on Leif’s face, the heel of my boot slamming into Leif’s muzzle. Yelping in pain, he released my foot. Taking advantage of his confusion, I pulled myself away and shifted, backing away as I bared my teeth at him.
A deep growl reverberated from Leif’s chest as he lunged at me. I’d seen it coming and was prepared. I dodged to the side, bit the side of Leif’s neck as he flew past, and spun the full weight of my body to the side. Leif’s momentum and my movement caused him to tumble toward a tree to my left.
He crashed into the trunk, head slamming into the wood with a meatythwack. His body crashed to the ground in a heap. I didn’t think I’d killed him, hoped I hadn’t, but I couldn’t take the chance to stand around and find out. This was my chance to escape. I ran for it, my paws hissing over the leaves and moss beneath my feet.
Why had he been trying to drag me to that place? It made no sense. Nothing about the way Leif had acted made sense. How had he gone feral so quickly? Going feral was a long and agonizing process. What the actualhellwas happening on this island?
My thoughts were scattered as something lunged at me from the undergrowth and slammed into my side. I lost my footing and skidded across the ground. What I saw standing above me irritated me more than it scared me.
The chupacabra’s glowing red eyes glared at me. The creatures looked like scrawny hairless dogs but with bigger teeth, strange reptilian spines along their backs, and that godawful tongue. The thing hung from its mouth, twisting and writhing like it had its own mind. It could latch on and suck the blood out of other creatures, hence the nickname “goat sucker.” They were more of a pest than a danger.
Righting myself, I stood and growled deep in my throat, then took a heavy step toward the beast. It yowled at me, hesitantly stepping back. It had realized it had overstepped its abilities by attacking a shifter. Even the average human would have had a decent chance of fighting it off, but it against me? No way, and it knew it. I lunged at it, snapping my jaws for emphasis, and the thing tucked tail and vanished back into the jungle.
I shifted back to my human form and continued heading away from the volcano back toward the obstacle course. From the sun’s position in the sky, I’d been knocked out for a while. Was the challenge even still going on? I couldn’t remember if Von had given us a time limit. However long I’d been out, it hadn’t been long enough to fully heal. My body still felt like I’d been hit by a bus.
“Where goes the shifter man?” a female voice whispered from an outcropping of rock to my left.
I jerked in surprise and almost fell over as I tripped on a tree root. “Who’s there? Who are you?”
“We three. The three that be. That’s who are we.” This voice was different from the first.
From beneath the outcropping, a face slowly emerged. My stomach dropped as the thing revealed itself. A fae, but one twisted by black magic. Its skin shimmered a sickly, almost transparent white, and the eyes were completely black with no white showing. Strange red veins crisscrossed her skin. She lifted a hand with talon-like black nails. Two more faces appeared as her friends oozed out from their hiding places like snakes. All three had once been female before being corrupted.
I took another step back, my mind racing. The lead fae crawled along the rock almost like an insect, sending a chill up my spine. She was naked and smeared with dirt and debris, leaves stuck in her jet-black hair. I knew she could have cleaned herself up in seconds with a spell, but apparently she didn’t care.
Those lifeless black eyes bore into mine. “Give us the liquid of life—blood, semen, or sweat. Wonders, we can show you if you would be our little pet.”
