AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Good, at least I won’t be alone.
My ears ring, and I can’t even feel my body anymore or get it to work. Its muzzle is coated in my blood, and my skin is caught between its teeth. For a moment, the muzzle lowers until those eyes are all I see.
A flash of intelligence shines in those orbs, and it steps back, releasing me with just the claw and bite marks it has already inflicted upon me.
Its head lowers, as if it’s waiting for something.
My eyes sweep around, searching for anything I can use to keep it away. Sirens cut through the air, and with one last look at me, the wolf growls. I scream as it lunges, but it simply flies over me, skidding across the hall and smashing out of the top window in the hallway.
Flopping onto my back, I watch the broken window as blue lights flash across the house, lighting it up.
Why didn’t it kill me?
Opening my eyes, I swallow hard, my throat dry.
Did it sense something in me? Is that why it turned me and didn’t kill me? Did it realise I was evil like them? Why else would a feral forgo a meal and turn its prey? I often thought the police saved me, but I was wrong. It was backing away before they arrived.
The feral chose not to kill me.
Why?
I guess I’ll never know, but I can find out what I am. Quinn looked at me with pity, while the hunters looked at me with disgust and mistrust, all because of what hides deep inside me. The thing that drives me now, as Quinn explained, is probably the feral instincts running through my veins.
The very thing I hunt is inside me.
Closing my eyes once more, I curl my hands into fists, digging my nails into my slick palms. The sharp pain makes me gasp, and the instinct to kill rises.
This time, rather than satisfying or hiding it, I follow it.
I let it wash through me, filling all those dark holes and cracks inside me.
With a gasp, I open my eyes and watch as my skin seems to knit itself together, and only a slight pink mark remains where the claw marks once were. The exhaustion in my body is replaced by energy before it recedes, and when I close my eyes and dig deeper, I find an open, rotting wound deep within my soul.
Something slides past it, something cunning, dark, and angry. Usually, I recoil, pull away, and push my body until that retreats, but this time, I open my arms and I let it wash through my body.
I’m safe here, and I can’t hurt anyone.
I reach towards the thing hiding inside me. I rip open the wound and dive into the pool of bright red blood. My hand reaches deep inside, and something reaches back—something sharp and furry.
A paw.
My back arches, and a scream lodges in my throat as that animal pours through my body. I feel my bones breaking and my skin ripping, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I woke up in wolf form, but then it seems to recede.
It settles into my skin, as if it can’t break through that last barrier, but it lingers on the surface.
I called them beasts, but as my eyes open, I realise I am the beast.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
As I cross the grassy plains of the pack, the sun warming my skin, I ponder what I just learned.
Jai was attacked, and his family was killed. It’s rare, and yes, ferals can kill, but they’re mostly animals, and the closest pack handles them. For ferals to kill an entire family, something must have gone wrong. We allowed innocents in our own community to die, and because of that, Jai, the hunter, was born.
I cannot doubt his story. I could feel his pain, worry, and sincerity.
Is Jai a wolf? Has he somehow repressed it with his own hatred?
I don’t know, but it’s clear we need to find out. If ferals were turning people and letting them loose in the human world, then it affects all of us—not just by exposing us to humans and hunters, but by ignoring the very rules we live by.
