The Wild Moon by Riley Storm
Chapter Forty-Eight
“No pressure,” I told myself, gritting my teeth. “Just get through this impenetrable barrier, or you’ll be responsible for the death of the last shifter god in existence. Not the sort of story to tell your grandkids.”
I won’t be having any grandkids if I don’t get through. Because I’ll be dead right alongside him. Probably a fitting punishment.
Heaving my entire weight against the barrier, I struggled to gain ground. It was harder than rock. Unmoving. I snatched up a nearby rock and, gripping it in both hands, lifted it over my head and brought it down on the barrier.
The impact shattered the rock, but its impact did reveal a ghostly blue dome, showing me the barrier for the first time, not just Vir’s outline of it. Though, I had no idea how I could use that information.
Maybe brute strength isn’t the answer. How did you get through it last time?
That was easy. I’d fallen through it. Hurt and wounded in the fight, my wolf’s leg had given out on me. I had tried to lean on the barrier to keep me on my feet, but instead of the solid wall, it had simply vanished, letting me through.
The sounds of combat up the tunnel grew louder.
Part of me was grateful that only I had made it through the barrier. Not Johnathan, and certainly not Aaron. It was good I’d left him and his team behind. Hopefully, they were okay, having ditched me and headed back for the city. With the time I’d spent in Vir’s lair, their contract was up. I’d have to send word to him if I made it through, let him know I’d survived.
Unless Johnathan had gone after him.
That would be just like that asshole.
Angrily, I shoved against the barrier again. Someone needed to teach Johnathan a lesson, show him he couldn’t just do whatever he wanted to whoever he wanted. Him and his asshole of a father. Maybe I couldn’t stop them, but I had a better shot of success against them than I did against whatever had killed Vir’s brethren.
“Hurry!” Vir grunted, his voice closer now.
I risked a look over my shoulder to see him backing down the tunnel. Following him was a mass of shadow and darkness, hiding the enemy from my sight. I could hear them, though. Ghostly wails filled my ears, a near nonstop sound, paired with the whistling scream of Vir’s spear as it sliced through the closest ranks, splattering them all over the walls.
“I’m trying!” I hollered back. “It’s not working.”
“Once you’re through, I can vanish,” Vir said. “If the warriors aren’t here, they won’t track me. Once you’re safely through, I’ll go.”
“Easier said than done!” I shouted.
From the tunnel entrance came a horrifying bellow that could not have come from a human throat.
“Vir,” I said uneasily. “What was that?”
“A warrior,” he said calmly. “Go.”
I shook my head. “Vir, I’m not getting through. You have to go.”
He turned to look at me, his face clouded by blue flame, but I could still see the shock written on it.
“Go,” I said. “Before the warrior gets down here. Disappear and be safe. There’s no sense in both of us dying.”
The golden spear continued to weave its impenetrable wall in front of Vir, even with his head turned.
“Danielle Wetter,” he ground out. “You are the first person or being to come through in millennia. I am not going to just let you die without figuring out how you did that.”
I sighed. “Well, then, I guess both our stubborn asses are dying then. Good job. Unless you can poof us out of here?”
Vir shook his head. “If I do, they’ll track me.”
“It might buy us some time,” I pointed out. “Enough time to figure out how I get through.”
“It won’t matter,” Vir explained. “I can only go from here to my lair. I can’t go to another place. If they find the lair, then I am exposed and nowhere will be safe. We die there, we die here. It’s how the others fell.”
“Crap,” I muttered.
“Either you go, or we die,” he said, turning back to face the wall of shadowed darkness.
That was when the first creature slipped past, narrowly escaping the golden spear by flattening itself against the wall and pushing past as his head turned.
I shouted and, without a second thought, charged the creature as it lunged at Vir’s back. I took it to the ground before hauling back with a fist and punching its lumpy, misshapen head. It wailed at the blow, so I hit it again and again.
Claws tried to scratch my stomach, but they got tangled up in Vir’s oversized clothing, and the creature couldn’t generate any force. Eventually, my blows cracked whatever it had for a skull, and it lay still.
I got to my feet and backed away until my shoulders pressed flat against the barrier.
Farther down the tunnel, a much deeper shade of black entered the mass of shadows attacking Vir. It formed into a tall bipedal creature, though I could not see much detail beyond that. Even the creature I’d killed was hard to describe, shrouded in darkness still.
What were these things?
“I take it that’s a warrior?” I asked, trying to sound calm as the dark shape came toward us.
“Correct,” Vir said.
“Can you handle it?”
“Yes,” he said with that same calm assurance.
“Good. Hurry up and do so,” I said.
“Creatures will get through.”
“Yeah,” I said with far more confidence than I felt, shaking myself out of his clothing. “I know. Let them come.”
Okay. Time to earn your keep, I called to my wolf, lifting the mental chains her that kept her restrained within my mind.
The she-bitch from hell charged forward, and my body shifted with a speed I was unaccustomed to. We howled in pain as bones changed and reknit, dropping us to all fours while we took on our true form.
We lunged at the first creature to make it past Vir as he focused on the warrior. Our speed surprised it, and we tore its throat out with ease, rebounding off it and ripping the leg out from another. Free from our constraints, we fought as one, jaws and claws tearing the enemy apart as fast as we could.
They came even faster, their sheer number driving us back. Vir had dispatched one warrior and now another, but other shapes were entering the tunnel as more warriors came.
We fought as hard as we could. Black blood dripped from our jaws, our vision dimmed with red, both from the blood blocking our vision but also from rage. We didn’t want to die, and that pissed us off.
A wave of blue fire lit up a warrior, and Vir slammed his spear through the throat of another, buying us a momentary reprieve even as the mass of smaller creatures came forward on all fours in a wave of darkness.
We stared at them, trying to pick out individual details, but it was all happening too fast to get a real picture of what we were fighting. They walked on four legs, but everything about them was so dark it was hard to grasp more specifics than that. They had a head and possibly a tail, we didn’t know.
But they died, and that was all that mattered. On and on we fought until one of the warriors pierced Vir’s defenses, rocking him back.
We howled and went to his aid. The warrior’s pitch-black blade swept down at me. We ducked under it, hitting it low in the feet, disrupting its balance. It flailed its arms, and a golden spear took it in the chest. Snarling in victory, we went after the second warrior, but before we could get to it, heat blossomed on our flank.
A moment later, pain slammed into our brain as we registered the hit of the third warrior, its blade gouging a deep line in our side.
Vir bellowed his rage and launched a new attack. Blue flame burned the minor creatures, forcing them back. They raced up the tunnel, leaving just us and the two warriors.
Launching ourselves at the leftmost warrior, the one who had cut us, we snapped and feinted at his feet, keeping him occupied while Vir dealt with the other. We feinted left, went right, only that was a feint, too, and we went back left.
The warrior was waiting, and its blade sliced a gouge down our chest, flinging us back until we smacked a shoulder against the barrier and hit the ground, disoriented by the blow.
Nearby, Vir howled and tried to come to our aid. He took a blow in the process that sent him stumbling. A warrior lifted its blade and went to deliver the killing blow.
We slammed into its feet, using our body as a battering ram. It kicked us. Hard. We bounced and rolled past Vir, who was wrestling with the other warrior. I shifted back, my wolf having had enough.
“Get out of here, Vir,” I groaned, climbing to my knees, my back to the barrier.
He kicked the warrior off him, sending it flying across the chamber, momentarily creating space between the final warrior and us.
“I won’t let you die here,” he growled, but I could see he knew the truth.
We were both dead.
I reached out and took his hand, not sure why. “I’m sorry,” I said.
He stared at our intertwined fingers. “Why did–”
The last warrior came charging in. Vir blocked him with his spear, but with only one hand to hold it, he fell back into me as the warrior pushed. I was pushed back against the barrier, my back making contact–
And we fell through it, hitting the ground on the other side.
All three of us.