Feral Wolf by Caroline Peckham

26 hours until the FIB arrive…

 

A storm was tearing through my body and a fog of thunder and lightning cracked and sparked inside my brain. Fire bloomed in my hands and licked across my skin, urging on this murderous beast in me, begging me to let it out. I was insane, was I? Well okay then, let’s see how insane I could be.

There were prisoners everywhere, but they scattered at the sight of me, making no attempt to engage me in the fight they could see in my eyes. They were all afraid, tiny little crawling crawlers who had no spines, nothing but jelly in their bones. I wanted to crush it out of them in my fist, feel it ooze between my fingers and laugh while I did it. This rage in me wouldn’t leave until it ripped me open and clawed out the eyes of any unfortunate fucker to get in my way.

“Fight me!” I bellowed as I rounded the stairs onto level six, but there was just a squeaky little mouse man there who turned tail and ran. I pounded my fist against my chest in time with the thrashing of my angry heart, it was a war drum, a call for blood. But no one answered it.

So I dropped my hand and turned back into the stairwell, marching up it with intent as I twisted the fire in my hands into furious beasts with horns and sharp teeth.

Rosalie hates me.

Rosalie thinks I’m crazy.

Rosalie’s going to leave and I’ll never see her again.

I was gonna be alone down here for eternity, rotting in the dark where even the scum of the world turned their back on me unless they could get something from me first. When I shifted into the form they desired, then they wanted me, then they’d come closer. But I didn’t want to be the prison’s whore anymore.

Rosalie had liked fucking me as me. I’d liked fucking her as me too. No one ever wanted this body when they could have their favourite movie star or Pitball player fucking them instead. My mother had left me in the trash and everyone I’d ever fucked had done the same the moment they were done with me, the moment I turned back into myself.

Maybe it was the curse of an Incubus or maybe it was just to do with the fact that I was plain fucking unlikable. Too different, too odd. Jerome had beaten up one of the boys in our foster home because he’d called me a freak. And while my brother had been doing that, I’d been putting gnarler beetles in the asshole’s pillowcase as a special night time surprise. Those were nasty little buggers who would crawl in your ears and up your butt and lay all of their eggs inside you while you slept. If I was a freak, then what did you call the guy who had beetles crawling out of all his holes? Beetle Butt, that’s what. No one even remembered his real name after that.

Dammit, I missed Jerome. I missed Rosalie. And I missed the rest of The Daring Anacondas too.

I let out a sigh. It was over. My pretty little dream wrapped up in a bubble of hope had been popped and now I had to go back to reality. Reality sucked Griffin ass and I didn’t want any part in it. I’d spent so long in isolation, I knew how to disappear into my head, but maybe I didn’t wanna go back to fantasy land in my brain. I’d had a taste of fantasy in my real awake life and now it was gone. Gone, gone down the drain, never to come back again.

“Hold still, you little slut,” a harsh voice reached me from the corridor leading to the Magic Compound.

“I’ll kill you! I’ll bite your dick off if you put it anywhere near me! I’m a taken woman,” a girl snarled in reply.

I extinguished the flames in my hands, rounding into the corridor as bloodlust slicked over my tongue and I felt the urge to kill sizzling deep into my core.

I recognised the girl pressed to the wall as Laura Metz, one of the Oscura Werewolves, and the big guy holding her there was one of Sparkle’s gang, Glitterpuff. He had a tattoo on the back of his neck of a rainbow which ended in a gold pot that was overflowing with blood. The words I’ll send you somewhere over the rainbow were inked colourfully beneath it.

Glitterpuff fisted his meaty hand in Laura’s hair and a coldness trickled through my veins that left me numb and as calm as a lake’s surface. Beneath it lurked the danger though, the crocodile in the dark. And my jaws were about to snap, snap, snap this fucker up.

Laura struggled to get free but I realised her hands were bound behind her, frozen in ice and Glitterpuff had an ice dagger in his hand which he pressed to her kidney.

“I heard your so-called mate was a married man,” Glitterpuff taunted her. “You’re just a little stalker who tried to kill off his true mate.”

“Shut your face!” she roared. “He’s going to come down here and gut you with his claws. He’ll tear your skin from your bones and eat what’s left of you, you dickwad!”

Glitterpuff laughed as I crept up behind him, my breathing slow and steady, my fingers twitching with the need for death. Anyone’s death. But mostly his death.

“Well I hope he does, because I’ll enjoy bending him over and driving my stallion cock into him while he screams and-” Glitterpuff’s words were cut off as I locked my fingers around his throat, my palms scolding hot and searing the flesh from his bones.

He wailed as I threw him to the floor and his blade melted as I surrounded both of us in a circle of hellfire that was so hot, it made him scream.

He raised a hand to heal the damage I’d done to his throat, but I kicked him in the face to stop him, leaping on top of him with a growl.

He tried to get up, but I kept kicking and burning, the fire drawing in around us like it was hungry for a taste of his flesh and I let the flames have what they desired. He wailed and thrashed, trying to use his water magic to douse the fire, but he was nowhere near as strong as me, and as I used my air magic to hold him down on the ground, I caught hold of his jumpsuit in my fist and leaned down so I was nose to nose with him.

“Burn, baby, burn,” I purred.

Fire crawled from my skin into his, but he wasn’t made to withstand the heat like I was. He screamed and fought and tried to cast another blade of ice in his hand to help him, but it melted under the intensity of my power and I smiled wider and wider as he realised the fight was already won.

“Why!?” he cried as I burned him from the inside out and the outside in, cooking him in my hands.

“Because the world doesn’t want you anymore, you rapey slug boy,” I snarled and he gargled on his own blood as I let the fire consume him, walking away and patting down the singes on my sleeves as I strode towards Laura.

She was pressed to the wall, staring at me with her jaw slack and eyes wide like she thought she might be my next victim. But her crimes weren’t the kind I cared to punish. I liked to watch evil bleed out and die at my feet. This girl was unhinged, but my hinges had been removed a long time ago, so I wasn’t one to judge.

I tipped an imaginary hat to her and carried on down the corridor towards the Magic Compound, hunting for more prey. One kill wasn’t enough to sate me and I had a feeling that even if I burned the whole world down, I would never feel right again.

I was out of the band. A shitty bass player tossed into the gutter. But Rosalie would sing on with her guitarist Roary, drummer Ethan and keyboardist Cain, and maybe she’d find a new bassist soon. A better bassist. Someone with an even cooler name than me, like Fox Harlequin or Saint Memphis. Damn, those were cool names. Did Sin Wilder even stand a chance against them? I doubted it. Especially not when the new guy always played in tune and knew how to match the rhythm. I’d always been playing my own song, and Rosalie had figured it out in the end. I didn’t fit. Never had. There wasn’t a keyhole for my key. I was destined to be like one of those winged keys in Harry Potter, flapping around with nowhere to go, just a shiny decoy that had no use once you caught hold of it.

I don’t wanna be a flappy key.

I made it to the Magic Compound and found the door busted open, though there was only one person inside - besides several dead bodies on the ground. Plunger was standing in front of the wall that divided the two halves of the compound, naked and jiggling his ass as he drew a picture on it with what looked like a potato and his own shit. It smelled bad and I didn’t really wanna stay, but as my gaze set on Plunger and my upper lip peeled back, I realised I’d found my next victim.

I stalked closer, a tiger in the grass as I approached him with intent. My angry heart was starting a riot in my chest, but there was no one else in there to join him for the anarchy. The lonely little dude was missing the heart it had fallen for and it felt like it had a few jagged pieces now. Pieces it was using as shanks to stab the inside of my chest.

I noticed Plunger was drawing Darkmore on the wall, every level of the underground prison sketched out with surprising skill considering it was drawn in his own faeces. He was humming and jiggling his ass as he worked, oblivious to his death creeping up behind him.

As he started to add the huge dome on top of the prison, I fell still, my gaze riveted to that part of the drawing. My mind was a steam train in that moment and something about this image was making a little man shovel coal into the fire to get the train going. It began moving out of the station as my lips parted, wider and wider as I stared and the train picked up speed, steam billowing from its chimney and I gasped.

“Choo choo!” I cried and Plunger snapped around with a yelp.

“Oh my gonads, what in the world are you doing a-creeping up on me, sir?” Plunger demanded as he backed up, a poo-tato still in hand.

“Don’t you see it?” I growled, pointing at the dome. “Look! Don’t you see?”

“I see our fine, sweet lady of a prison there, Mr Wilder, but unfortunate-lai I don’t see your point.”

“Oh Plunger, Plungey, Plungeberry pie! Look! Look!” I jumped up and down, my heart doing a skip and a bounce and putting down its sharp weapons as it saw what I saw. A way to get out, but better than that, so much fucking better, a way to make Rosalie forgive me!

I let out a squeal and turned around, sprinting back out of the compound as fast as my legs would carry me and hearing Plunger racing after me.

“Is something the matter?” he called, but I ignored him, turning into the corridor and moving faster, leaping down two, three, four steps at a time.

“Mr Wilder!” Plunger called, trying to keep up but no one could keep up now, I was casting air at my back and under my feet, and suddenly I was flying like a canary down a mine.

“Rosalie!” I cried. “Rosalieeeee!” I slammed a hand to my mouth, realising the prison people were looking for her and I had to be smart. Had to be the cleverest shrew in the clan.

“Rosalie went up to the Magic Compound!” I shouted instead. “She’s up at the compound!” A few of the Fae I passed raised their eyebrows and started heading that way. No one engaged me though. I was moving too fast, flying over their heads and spinning on the wind like a torpedo as I sailed down the stairway.

When I reached the corridor leading to the Belorian’s holding cell, I did a fly by past it three times before I shot up the hall, which unfortunately meant old Plungey caught up to me. But he was just a naked Mole and he was already a part of this breakout plan. Plus I could still kill him if Rosalie wanted him gone. I’d just snap his Moley legs and break his Moley neck.

I landed in front of the door and started knocking on it frantically.

“Psssssst. I’m back,” I whispered.

“Fuck off, Sin,” Roary barked and my heart flinched, but he had reason to harbour angries at me so I tried again.

“I’ve got an idea,” I said brightly.

“You and your ideas are our biggest problem right now,” Roary snapped.

“Just let him in,” Rosalie said and my spirits lifted. I could still be useful. I had a use!

“We can’t trust him,” Roary said in a low voice as I pressed my ear to the door.

“Well I’m not leaving him out there.” The door opened and I came face to face with Rosalie, her eyes still full of anger and her jaw tight.

I swallowed the rising lump in my throat then dropped to my knees in front of her, shuffling closer. “I know what people say about me is true. I know I’m crazy. I know my thoughts don’t all line up in a row of geese – or dogs – or whatever the saying is. I know I’m a lot and I know I do things that don’t make sense sometimes.” I shuffled even closer, staring up at her as a frown creased her brow. At least she was listening, so I grasped onto that and went on. “I know I don’t always make good decisions, but when it comes to helping you I try to make decisions which seem like good decisions. But I’m not always the best judge of those and I think I fucked up. Well, I know I did. Because you’re angry at me and I think that’s the worst thing because it gives me all this pain right here.” I pointed at my heart. “It kind of feels like a steak knife in my chest, sawing off little pieces of my ribcage. Um, anyway, to sum up…shit, I’ve lost it. What was I saying? Hang on, let me start again,” I said, my neck too hot and my brain all scrambled. She was so pretty. And not just face pretty, soul pretty. I wished you could snap a photo of someone’s soul because hers would be the most beautiful fucking thing I’d ever looked at, and if I had a picture I could keep it in my pocket forever. I’d seen the Solarian royal jewels once and they had nothing on her. I mean, it was in a photo I’d peeked on through an old guy’s window, but they were real twinkly and they had nothing on the twinkliness of Rosalie’s essence.

“Sin,” Rosalie sighed and I shook my head, wanting to get this out right.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry like people in movies are sorry when they’re standing out in the rain and have flowers and there’s music and stuff.”

Roary came into view beside Rosalie, flicking his fingers so a storm cloud appeared above my head and rain started washing over me in a torrent.

“Thanks, buddy,” I whispered and he scowled.

Rosalie’s fingers twitched too and a bouquet of wildflowers grew in my hand. I grinned at her as she folded her arms, waiting for me to continue and Plunger started singing Kiss the Girl from The Little Mermaid behind me. Roary sniggered, but Rosalie’s eyes were fixed on me and I wanted to fulfil the need burning in them.

I could do this. The movie thing. I could pretend to be a movie star who was bold and handsome and perfect. I was an Incubus. Pretending was what I did best. But I didn’t wanna pretend when it came to Rosalie. So I just stared at her and tried to say this in the only way I knew how – with my words jumbling and everything not quite making sense.

“You’re a star, the brightest one I’ve ever, ever seen. Brighter than the sun and all the other stars combined,” I said. “And I wanna worship you every day and every night and have my fate ruled by you. I want my horoscope defined by you, I want every prediction in my life to be your choice, to rest in your hands. But I’m just a Fae, so I make stupid decisions even when fate tries to guide me. I fail tests, I make mistakes, so many fucking mistakes, wild girl. But I’m trying. I’m trying so hard and sometimes I think I was made wrong because I always seem to do the opposite of what people think I’m supposed to do. But I’m back here again with another idea, and I think this might be a good one, but maybe it’s terrible, so maybe you can decide that instead of me?” I offered her the flowers she’d grown for me and she took them with a snort and a slight shake of her head.

She schooled her features quick though, clearly still mad and I couldn’t blame her. I’d fucked up like a salty cornflake that had snuck into the cereal box.

I was kneeling in an ever-growing puddle of water and Plunger was still singing as I started to shiver.

“Come in,” she sighed at last, heading away and Roary scowled at me as he banished the rain soaking me.

I stood up, trailing water inside and flicking my fingers to dry myself out with my fire magic. Plunger followed me through the door and Roary shut it firmly behind us before grabbing my arm and yanking me close to him. A silencing bubble slipped over us as he spoke in a low, aggressive tone.

“I told you what I’d do if you ever fucked her over again, Wilder,” he hissed and I nodded, guilt washing through me.

“One more chance?” I pleaded and he frowned, clearly not having expected me to say that. “Pretty please with a cherry on top? And whipped cream. And a pineapple.”

He growled angrily, a vein pulsing in his temple.

“Roary, let him go,” Rosalie called and I looked over at her as she sat on a wooden chair she must have cast there as the rest of our breakout gang gathered closer. Cain was glaring at me like he wanted to rip my throat out and Ethan wouldn’t meet my eye.

Little old Hastings was sitting in his floor corner, still tucked away in a silencing bubble so he couldn’t listen in, but he was more a part of them than I was right now.

This was a scene I knew well. I was the outsider who they mistrusted, but this was the first group of people it had happened with that I actually cared about.

“Don’t make me regret this.” Roary released my arm, dropping the silencing bubble and I walked over to the group as they closed in around Rosalie on her chair like they were protecting their queen.

Roary took to Rosalie’s left side while Ethan stood on her right and Cain lingered in the shadows behind her. They were a unit, a force to be reckoned with and I wanted to be a part of it again so bad it hurt. My gaze slid to Hastings again, his eyes haunted as he looked at me and I offered him a small wave. When he returned it, I smiled like the Cheshire Cat. Hello, little guard friend.

“So what’s your idea?” Rosalie asked tightly, the flowers now resting by her feet.

I cleared my throat as Plunger moved to my side and Rosalie glanced at him with a flicker of distaste in her gaze before turning her attention back to me.

“The dome that surrounds the Order Yard is charged with more magic than any of us could even imagine conjuring at once,” I started in a rush of words. “It’s big too. So big. Which means there’s a lot of magic in it. Think about how much magic is in it. So. Much. Magic.”

“We get it. It’s a lot of magic,” Roary hissed. “What’s your point?”

“Well imagine I’m the dome, okay?” I said and Ethan rolled his eyes, but I kept going. “And imagine Plunger is the forcefield in the ground above the top level of the prison.” Rosalie looked to him then waved a hand to cast some earth boxers made of leaves onto him to cover up his cock.

“I shall be most humbled to act as our fine Lady Darkmore’s forcefield,” Plunger said with a bow.

“Right, so my magic is in here.” I pounded my chest and Roary gave me a dry look that spoke of his impatience. “And my fingers are like little conduits for it, see?” I placed my forefinger against Plunger’s shoulder. “So we just need a big fat conduit all primed and ready to go and then-” I released a blast of air magic, sending Plunger flying across the room into a wall, making him shriek in alarm. He hit it with a smack and skidded down it onto the floor then started swearing colourfully as Hastings gaped at what I’d done in fright.

“So…in conclusion to my presentation,” I said, folding my arms. “We just need to build a conduit thingamabobbin and hook it up to the forcefield that stops inmates burrowing out from the top level of the prison then give the dome a slap on the ass to send her power zipping into the forcefield to make it go bing-bang-boom, and we can dig our way out. I mean yeah, there’ll be those worm monsters, and yeah, there’ll be the sensors in the ground and the bombs and any other traps buried out in the soil, but we’ve got magic now to protect ourselves from all that. Plunger can sniff out the bombs with his Mole nose like before and we’ll be able to fight the worms. The forcefield is our biggest issue because we can’t get through it. But once it’s gone, we can handle the rest.” I beamed, my chest puffing out.

Rosalie shared a look with Ethan and Roary, seeming intrigued, but Cain spoke before any of the others could.

“It won’t work,” he said flatly. “You’d need to blast an immense amount of power into the dome to force its energy through the conduits and even if you had ten Fae casting magic at it, it wouldn’t be enough.”

“What about a lightning strike from a Storm Dragon?” Rosalie got to her feet, turning to Cain and my heart did a dance over everyone actually taking my idea seriously.

Cain frowned. “Well…yeah that could do it, I guess, but-”

“So all we need to do is hook up the dome to the outer forcefield and blast it with lightning to destroy the forcefield,” Rosalie said excitedly, turning to me with that glittery look in her eyes again that she’d lost after her last plan hadn’t worked.

“The blast would kill everyone in here if it wasn’t done right. If you fuck up and don’t make absolutely certain that the dome’s power is all directed into the forcefield then it will find somewhere else to disperse itself – somewhere like the enormous metal lined prison we’re all standing in. Then everyone inside this place will be fried by the blast,” Cain said, shaking his head. “It would take some masterful earth magic to pull it off.”

“And you don’t think I’m masterful, Mason Cain?” Rosalie asked teasingly and he almost cracked a smile. It was like a ghost of a lip twitch and a glint of a glimmer in his eyes. I liked it.

“You’re the most masterful Fae I know.” Roary caught hold of her, dragging her against him and stealing a kiss from her lips. “But it’s fucking risky.” His eyes snapped to me. “So I vote no.”

“Oh come on, Roar, it’s perfect.” Rosalie rolled her eyes.

“I don’t think it’s a terrible idea,” Ethan agreed, glancing over at me. “Definitely not your worst.”

I grinned, looking between them all like a Labrador waiting for a rub between the ears. Or a sniff of cheese. Ooh I could really go in for a sniff of cheese right now.

“I think it could work,” Ethan added and we shared a best friends grin. His didn’t involve any movement of his facial features, but my smile was big enough to blind the room.

“It’s too dangerous,” Cain growled with a firm shake of his head. “You’re not grasping the magnitude of the power in that dome, if it escapes into Darkmore, we’re all fucking dead.”

“I can do it,” Rosalie said in a growl. “I know I can.”

“Are you serious, Rosa?” Roary hissed. “Sin is the one who’s caused the whole prison to start hunting us. Now you’re gonna go along with one of his crazy ideas?”

I winced at that word and Rosalie caught it, immediately turning and slapping Roary in the chest.

“This could work, Roary,” she insisted. “And I’m in charge, so I say we’re doing it.”

“Are you sure, love?” Ethan caught her hand, turning her towards him and pushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Yes,” she said firmly and he nodded, breaking a mischievous grin.

“Alright then,” he agreed. “If you’re in, so am I.”

She smiled at him, tracing her fingers over the mate mark behind his ear as Cain and Roary shared a look of frustration.

“Rosa,” Roary snapped and she turned to him with a growl as she met the Alpha in him with an Alpha of her own.

“My decision is made, Roar,” she growled. “We have just over a day to get out of Darkmore and I’m not wasting one more second discussing this. So you either get on the ride or you’ll be tied up and forced to go on it anyway. Because I’m not leaving this prison without you, and this is our final chance at freedom.”

Roary sighed, shaking his head in defeat as Cain started stalking back and forth in anger beyond them.

Hastings looked very confused inside his silencing bubble and I smirked at him because for once, I was on the in while someone else was on the out. I mean, I wasn’t all the way in yet, but I was sliding deeper and soon I’d be slamming in all the way up to the hilt.

Rosalie brushed her fingers over Roary’s cheek in a ‘I’m sorry you’re pissed, but I’m also the boss bitch so I’ma do what I want and you can’t stop me’ kind of way that was hella hot, then walked away from him towards me.

“Come on, Sin.” She jerked her head in a command to follow her. “We’re going to the Order Yard. The rest of you wait here until we get back.”

The other Alphas looked unhappy about being bossed around, but I wasn’t gonna fight that fight. Our girl was glowing with big dick energy right now and I was happy for her to whip me into shape however she liked.

I skipped along at her side, but she still seemed angry at me and the skip fell out of my step as we exited the holding cell into the corridor. My mood dipped as I realised she hadn’t forgiven me and I vowed on every atom in my body, I’d make sure she pulled this off and got out of Darkmore. Because I needed to make up for that sad frown she was wearing, and I’d do anything to make her smile again.