Feral Wolf by Caroline Peckham
Eighty-Eight appeared as we stood together on the maintenance level with the Faesine Roaslie’s two adoring men had gathered for her, butt fucking naked as he ran in the door and slammed it shut behind him.
“Phew,” he sighed. “That was clo-”
The door burst off its hinges behind him as the Belorian broke through it, sending him flying through the air like a damn frisbee with a cock and he slammed into one of the large pipes that led up to the ceiling.
“Sin!” Rosalie cried in panic as he hit the ground and she sprinted away to heal him.
Ethan charged forward to intercept the Belorian, casting a huge wall of ice in front of us and I jerked against my restraints as I was left beside Sixty-Nine who had no access to his magic.
“Release me,” I commanded him, but the Lion just ignored me, standing his ground as he looked from Ethan to Rosalie and Sin with a curse.
The Belorian fought to rip through Ethan’s wall of ice and the Wolf started freezing its limbs instead, trying to slow it down, but it just kept coming and coming.
Rosalie pulled Sin to his feet before she turned and ran to assist her mate in fighting the monster. She used vines to catch hold of the Belorian’s pincers as they sliced through part of the ice wall, trying to trap it as Ethan worked to freeze her binds, but the beast just became more and more frantic, tearing apart every piece of magic they cast its way.
“Let me go!” I barked at Sixty-Nine, but he continued to stand there with balled fists, as useless as a turd baking in the sun.
Sin ran over to us, pulling on the pants he’d left with us earlier and yanking two lengths of piping off the nearest machine. He tossed one to Roary who nodded and charged forward with him, leaving me there as I growled low in my throat. The two of them started whacking any pincer that broke through Rosalie’s earth magic and I snarled as I fought to break the vines binding my own hands.
With a horrid shriek, the Belorian burst through the ice wall, knocking all of them down in one go and one of its sharp pincers tore up Rosalie’s arm.
“No!” I roared as the air was sucked clean from my lungs.
I ran forward as panic cleaved my chest open, kicking the beast’s head just before its teeth could sink into her chest, giving her half a second to get her hand up and cast a wooden blade in it. She stabbed the creature’s face and it reared away with a pitchy scream that made my eardrums almost burst.
Ethan got to his feet, shoving me aside and helping Rosalie up before casting the two of them within a solid block of ice as the Belorian came at us once more. With their heat signature missing, the monster twisted sideways and snapped its jaws at me. It had a huge fucking erection and I balked at that. What the fuck? I always thought that thing was a girl.
I stumbled back just as Roary swung his piece of piping into its face and drew its attention to him instead.
The monster knocked him down in seconds and Sin Wilder dove onto its back, hitting its head repeatedly and saying a word with every strike. “I. Thought. You. Were. My. Best. Friend.”
The Belorian shook its head, throwing Sin away from him and he skidded across the floor before slamming into a machine, leaving him dazed.
Rosalie ran out of the ice shelter with Ethan, casting two thick vines around the Belorian’s neck, using her uninjured arm to cast as she gritted her teeth and yanked its head away from Roary.
Ethan hurried to her, raising his palm and working to freeze the beast once more.
The Belorian reared up onto its back legs, slicing through the vines Rosalie had cast and knocking Ethan to the ground in a swipe of its pincers. I saw blood as he rolled and Rosalie screamed as she dove at the Belorian with murder in her eyes.
The Belorian knocked her away before she could cast and she slammed into me, throwing us both to the ground and tumbling across it. She landed on top of me, trying to get up, but wincing at the pain in her arm.
“Release me,” I commanded.
She rolled aside as she healed herself, staring at my expression and looking torn.
Ethan was back on his feet again, clearly healed as he worked to keep the Belorian back. But this couldn’t go on forever.
“Rosalie!” I barked.
She stared at me with mistrust in her eyes and maybe she was right to look at me like that.
The curse was screaming, raking up my neck and scoring across my chest as I clenched my jaw against the agony.
“Rosalie, I need you!” Ethan cried.
“Fuck it,” she gasped, flicking her fingers and the binds holding my hands evaporated.
She shoved herself upright, running back to join Ethan as Sin and Roary started beating the Belorian’s legs again with the pipes.
My gaze flicked to the place where the secret hatch was concealed in the roof as fire magic sizzled against my palms.
Rosalie cast a huge net around the Belorian and Ethan froze it tight, bringing the beast to its knees. I realised the fight was almost won and I was free, having only seconds to act.
I ran for the hatch, wishing I had access to the speed of my Order as the curse burned like liquid hellfire on the inside of my flesh. My vision darkened from the pain but I didn’t stop running, making it to the console beneath the hatch and flipping open a fake button to reveal a magical signature reader.
I slammed my palm against it and the hatch opened above me, the ladder sliding smoothly down to the floor. I started climbing it, rushing up onto the platform within the ceiling and leaning down to retract the ladder.
My gaze cut to the fight as the Belorian wrestled within the confines of the frozen net and Sin and Roary stood on top of the beast, whacking it with the pipes as hard as they physically could. The monster bellowed and shrieked and suddenly it forced itself upright, its spines ripping through the net.
Sin and Roary tumbled off it and Ethan’s magic stuttered out as he tried to freeze it once more. The Belorian swiped him away with its front leg and he smashed into a nearby tank, not moving again as Rosalie screamed as if she felt that pain too.
The beast advanced on her and every vine she cast was broken by its pincers and teeth as it closed the distance between them. The curse made my skull fill with acid and I tasted blood rising in my throat as I started to shake, fighting the urge to go back. To help. To save the girl who’d used me. But why would I do something as stupid as that?
The Belorian knocked her down and no more magic came from her palms as it reared over her, ready to finish this. Roary and Sin worked desperately to try and stop it biting her by grabbing hold of its neck and pulling with all their might, but without magic, they were going to fail.
The curse flared so fiercely within me that I was sure I was going to succumb to it right now. Blood dripped from my lips and rose in my eyes until all I could see was red. It was over. She’d done this. She’d ruined me. So why shouldn’t I watch her die before I had to die too?
Because it’ll destroy me.
I started moving, making the decision as I raced back down the ladder as fast as I could move without my Order gifts. Then I ran towards the Belorian with my palms raised and a fiery tornado building in them as I roared, “Get back!” at the assholes who were trying to take it on without magic.
Rosalie was still pinned beneath the creature, one of its pincers pressed to her stomach and with a yank of terror in my chest, I saw blood pouring from that wound.
Roary and Sin darted aside as I released the fireball from my body with so much power behind the blast that the Belorian was thrown away from Rosalie, shrieking as it was momentarily consumed by the flames.
I grabbed Rosalie’s hand as I fell to my knees, pressing my palm to the wound on her stomach and sending healing magic into her in waves. She stared up at me, pale-faced and trembling as her fingers came up to touch my face.
“I thought you left,” she forced out in a pained voice.
“I’m just working on a more dramatic goodbye, sweetheart,” I muttered.
The Belorian was recovering fast, the fire I’d cast at it sending it into a wild frenzy. Its skin was as tough as nails, but I’d clearly hurt it with that blast, so brute force might just kill it if I used everything I had. It ran at us with a shriek, its flesh blistered by my power, its eyes hungry for vengeance. There was no way I could see this girl die, that was clear to me now. Even if I hated her, she didn’t deserve death. So I’d be damned if I was going to let this beast have her.
I poured power into the final blast, knowing it was go big or go home with this monster as my magic reserves were low. It may have been built to survive Fae attacks, but surely it couldn’t withstand this much heat burning out of me, my fire full of how much I loved and hated Rosalie Oscura. There was no power on earth which could rival the ferocity of that.
The fireball exploded from me with so much force that a heatwave blasted over us, knocking us flat to the floor and I had to shield my eyes from the tremendous glare as the ball collided with the Belorian, sending it flying backwards into a tank of sleep gas and the gathered tanks of Faesine.
“Oh fuck,” I gasped as the tanks exploded and I threw myself over Rosalie as an enormous explosion ripped through the room.
I roared as I threw my hands up, using every scrap of my waning power to take control of that fire and direct it in every direction but at us, shielding Rosalie and the three assholes with everything I had. Bits of metal and dead Belorian flew everywhere and I was powerless to do anything about that as my remaining magic ran too low to try and melt the shrapnel before it impacted with someone. So the only thing left for me to protect her with was my own body.
I pressed her down, expecting the slice of something sharp to finish me at any moment and I cried out as a lump of something hot and sharp slammed into my side, sending agony pouring through my flesh.
Then, as suddenly as it had happened, silence fell, punctured only by the hiss of the sleep gas pouring into the air. Darkness pushed into my mind and my forehead fell against Rosalie’s.
“Stay awake,” I growled, knowing sleeping in this prison was a death sentence. Someone would come. Someone would find us. Find her.
“Stay awake, Rosalie,” I begged but her eyelids were fluttering closed and I knew it was no good.
“Mason,” she murmured, the sound of my name on her sweet lips twisting the jagged knife in my heart which her betrayal had put there. Her manipulation.
The gas was sweeping through the whole room, too much of it too fast. We couldn’t get out. My limbs were like lead weights as I fell over her, flattening her to the floor and hoping that if someone came here, my body would hide her from view.
As darkness claimed me, I realised the curse no longer plagued me with its insufferable claws. And somehow, despite knowing I was most likely a dead man now, I felt like I was exactly where I was meant to be.