How It Was by T. S. Joyce
Chapter Nine
He was close.
Nuke’s monster smiled inside of him, fully aware he was about to be released from Nuke’s tight control. He was going to get to kill again. He was going to taste blood again. He’d been waiting for this moment, and oooooh, it was a good hunt.
Something was coming for him. Something in the sky. This felt like before, and he hated it. He was going to kill everything again.
The bear was slowing down. Nuke pushed his legs harder. This was a fun hunt. Start human and then change at the end, watch the defeat settle in the bear’s eyes. Asshole had clocked him across the jaw. Shattered his hand, but it served him right. The bear was limping bad, slowing down, slowing down…
Chills rippled up his spine as something big flew over him, blocking out the moonlight. He could see the shadow drift over the uneven woods he was running through. Big wings.
Fuck. He was so close now. So close to Divar’s bear. The monster could almost taste him.
Time to change and show everyone in these woods who the fuck he was. He pushed his legs faster and bunched his muscles, felt the first crackles of the change, and then something slammed to the ground in front of him, blocking out the woods because its wing span was huge.
He locked his legs and the monster inside of him disappeared. Just…gone. Nuke couldn’t feel anything inside of him but shock.
A black horse stood there, blowing frozen air from her muzzle, dragging a charcoal gray hoof through the dirt. She had wings. She had wings? Huge black wings with feathers the color of a raven. What the fuck, what the fuck?
Confused, Nuke snarled. Get out of my way.
The winged animal reared up and let off a piercing scream before she slammed her hooves back to the ground. She shook her head, and the tresses of long black hair on her mane shook to the other side. The eyes—they quieted him. He’d seen those eyes before. And on the horse’s face was a long, dark-gray mark.
A birthmark.
Shoulders heaving, he asked, “Trina?”
The mare drew her wings against her side and made her way to him, clop, clop, clop, clop. Her hooves sounded so loud in the silence that had fallen over the woods.
Trina wasn’t anything he would’ve guessed. She wasn’t a mouse. She wasn’t submissive, at least in this form.
Her green eyes were clear and trained on him, and held no fear.
She blew out another whinny as she reached him, and when he tried to brush his fingertips on her nose, she flinched back and trotted a tight circle before she returned to him.
Aaah, the animal didn’t like touch. Was her human side the same? That was okay. He dropped his hand to his side and backed away until his shoulder blades hit the thick trunk of a tree.
He’d been seconds from a change. Seconds from killing everyone within miles before he could force the monster back inside of him, and now look. Where was the monster? Stunned into stillness.
Trina. Was. Beautiful.
The bear roared through the woods, but he was far away and no threat to either of them. Nuke would kill him before he was able to get a single hooked claw into Trina’s perfect coat.
Pitch black, her fur shone in the moonlight.
“It’s finished,” he murmured, knowing exactly what she’d done for him.
Nothing else could’ve pulled him off that hunt. Nothing else could’ve saved this forest from his fire.
He sat down and leaned his head back against the rough bark, eyes trained on her.
Long legs, powerful chest, glossy hooves, ears perked up, eyes lightened, wings tucked tightly.
“I’m not supposed to exist,” he murmured. And with a small smile, he said, “You aren’t either.”
And now she had his attention like no one on earth ever had before.
Who else could understand a shifter like him?
Who else could understand the monster?
Who else but a Pegasus?
