Broken Moon by Laken Cane

Chapter Twenty-Three

The exsoloup’s mind had gone long, long ago, and there appeared little left to make him wily or thoughtful in any way. He ran on desperation and self-preservation and was fueled by hunger, rage, and the need to be, for even a little while, his wolf.

My pity was strong, but not nearly strong enough to slow me. It was just enough to make me even more determined to kill him. Killing him would not only protect the wolves but would put him out of his misery.

When one of his claws shredded the side of my face—just missing my eye—I had the horrible thought that this was how other exsoloups were made. A scratch, a bite, at attack that didn’t quite kill the wolf but turned it.

Everything extra about me kicked into high gear and I fought like I’d never fought before, working on pure instinct. My wolf aided me, adding a dark, fearless rage that rivaled the creature’s own.

None of us were human, and we didn’t think, fight, or fear like a human. I became somewhat feral when I fought, but how else would I survive it? I wanted to live.

Once, when we’d tumbled and rolled down the hill, claws, teeth, and blades slashing desperately for something vital that would end the other, I flashed on a startling image and my brain filed it away for later.

The warrior wolf in charge—William—and the female guard were standing a good distance away, watching. They hadn’t shifted, as they knew better, and they made absolutely no move to help me. I was pretty sure they hoped the creature would kill me.

I’d never been in such a vicious fight. I’d never even seen such a vicious fight, and I’d spent the first fourteen years of my life in a wolf pack. The creature and I both fought with everything inside us because we knew that one of us would have to die, and neither of us wanted to be the one.

I no longer thought I’d been foolish to take on the monster alone. This was what I did—well, one of the things—because this was what my ex-alpha had turned me into when he so cruelly hobbled my wolf. That was not a natural act, and I was not a natural person.

I’d dropped my machete. We were too close for such a big blade, but that was okay. I had my demon blade and my wolf. He didn’t scream again, and I suspected he’d used up too much energy on it the first time. He was weak, injured, and starving.

And that was why I beat him.

Turned out I didn’t need the machete after all. I put all my weight behind my blade and forced it through his bony chest wall and into his heart, and at that instant, I felt something inside him pop.

An electric pain traveled through the hilt of the blade, through my fingers, and up my wrist, and though the power of it tried to throw me off him, it also held me fast. I didn’t know if it would rip off my arm or suck me into his wide-open mouth, and for an endless few seconds, I wished it would rip off my arm, because the pain was just…horrific.

I felt my wrist bones twist and stretch, felt them break and reknit, then a hot gush of something thick and sizzling burned the flesh of my fingers, hand, and forearm, and I actually saw the bone beneath the skin.

We were frozen, the creature and I, held by some ancient magic that was neither of us, and it was both of us. It was everything. Even my wolf ran to hide, whimpering in terror and agony.

Suddenly, it was over.

I was flung off the creature, but my fingers were cramped and stuck around the hilt of the demon blade and it came with me, pulling from the creature’s heart with a thick, gooey sucking sound. My breath was knocked from me as I hit the ground, and I lay there trying to remember how to breathe.

“I’m alive,” I croaked, finally. Everything hurt. I struggled to my feet, afraid the creature would come back to life before I could fetch the machete and slice off his head, but when I limped toward him and stood staring down at him, I realized he wasn’t ever coming back.

He was…crispy. Black and burned and red and raw, his dry wings crumpled and ripped and spread out around him. His heart had come out with my blade and lay in the dirt beside his body. It was small and twisted up with red and black veins, and a few long strands of white matter stretched from it to the hole in his chest.

I leaned over and severed them, and then attempted to hack the heart to bits, just in case. Before I could straighten, I lost my balance and fell to my knees, then listed sideways and finally, I was spent. Completely and utterly spent.

But the exsoloup was dead, and I had killed him. Me, a wolf shifter. I wasn’t a demon, but I’d killed the creature anyway. I think I passed out, because when I next opened my eyes, wolves were standing around me. Not just the two who’d followed me into the woods, but at least a dozen others. And most of them had shifted.

“I got him,” I told them, my voice broken and rusty. “I killed him.”

I don’t know what I expected. Maybe I thought they’d cheer and suddenly love me and lift me from the ground to carry me tenderly back to their village. Maybe I thought they’d be so happy and relieved that they’d welcome me into their pack with open arms and gladness.

They did not.

“You’re a demon,” William said, satisfaction in his eyes. “You’re a fucking demon and you’ve infiltrated our pack with your lies and your treachery.”

“What do we do with it?” the female guard asked. “Should we burn it?”

“We can’t kill it until the alpha returns and says we can,” another wolf insisted, when one of them lifted my little hatchet as though to chop off my head. “You know how protective he is of her.”

“It’s not a her,” William growled. “Not anymore. It’s a demon, and we will kill it. The alpha hates demons even more than we do.”

They argued forever, it seemed to me, and all I wanted to do was lie there and rest. I’d never felt this sort of exhaustion. Something had happened to me when I’d killed the creature, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wasn’t going to expire on the spot and save the wolves some trouble.

Finally, they decided to put me in their “jail,” which was basically a hole in a rock with a thick, silver barred door over the small entrance.

They pulled my items from my pockets and belts, dumped the holy water on my wounds and down my throat, stripped me of my weapons and clothes, then bound me with my own zip ties.

At last, they carried me away, and I did not care at all.

I was no longer conscious.