Masked By Danger by Christa Wick

Chapter Thirteen

Dirt cloggedIris's mouth and nose. Her throat convulsed. Her gut twisted with a choking need to vomit as fat clumps of soil and grass cut off her supply of air.

Unidentified things wriggled and crawled against her tongue and gums, nestled themselves between her cheeks. A heavy knee pressed on her spine, pinning her body in place.

A hand threaded through her hair, jerked her head up.

Spitting out dirt and insects, Iris found herself staring straight into a long, deep hole.

Two unfamiliar males positioned fifty-gallon drums next to the freshly dug grave. Thick rubber gloves covered their hands. The liquid sloshing inside the barrels hissed each time it breached the bung cap and kissed air.

The liquid had an acrid smell to it, but the stench was nothing compared to the odor coming off the two males handling the barrels.

Their foul, reeking flesh was the least of Iris's worries. Hank Mercer was going to kill her, put her in the ground, then destroy the evidence and her scent with some kind of acid.

Before that, he would degrade her. With his pants already unzipped, Hank's plan on how to humiliate Iris was obvious.

His claws ripped at her pants, shredding the fabric and the first layer of skin beneath.

"Kill her already," one of the helpers shouted. Sweat poured down the man's face despite the cool weather and stiff breeze.

Damn, she wished the air would blow in a different direction. She needed to think and she couldn't with the stink weighing so heavily around her.

It was worse than the dirt she had swallowed or the insects. Her stomach convulsed with the need to vomit, the physical imperative to empty her stomach eroding any chance of formulating an escape plan.

"Why?" Hank laughed. "Not like this bitch is gonna shift on me."

That was it—the reason Iris would soon be dead. She couldn't shift and Cade Mercer wanted to spend the rest of his life with her anyway. Hank had other plans for his son.

Big plans.

Hank expected his only child to replace him as pack leader, to maybe even become clan leader one day. And that would never happen with Iris by Cade's side.

Flipping Iris onto her back, Hank shredded the blouse, gouged channels in her pale, soft flesh. At last, she experienced a sensation capable of blocking out the foul odor of the other men.

Iris screamed.

Pain rolled her eyes back in her head, but not before she saw one of the two outsiders staring at the blood, his mouth slightly ajar and a quiet, mesmerized smile plastering his face.

Something about the twisted smile adrenalized Iris. She swung a fist at Hank's head, every ounce of her flagging strength focused on landing one last shot.

Her hand connected with Hank's cheek. The blow only doubled his rage. He punched Iris in the face, his fist landing like a sledgehammer.

The cartilage in her nose snapped slow and wet, like green twigs stepped on after a morning rain. Blood spurted a crimson plume. Droplets landed in her eyes, her entire vision painted red.

One of the outsiders, the sick bastard who had been watching with fascination, kneeled next to Hank. He had a knife of some kind, long and with a blade more narrow than she had ever seen. Bending toward Iris, he reeked of a thousand corpses.

She was about to be a thousand and one.

"Silver?" Hank snarled when he saw the man's dagger. "You dumb ass motherfucker! Get that the fuck away from me!"

Ignoring Hank, the man stuck the edge of the blade against Iris's throat. Its blade felt dull, but her skin immediately began to heat and tingle from the contact.

The sensation quickly spread along her body, zipping and humming in her head and along her limbs. The fine, almost invisible hairs on her neck and arms rose as if she were standing in the middle of a field during an electrical storm.

The tips of her fingers went numb, then blazed white hot. The air around her cracked and sizzled. The two strangers fell to the ground, their bodies engulfed in blue flame. Light of the same hue danced in the palm of her hand as she reached for the abandoned blade.

Hank reached it first, wrapped one meaty hand around the hilt, then buried the tip deep into the left side of Iris's chest.

Searing heat engulfed her flesh. The air whooped as it exited the pierced lung. With another zap of energy, the light jumped in a tight ball from her palm to break Hank Mercer's nose and flatten one cheekbone.

His head snapped back. His stunned body fell to the side. Pulling the blade from her chest, Iris rolled toward Hank and slammed the entire dagger, point first, into his gut. She yanked the blade from side to side, the thumb of her other hand trying to gouge its way through Hank's eye and into his brain.

Shrieking filled her ears as the two other men burned. The flames jumped from the body closest to her to the barrel filled with acid. The air turned poisonous, burning her eyes and throat as the acid bubbled along the rim of the barrel's cap and the entire container bulged.

Releasing Hank, Iris tried to stand, every neuron in her brain firing with the command to RUN as fast and far as she could.

Her legs wouldn't obey. They folded beneath her. She clawed at the ground, pulling and pushing, her torso thumping against the dirt like a landed fish.

A hand seized her ankle. She looked over her shoulder at the murderous gaze of Hank Mercer, respected pack leader and father of the man she loved.

"I'll kill him if you come back," he snarled. "Him and that bitch grandmother of yours..."

She kicked with her free foot. The shoe connected with Hank's broken face. His grip slipped. Grabbing the hilt of the silver blade, he pulled it from his stomach, the flesh protesting wetly as it was forced to release the metal.

He was healing faster than Iris could hope to match. Tears of pain, still tinged scarlet from the blood spilled, filled her eyes as she forced her legs to lift her mass and move forward in a stumbling race away from certain death…