Chapter Twenty-Six
When Aurelia had made the same move against Cat, she had been inexperienced and unsure of herself. This time, however, Cat knew the steps to take thanks to Killian. After he heard of Lia’s attack in the store, he specifically taught Cat a set of moves to remove the offensive hands from her throat. They had gone over the moves for two weeks straight until he was certain she could do them from memory.
Yet for some reason the moves weren’t coming to her mind. Cat’s eyes bulged out of her head as she stared into irises the same color of blue as her father’s, unable to comprehend that her world had been turned so upside down again. Her fingers dug into the bony flesh of Quinn’s hands, reacting on pure instinct to pull away the constriction to her oxygen. The metal behind her shook as the wolves rammed their bodies into it, desperate to attack someone on the other side. Cat or Quinn? Their breath fanned against her bare back as Cat’s shirt rode up with the movement of her legs giving out from beneath her.
She gasped against the pressure on her throat, and it came out in a croak as the air fought to escape the tightened muscles.
Think, Cat. Stop panicking.
Killian’s face flashed in her memory, lecturing her to take it slow. Breathe. Kinda hard to do when you’re choking, Cat had said in amusement, which achieved a look of derision from him.
She tried to picture the gym, its padded floors and bright fluorescent lights so different from the basement. Pictured Quinn’s hands as Killian’s in an attempt to bring back the training that should have been drilled in her mind. If he had been right about one thing, it was that a spar and a fight are two completely different experiences. What had she been thinking, assuming she was ready to fight in the real world?
Quinn’s body pressed into Cat’s, lifting her slightly off the floor so her toes barely supported her own weight, and her instincts finally kicked into the flight-or-flee mode. She tensed the muscles around her neck, trying to force Quinn’s slender hands farther from her esophagus, and dropped her chin to her chest. Killian hadn’t mentioned the act would only cause the pressure to increase. Their practices had involved no real choking, but now she wished they had so she could have been prepared. Yet Cat didn’t hesitate as she dropped her hands to the woman’s wrists and pulled her forward. Quinn staggered closer, giving Cat just the right angle to shove a practiced knee into the tender flesh of Quinn’s stomach. She dropped Cat, bending over to grasp at her stomach with a moan of pain.
Cat brought the same knee up into Quinn’s perfect nose and felt momentary pleasure at the bone crunching from the force.
“Ah!” Quinn screamed and looked up at Cat from her bowed-over position. Blood poured from her nostrils and ran down her fingers. She stared at it in amazement before she stood up straight. An angry growl ripped from her model-like body, a fighting sound that told Cat to brace herself. But she hadn’t been prepared for the oversize ball of mahogany fur that slammed into her.
The weight of Quinn’s wolf sent Cat flying back into metal, and Cat vaguely registered the surprised screams of Kelly and Jessica. Her head pulsed, and stars covered her vision at the sheer force of her head crashing into the hard surface, but that wasn’t what caused her to scream in agony. Quinn sank a mouthful of now bloody fangs into Cat’s shoulder and sent excruciating pain through her nervous system. She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe, pushing at pure muscle in an attempt to dislodge the weight, but with no success.
Her only choice was to shift, so she called to her wolf with abandon. Cat welcomed the tingling sensation as her body changed, felt the strength behind her jaws as they transformed to ones of equal power to the ones continuing to gnaw on her shoulder. Her wolf let out a piercing whine of pain that quickly changed to a growl of pure ferocity when the transition was complete, now feeling the full extent of the pain Cat had been going through.
The feeling of responsibility, of the desperate need to protect, escape, and destroy at the same time, fueled Cat’s desire to win. Quinn hadn’t been ready for the shift, and Cat used it to her advantage, pushing up with her paws to dislodge the confused wolf that had gotten a mouthful of fur. They circled each other, assessing their weaknesses and strengths and weighing their options in the fight, but Cat watched Quinn’s eyes.
Killian’s words echoed through her memory. “Watch their eyes. You learn a lot from your opponent watching where they look, how they act, the wildness of their gaze.”
And what Cat saw was pure beast. Quinn was letting her wolf have complete control over the situation, probably unable to fight herself. That meant she was using instinct…and that was something Cat could use.
Quinn lunged first, her thick body pouncing across their self-made circle with fierceness. Cat ran toward her instead of away. She lifted her upper body up into a bear hug to meet Quinn in the air. They slammed into each other, ripping in with teeth and claws, drawing blood wherever they could get access. The dense fur on each of their bodies was its own form of armor, but it was amazing what sheer determination to achieve ultimate damage could do.
Every drop of blood Cat spilled only fueled her confidence in the fight, even though she could feel Quinn was drawing just as much. Her wolf growled in a mixture of agony and success with each press of teeth, every blessed piercing of her claws into Quinn’s stomach. When they started tilting in the air, Cat used the opportunity to press her hind legs harder and successfully topple over her opponent. They dropped to the floor, their heavy bodies thudding like stone hitting stone. Quinn was dazed from the impact and let out a low whine as her body took the brunt of the impact and she found herself underneath Cat’s smaller wolf.
Cat took advantage of the situation and went in for the kill, dropping her head to bite ferociously into Quinn’s throat. What Quinn didn’t know was that Cat had to kill while in the wild. Had felt the instinctual bliss that occurred when her wolf’s fangs broke skin. The delicious copper taste of blood as it gushed into her mouth. It was a connection only a predator could understand, to feel the pulse of your prey as it slowed beneath the gnawing of your teeth.
But Cat wanted her to die, and she didn’t want to feel that connection. The merging of their souls in the surrender of the lifeless. Quinn deserved nothing but vicious pain—an instant to comprehend she had lost everything at that very moment.
Cat ripped into the spot with angry vigor and pulled at the flesh and bone of Quinn’s neck until it separated from her body altogether. The gush of blood was there, as was the whine that cut off from the disconnection of Quinn’s voice box, but Cat didn’t feel her pulse fade away. Instead she watched as the light died from Quinn’s eyes. She imagined it was exactly what Devon had watched as her father died. The life drained from Quinn, and blood ran like a flood from her partially severed head, staining her darkened fur and dripping from Cat’s jowls.
A primal victory for the wolf and woman combined rampaged through her. She didn’t care that her paws stood in a puddle of blood. She had earned the right to kill the heinous Shifter lying dead underneath her. Surging with the power from her triumph, Cat lifted her head and let out a long howl that ricocheted off the walls.
It was viciously cut off by the feel of another body bombarding her from the side. She slid across the floor as a familiar red wolf landed on top of her, and Cat instantly knew. The minute Lia took advantage of their positioning, Cat understood it was over.
She whimpered as her paws, slick with blood, slid across Lia’s fur in a weak attempt to push her off. Her wolf scrambled in denial of the situation. Her claws scraped against stone and fur, trying anything to get away from impending death. The pain registered after she watched Aurelia’s head drop to her throat, but she was unable to make a sound as it was ripped away. Her ears rang as her mouth opened in a silent howl from the shooting tendrils of pain on her nerve endings. Her whole body burned and writhed in torment. Her mouth gulped for the ability to make a sound, pulling in the small amounts of oxygen she could process.
Lia’s face appeared with nothing but joy for her success in her silver eyes. Crashing and screams that sounded an awful lot like Devon’s resounded in the room, and a flash of black fur tackled Aurelia off of Cat. The relief from not having the weight of the other wolf on her was short-lived. It was nothing compared to having her own blood drain from her body, the fear and numbness that ravaged her mind.
Why aren’t I dead yet? She gazed at the ceiling of the basement. Cat could feel the warm blood trickle down her chest and neck and imagined the same blood pooling beneath her as it had Quinn. How come it had seemed so fast with Quinn?
“No! Please, Killian. You were my last chance!” Aurelia screamed from somewhere in the room before a sickening sound of flesh being ripped to shreds took its place.
Then he was there. Killian knelt over her, his hair falling loosely as he looked down at her. His face was pale, and she could see the terror written all over his expression.
“No. No no no no no, dammit,” he croaked, the pain of her own heart echoing in his voice. Cat watched his figure fade into darkness, wishing he could understand how sorry she was just from their eye contact.
Please don’t make him watch me die.