Awake
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When the cold steel touched my flesh, I let out a gasp of surprise, and Lero looked back to see me in the arms of one of the guards with the rest of the company behind me. Frantically, my mind pieced it together. It was a ruse! The fleeing men had been following a plan to leave out the back of the room, silently creep back to the entrance we had burst in through, and come at us from behind!
But Lero had charged forward, so they only had me.
"I wager this woman is important to you, eh, beast?" The captain had drawn his sword now, and he was pointing it at Lero, who was in the middle of us. "If you want her to live a little longer, you'll have to stand down."
"Don't listen to him!" I yanked at the arm holding me, but that was a futile effort. I could feel the strong guard's hot, stinking breath on the top of my head. He probably outweighed me by eighty pounds. "They won't kill us. We're too valuable to Eaves."
"Believe what you want to believe," the captain said, speaking to me and then looking back at Lero, who was frozen in the middle. "It won't make her any less dead when my man cuts her throat. My advice: don't move a single ratty hair on your hide. Men," he called to his cadre, "take her to the holding."
With his words came the reinforcements, a fresh batch of a dozen more guards who ran into the room from behind the captain and moved forward with him as he began to walk toward Lero. All of their footsteps sounded together as they marched to take the werewolf.
The guard that was holding me started to walk me backwards, moving with the rest of his men towards wherever they planned to lock me up until the Baron could have another crack at me. And Lero...what would they do to him?
I struggled mightily against the arms holding me, but the guard squeezed me painfully and held me still. I panted against the pressure of the knife at my throat, picturing in my mind how I had done this very thing to Jed only...gods, an hour ago, perhaps?
Now I just had to watch as Lero was surrounded by the captain's men.
"Don't try anything," the captain said to Lero. "It won't get you anywhere. Eaves just wants to—"
Lero let out a snarl at the name, and it made one of the jittery guards near him jump. Scared, the man lashed out and slashed Lero across the arm with his sword.
And then any semblance of calm and order was shattered.
Lero roared and swung the back of his wolfish arm at the man who attacked him, catching him hard across the collarbone and neck and flinging him against the unforgiving stone wall. He hit it with a sickening thud and crumpled to the ground. Then Lero swung around and slashed his claws across the chests of the three guards separating him and me. Blood flew through the air. Their bodies dropped heavy to the ground, and Lero looked at the men holding me with murder in his eyes.
I heard choked gasps from the group of guards holding me, and then I was thrown to the side while the guard who was holding me tossed his dagger to the floor and drew his sword. My head slammed into the stone wall, and my eyes flashed with light while nausea coiled in my stomach from the pain.
"No!" The captain yelled as his men charged Lero. One poorly-timed thrust was easily dodged by the nimble werewolf and Lero clamped his jaws on the man's shoulder and dragged him to the ground, leaping off the rug as the rest of the guards collapsed in on him. He hurdled them and sprung off the wall, landing back on the rug and between the two groups. The guards who had been containing him righted themselves and hurled themselves at Lero, taking wild swings at him and forcing him against the wall.
I struggled to get up, supporting my weight with the wall. The guards who had been holding me were charging into the fight with Lero. I searched feebly for my dagger before realizing it had been stripped when I was taken. I saw a small blade on the ground; the dagger that had been at my throat just moments before. I reached for it, determined to plunge it into the neck of one of these sorry fighters.
The guard captain was seething. His eyes landed on me, seeing me grab the dagger from the ground. "First rank!" he shouted above the noise of the battle, "Kill the woman! The werewolf is the one Eaves wants!"
Lero roared, but he was pinned and bleeding, slashing and biting and shoving against the men sapping his strength with each bladed blow.
The world shifted into a hazy, half-paced speed. I saw the three men closest to me turn, all carrying long swords. Their blades were clean now, but soon my blood would stain them. And Lero couldn't save me this time.
I pulled in a breath and smelled the blood in the air. I'd never been this close to my own death. The Baron didn't need me...just Lero. They'd kill me, and Lero would be outnumbered twenty to one, and that would be it. They'd take him and Eaves would torture him until he had everything he needed from Lero. He knew the indisputable truth now. There was no reason to hold back.
We were foolish and hotheaded. Now we would pay the price.
I tried to move, but I felt like I was in thick water. Sluggish and slow, like the world that was rotating slowly around me. I would not get away.
I thought of my hand in the moonlight, and the small change that had shocked me so much. I thought of Lero's face, looking at me with wonder. Those bright green eyes like dazzling, flaming emeralds. Those same eyes that were set into a snarling muzzle. Those same eyes that looked into mine while both of us were on the forest floor, together as one, meeting like long-lost fates. Those same eyes that were about to watch me die.
No!
Everything slowed to a stop. I heard my heart beat once, powerfully, in my chest, a thump that felt like it must rattle the very stones of this castle out of their foundation. I breathed in the bloody air and felt it fill my lungs. I looked at the shining blade just feet from me.
And I leapt.
Power! It nested in my legs and sprung me forward and up, over the heads of my enemies and behind them. I landed lightly on the carpet and opened my mouth to laugh at the foolish looks on their faces as they spun, but it came out as a throaty spray of breath.
I had no idea where the energy inside me came from, but it had to be used or I threatened to explode. I swept forward and it felt like I was flying. Before the lead man of the trio could hope to react, I smashed my fist into his jaw and felt it shatter under my hand like ice. He dropped like a stone and I crowed in delight, looking for my next target. His two cohorts swung at me with their blades, but they were laughably slow. How could I ever have felt threatened by these buffoons? I ducked under their attacks and knocked their heads together, and they joined their friend on the bloodstained rug.
“She's one, too!” The captain was pointing his sword at me. “Don't just stand there! Take her! The Baron will want them both!”
And then time slowed down again, because all the eyes were on me, even those green, green eyes that I loved so much. And I finally turned my gaze to myself to see that my power was painted on my body, bursting through my clothes, shaping me into someone...something else. A werewolf. Gods above, it was true. There was a monster in me, and now it was out. I bristled with gray fur; sharp claws; deadly teeth.
"Myra..." Lero's voice, hoarse and hurt, brimming with awe. "You've awoken."
A lesser version of myself might have stopped there, captivated by my own changes and what this meant. But I had no interest or concern there; I was urged along and filled with purpose. The overwhelming need to use the strength rippling through my body to get myself and my mate to safety and pursue the threat that hid within these walls.
I let loose a piercing howl, the pealing tone rising through my throat on pure instinct and filling the room with fear. If these men thought they could contain me, they were dead wrong. I dashed forward into the thicket of men that were pinning Lero against the wall, tearing through them. My claws met chainmail and flesh and shredded both. One or two of them slashed me across my back and sides, but I was too close to them for them to be able to take any real swings, and the pain was easily ignored. I snarled and beat them away until Lero could pull free from the wall, and then the two of us bounced back onto the rug.
It was now the remaining dozen or so guards ahead of us, with the three I had taken care of still crumpled on the floor behind.
This time, when the bloodied and beaten men ran away, it was for real. Weapons were dropped, clattering onto stone and bloodstained fabric. Their screams bounced around the walls of the room even after they were gone, retreating out of the rear arch on the wall like their lives depended on it. As they did.
And then it was just the captain left, defeat scrawled all over his face. He held his sword weakly at his side and stared at the two of us, side by side. Two impossibly strong and ferocious werewolves on the trail of revenge.
"Enough." He dropped his sword. "You've killed my men. You've turned the rest yellow and shame-faced. I...I cannot fulfill my duty."
Lero snorted. "Then leave."
"No one will be leaving."