The wolf snarled at the top of the grave. I glared at him while I tried to climb the earthen wall again. He didn’t have a hand to offer down to me, but he did drag me up by the back of my shirt using nothing but his teeth.
Out of the grave, the tension in my chest snapped. I crumpled and fought back a sob.
The adrenaline was wearing off. My bones hurt and my muscles cried. The only reason it was all starting to set in was Maddox. He stood over my body like a shield. I opened my arcana to him. It poured out of me like a ball of endless yarn that he could weave into a new form.
His tail grew and hardened into bone again. Plates of bone spread over his vital points. Long teeth protruded from his muzzle. I gasped when a wreath of spectral light washed over the both of us. He was beautiful in all of his ghostly glory.
Yet, Bastien laughed in the face of it all. To me, it seemed like we were pushing him back easily. I’d found and broken his spell before it’d been able to bind me completely. Maddox had interrupted Bastien’s plan to finish burying me alive.
We were winning.
If that was the case, then why was Bastien laughing?
Maddox
The beast rippedme in two directions. Beneath me was the woman I’d come to save. Ahead of me was the friend who’d betrayed my trust. I could smell blood on Addie along with Bastien’s scent. He’d laid a hand on her, and it drove my beast to the edge of madness.
Her power wrapped around me. It gave me a form larger and stronger than I’d ever had before. This was like the day at the lake, butmore.
And my beast wanted to use all this power to rip Bastien limb from limb. I could almost taste his blood. It took everything in me to keep from lunging at him now. I wasn’t going to become a killer, though.
We would take this to court. I refused to give my beast what it wanted.
The beast realized that. It made a mad dash to seize control. My attempt to push it back was fumbling and left too many openings. The beast nimbly dodged my efforts and slid into the driver’s seat.
Inside myself, I roared angrily.
“Damn it, Maddox,” Addie cursed beneath me.
How could she tell that I’d lost control? She saw through me far too easily.
The beast glanced down at her to make sure that she was safe before turning its sights on Bastien. The growl the rumbled through this beastly body was nearly deafening.
He doesn’t deserve the air he breathes.
Your system is faulty. Even you know that.
He could walk free. There could be a mistrial from the supernatural evidence.
Let. Me. Kill. Him.
The beast’s argument was short but sweet.
I had only one response: no.
The beast tossed its head and let loose a howl that shook the trees around us.
Then I felt it. Bastien sent his power rushing towards me. He reached into me with skeletal hands, but I was not a creature that he could bind to his control. The skeletal hands of his arcana latched onto nothing before washing away.
His laughter faded. “So, this is what I turned you into?”
His words struck me unexpectedly. All this time I’d been blaming Addie for the shifter I’d become. This change wasn’t her fault, though. Bastion had been behind the undead wolf shifter lurking in her house. Bastien was the one responsible for what I’d become.
I didn’t have time to care about semantics, though. The beast launched itself at Bastien.
He threw his hand in the air.
Foolish, the beast and I thought simultaneously.Your flimsy hands cannot protect you.