Shift Into Me (Werewolf Shifter Romance) (The Alpha's Kiss) (16 page)

Looking up at him, I noticed – somehow for the first time... probably because he spent most of our time together fish hooking me – that there was a pendant around his neck. A flickering amethyst, or something like it, that seemed to burn with a strange, unearthly flame. Who could possibly be arrogant enough to keep a summoned demon’s soul bound to their own chest?

Well, I guess if someone was arrogant enough to summon one in the first place, obviously
.

For a second, I stared at the little gem as Damon roared and stomped and flailed his arms wildly at the walls and the windows. He ripped down curtains with such force that the rod didn’t bother to bend before it snapped clean in two. He grabbed either shard and clawed at his face with those huge hands before ramming the curtain rods straight into the wall and then turned back to me, nostrils flaring and shoulders raised to his ears.

“Oh doesn’t he look
strong
?”

Carrell looked at me with a sick, repulsive grin that made my stomach twist. “You’re going to love this. Danness, make him flex those big, strong arms.”

On cue, Damon screamed and flexed his silver arms. The look in his eyes was so pitiable that he almost looked scared, but then when I gave him another second of a glance I realized it was pure rage flashing through in semi-second bursts when the demon’s clutches loosened.

But what the hell was I supposed to
do
? I barely had control over my borrowed arms and legs, and I could hardly even fight the old wolf who had me pinned down and was twisting my jaw. My eyes focused on the little pendant dangling from his furry neck.

I have to get that thing. Have to get it and... break it? I guess? I don’t even know.

My hands started shaking. Muscled, hard forearms still felt alien to me but even so I was glad it wasn’t my body in here. That would have been quite a mess.

“How do you like my puppet, girl?” Carrell twisted again, sending a shock of pain all the way through my neck to my toes. “Isn’t it a wonderful trick? Watch this one.”

“Danness,” he called again to the otherwise empty room. “Make the boy Alpha pick up a chain and wrap it around his own neck.”

“No!” I shouted, writhing again, uselessly. “Leave him alone! Kill me instead!”

“What good would that do? I can either kill a meaningless pup... remember of course that no one will ever know what happened to sweet little Lily... you don’t look quite yourself at present.” He dragged me several steps closer to Damon who screeched, flexed, and picked one of the silver chains off the ground.

The stench of burning fur and skin hit me almost as hard as his yelps of pain. I watched only for a couple of seconds longer until Damon, struggling with his own muscles, brought the silver links near his face and I just had to turn my head.

“Oh, why do you stop watching? Look, look little girl,” Carrell said, his voice warbling and insane, “look what’s happening. You’re witnessing a sixty year plan coming together. Isn’t this exciting?”

He winced. “What
is
that horrible noise?”

I looked up at him and realized that somehow, he was hearing Wilton’s continual and increasingly frantic muttering. Even as Damon wrenched back and forth again, writhing as the silver burned crisscross patterns into his chest and neck, the sing-song like chanting grew louder and louder inside my head and, apparently, in Carrell’s.

“It’s
awful
,” he said. “Screeching, burning in my head, I don’t...”

His fingers in my mouth loosened just a little, and I bit down. For once, it wasn’t Damon shrieking. The old warlock librarian swore at me and recoiled, yanking his hand away and swinging a wild punch that caught the side of my head, but bounced off without doing any real harm.

Quickly glancing at Damon, I saw him gripping the sides of his head, clawing at his own face. “Lily... I can... I can feel you in me, Lily... get out! Don’t let them hurt you! She’s... that woman is ripping my mind apart!”

“You leave him alone,” I growled at Carrell as I slid around another of his wild, flailing punches. Somehow, it was like he was moving in slow motion, or that I had sped up. “Get out of his head!”

Slashing with Hunter’s claws, I caught Carrell on the side of the face, dragging my elongated nails down his jaw. He screeched and turned away just in time to catch a knee in the side.

“You have no power in this world, child,” Carrell hissed. “No power at all.”

I shot my hand out as fast as I could, wrapping my fingers around his throat and squeezing as hard as I possibly could. The way he strained and groaned, I thought I finally had him, but then a second later I felt a hard thump in
my
stomach, one knee and then the other slammed into me, knocking my breath out in a violent whoosh that burned my lungs.

“Why do you fight? What is the point to all this? You can’t win!”

Another hard kick to the ribs made me bite down on my tongue. I tottered, rasped in pain, but somehow kept my footing. Once again, the smell of Damon’s pain reached my nostrils, but instead of feeling pity that time, nothing but pure, seething rage coursed through me.

It was like adrenaline mixed with gasoline and then lit on fire. Every nerve in my body flared with each new cry, each new yelp, that came from Damon’s mouth.

“Danness! Make the Alpha hang himself! This girl is getting out of hand, time is short!”

My stomach lurched all the way into my mouth.

Damon threw the chain with such force that it broke through the cheap plaster ceiling and wrapped around a support beam. “Lily,” he grunted, gasping for any air he could get inside his lungs. “Lily, go... go and tell... the pack...”

Hellfire flashed in my eyes. I wasn’t going to leave him. Not then, not ever.

Sweat ran down the sides of my lupine face. I clenched my jaws so tight my teeth ached with strain. I imagined biting into him, of all the things, sinking my teeth in and...

Damon shrieked again, wrenching himself harder up into the air and broke my concentration. It also broke Carrell’s.

“Yes! Yes! Stretch his neck!” he squealed like he was in the throes of the deepest pleasure imaginable.

He threw back his head, laughing. The pendant dangled between his collarbones.

With my vision blurred, and tinged with red, I lunged.

The second my clawed hand closed around that little purple jewel, I yanked as hard as I could.

In one instant, the entire world exploded, melted, and twisted. I was the epicenter of an eight-point-five earthquake, the singularity of a black hole in the middle of the universe. I squeezed my eyes shut and held the purple gem in the center of my hand.

It burned, but not like silver on Damon’s skin. Not like putting my hand in a fire.

The flames licked my insides, slid along the back of my eyelids and when I opened my eyes, I felt the color leaking out of me and onto everything I looked toward.

Carrell howled a laugh, then howled in agony.

A fist – Damon’s fist – connected with his jaw and sent him sprawling.

“Lily!” Damon shouted. “Lily! Come back to me, come back to...”

It’s you. You’re you again. What’s happening to me Damon? I can’t see, can’t feel, I’m... slipping.

As he grabbed me and shook my shoulders, I felt myself moving off the floor, standing up and wobbling back and forth. A second later, leaves crunched under my knees.

My vision swirled backwards and with a crack that must have been audible, I was back in the scrub trees outside the cabin. I looked over at Wilton with my mouth hanging wide open.

“Lily,” he whispered. “The doll, where is it? You’re—”

“Quiet!” I snarled, despite myself.

The voice wasn’t mine.

I was a puppet. My arms moved without my thinking, but I knew everything that was going on.

“How does it feel?” a voice echoed in my head. “Good?”

It was that woman, that demon, whispering in my mind.

“It’s about to get a lot better. Give in,” she said. “Stop fighting me. You can’t anyway, all you’re going to do is hurt yourself.”

“Lily!” It was Damon’s booming, savage roar I heard that time.

And then the crack of splintering wood.

And then purple flames, gliding along my fingertips, behind my eyes.

And then... nothing.

––––––––

R
age ran through Damon, his veins all full, pumping in his head, throbbing behind his thoughts. That goddamn demon was out and loose and he was going to murder it before it hurt Lily.

Damon’s fist smashed into Carrell’s jaw again, just to make sure he wasn’t getting up. The old wolf stirred, then went still.

Running to the window, he stared out the cracked glass, wondering if he’d been the one to break it, but not caring all that much. On the outside of the clearing, just past the start of the scrub trees around the cabin, was the old man he vaguely remembered from the pack meeting, and next to him, he saw Lily, who was
floating
.

Every muscle in his body ached.

Looking down at his chest and forearms, he winced at the burned scars that still prickled with pain even though his memory failed after the demon appeared in his mind, drowning out his beloved before the chains seared him for the first time.

“You okay?” Damon crouched beside Hunter, rolling his friend over onto his back.

Hunter shrank before his bones creaked and twisted back into his more familiar human shape. His pulse was fine, he wasn’t bleeding, and Damon had other things on his mind.

“Damon?” Hunter said. He stirred as the Alpha turned to peer back out the window. “What the hell happened?”

He shook his head. “No time to explain. Are you okay? Anything broken?”

“Jaw feels like hell,” he answered. “How’d I get in here? I don’t remember—”

“Lily possessed you and used you to try to save me from the demon.”

Hunter snorted a laugh. “Businesslike in the worst of times. Is she okay? Is everything—”

“No,” he interrupted Hunter. “Somehow the demon switched from me to her. I don’t really understand what’s going on, but there’s only one way to solve problems that’s never failed me.”

Damon cracked my knuckles.

“Stay here. Watch him – make sure he doesn’t do anything. I have a feeling that after I get rid of this demon, the rogue wolf won’t be much of a problem, but since I’m not so clear on exactly how to get rid of her without killing my mate, there might be a few tense minutes.”

Hunter nodded and pulled himself up with Damon’s help. He had a slight limp when he crossed the room to check over Carrell, but seemed otherwise fine. “Damon,” he said.

“You’ve got a way of interrupting me right when I’m about to jump out the window,” Damon said back, desperate to get to Lily.

“I don’t care what anyone says, what anyone does.” He urged me to turn to face him. “Anyone who would go through this for their friends, for love, or whatever other reason you have for chaining yourself to a chair and letting yourself be burned to absolute hell like that... you’re the only Alpha I’ll ever answer to. As far as I’m concerned, you
are
the Skarachee.”

Damon froze momentarily.

“Really?” he asked. “You mean that?”

Hunter nodded.

“How long have you known me and how many times have I lied?”

Damon studied his friend’s face. “Thanks,” he said. “For some reason, when Lily tells me that, or Poko does, it feels like they have to. With you...”

“Go,” Hunter said. “I’ll watch the asshole. You go help Lily. Something’s going on out there.”

Damon turned away from Hunter and finally ran to the window. Lily hovered about six inches off the ground, with her head laid back and her brown curls cascading down the sides of her head. Wilton was fighting to hold her down.

He drew his claws into fists and edged closer to the cracked pane.

“Help!” the old man shouted. “Damon! Anybody! Help!”

A switch clicked in Damon’s brain. Unleashing a roar so wild that it shook the house, he backed up two steps, and charged. Damon hit the window like a furry cannonball.

Glass exploded around him, spraying the ground in front of his landing, and crunching when his feet hit. A thousand tiny cuts dug into him, but there was no time for that, no time to think.

As he charged his levitating mate, his skin contracted around the shards of glass, pushing them out and closing the wounds they left behind.

With the moon overhead, he felt a little surge of energy. But the reality of not knowing what he was going to do to save his love hit him hard in the stomach as soon as he saw her prone, helpless body begin to rotate.

“Damon, oh Alpha, thank the spirits you’re safe... those scars... are you hurt?” Wilton extended a hand which Damon ignored.

“I’m fine. What do I do?”

The old man’s hand shook, hanging there in mid-air between them. “I don’t know, I... I just don’t know. I’ve never actually seen someone with an ability like Lily has. Heard plenty of stories, of course, but never seen...”

“She was inside Hunter,” Damon said. “Lily snapped back to her own body.” He shook his head as he tried to make sense of what was happening, listing everything he could think to list. “The rogue is in the house, unconscious, Hunter is back on his feet, I’m back in my own  head, and we know the demon has Lily. What else do we know?”

Wilton just shook his head in disbelief and Damon grabbed his shoulder, jolting him out of his stupor. “Talk! You’re the shaman.”

“Yes,” Wilton said. “But you convene with spirits. I’ve not known a spirit-talker since the elder Pokorann. When the answer isn’t clear, let those before guide your hand, Alpha.”

“There can’t... there’s not enough time,” Damon said, with a break hitching in his throat. “I’ll just—”

“Just what? Attack her? Ravage her body in hopes that somehow shredding your mate will save her?”

Damon looked down, still trying to think. He closed his eyes, but no voices came.

“Let them come to you, Alpha,” Wilton said. “Open your mind and listen to the voices, to the trees. The only way to save Lily is to disturb the demon, but for that we must find the object that binds her to the present reality. Without it, she—”