Cursed by Destiny (WG 3) (40 page)

I stared at my pale skin in the mirror, gripping the sides of the sink before I smashed my reflection to bits. “No,” I answered. “No, I’m not.”

•   •   •

The last few minutes were the longest of our trip; even Ying-Ying couldn’t keep still. We were anxious, infuriated, and ready to fight. The moment our plane rolled to a stop, we sprinted toward the helicopter with Tye leading the way. No one was there to greet us; only a note taped to the window with coordinates to Chaitén anticipated our arrival.

What we found in Chaitén was devastation befitting a world war. A thick cloud of gray ash resembling fallen snow covered the entire town and coated the air like a fog. Tye ascended up the mountain where all the vegetation lay completely destroyed. Rows and rows of demolished and still burning trees rested on top of one another like discarded Lincoln Logs, casting light onto the charred remains of dead
weres
and the darker clumps of ash that had once been vampires. Some trees stubbornly remained erect, like giant black candles continuing to smoke.

The terrible batlike screech drew our attention toward the volcano, where fire shot into the heavens from several different directions.

“I
really
hope that’s just the volcano erupting,” Bren said.

“If only,” Tye muttered. “Shit, and supposedly he’s weaker now.”

Tye continued upward. Remnants of motorcycles and helicopters littered the area like a metal graveyard amid a burning world. Only one patch of hidden forest remained untouched: the Alliance base camp. We’d arrived.

I didn’t see our wolves or Taran, but several members tending to the injured stood and pointed frantically toward the volcano.

Tye adjusted his transmitter and gave me a tight smile. “Looks like we’re on. Anyone who’s not ready needs to get off now.” He hovered above the camp while I scooted into the back and opened the door.

I motioned toward the exit and then to Chang and Ying-Ying to make them understand. “This is your chance to save yourselves. We’re going after Ihuaivulu now.” They smiled kindly, yet stayed put. I clasped my hand over my eyes and tried to snuff my welling tears. Chang and Ying-Ying had been my teachers and tormentors, but they’d also become my friends. All my life I’d carried the weight of protecting my sisters on my shoulders. Now I carried theirs as well. I dropped my hand and clenched my fists. “This is not your fight. You should go.” They stood together and maneuvered around the seats. But instead of jumping, they bowed.

Chang patted my shoulder. “Proud,” he said.

Ying-Ying nodded. “You good girl.”

They returned to their seats and tightened their belts. I shut the door as Tye took us to the skies. My gaze took in the determined faces of those I loved.

Bren and Danny comforted Emme and Shayna. I wanted to tell them they didn’t have to do this, that I would gladly die for them instead. I also thought to inspire them somehow. They had, after all, jumped on board the Team Celia train. Without hesitating and without so much as a glance back, they’d followed me into danger. They’d trusted me to lead them and yet I couldn’t form the words to tell them what their actions meant to me.

“I . . .”

Danny’s eyes glistened. “We love you, too, Celia.”

I leaned my palms against the door and dropped my head.
God, please keep them safe. Don’t take them yet. The world is a better place with them here.

Tye took a sharp right turn—hard enough for me to clutch the seat—and spoke into his mouthpiece. “I want to stay as far away from Ihuaivulu as possible. Emme, when we get near him, use your
force
to launch the stone.” She nodded and reached into her pack to retrieve the stone. I joined him in the front and wiped my sweaty palms against my tank top. He smiled and flashed his dimple. “Don’t worry, dovie. We’re going to make it. Our cubs are destined to rid the world of evil. That means we get to stick around to conceive them.”

I shook my head and sighed. Tye was in for a rude awakening, regardless of whether we made it or not.

The terrible bat screech bellowed with enough power to shake the helicopter. All hell broke loose at the summit.
Weres
thundered over the ground, attempting to herd what could only be described as, well, a seven-headed fire-breathing dragon.
Oh, my God.
Ihuaivulu’s immense form trumped most three-story buildings and his long lizard necks made him seem larger yet. Red flames funneled from some of his mouths while the others swallowed the guerrilla-looking vamps shooting at it.

Ihuaivulu whipped his tail and struck the rider of a dirt bike. The rider flew and slammed into the side of the large hill, his broken body unmoving. I screamed when I realized it was Misha . . . and that Ihuaivulu was closing in fast.

The two Geminis and Liam arrived in wolf form and tried to intercept the winged demon. If the wolves were afraid, they masked their fear well. They fought with ferocity and rabid fury, nipping and ramming Ihuaivulu in an attempt to distract him and get him to chase them. But it was no use.

I lurched toward the back and wrenched open the door. “I need to get off
now
!”

Tye maneuvered the helicopter toward Misha. I leapt out the moment we passed above him. My body dove straight at him with my hands outstretched. The moment my fingertips felt the tease of his leather jacket, I
shifted
us through the hill and up to the top.

Misha sputtered out dirt when we surfaced. He stared at me, momentarily stunned until his arms locked me in a tight embrace. “You came back to me,” he whispered. The ground rumbled beneath us and knocked us on our sides. We scrambled to the edge. Below us, Ihuaivulu tore his head free from the hill where Misha had lain unmoving.

He pulled me to my feet. “We must leave—now,” he urged.

My jaw clenched tight. “Not yet.”

Tye maneuvered the helicopter for a second pass. The fire-breathing mouths followed, snapping their omnivorous jaws in search of more prey. Tye dodged and veered his way around the flames, but his jerking motions worked against us. Emme fell out of the front, where she had prepared to launch the stone from. It plummeted from her grasp when she grabbed onto the skids. Bren climbed out to help her, but she couldn’t hold on. With lightning speed Ying-Ying dove after her. She contorted herself around Emme and bounced away from Ihuaivulu like a rubber ball.

They were safe, but the others were not. Ihuaivulu slammed one of his heads into the helicopter and catapulted it out of control. Bren, who was hanging to the skids,
changed
and leapt to the ground after the fallen stone.

The helicopter crashed away from us yet didn’t explode. The main rotor continued to spin as Tye and Danny emerged as beasts with Shayna and Chang on their backs. They zigzagged to avoid Ihuaivulu’s flames, but they’d landed too close to him and needed help. I was about to charge toward them when a stream of blue and white fire shot at Ihuaivulu with the fury of hell.

Taran emerged on a hilltop opposite us, hovering above the ground with her crystal eyes fixed on Ihuaivulu. She screamed as meteors of fire tore from her core and at her target. The demon caught the balls of fire and swallowed them whole. Taran was in trouble.

And Emme was there to save her.

My youngest sister raised the large hunk of twisted metal that was once that copter with the full gamut of her
force
. She grunted and screamed with her hands above her head. Blood trickled down her nose and tears streaked her deep purple face as she levitated the aircraft above the ground. Ying-Ying jumped wildly and fired out words of encouragement as Emme’s burden shook from her strained efforts. With one last primal scream, Emme thrust the helicopter at Ihuaivulu. The spinning rotors took off three of Ihuaivulu’s heads moments before the rest exploded on top of him in a giant burst of light.

The excited hollers and howls of Alliance members were short-lived. The remaining heads ignited the entire area into a raging inferno. “
Retreat!
” a vampire screamed just before flames engulfed him.

Misha grabbed my hand and we raced back toward the camp. We swept in about the same time Gemini and Liam charged in. The others hadn’t returned.

Gemini’s two wolves became one. He and Liam
changed
and rushed to us. “Celia, where is everyone?” Liam asked.

“I don’t know. We got separated.”

Gemini’s dark gaze whipped back toward the smoking forest. “I’m going back.”

Misha intercepted him. “Don’t be a fool. The entire area is on fire. If they survived they will return in time.”

Misha’s words, although true, did nothing to calm me. My eyes darted around frantically. I didn’t see anyone I recognized. Just when I thought I would lose it, Taran appeared. The blue and white flames protecting her form withdrew back into her core, allowing Gemini to gather her in his arms. She wept openly while Gemini led her to me.

Taran threw her arms around me. “Oh, my God, Celia. I thought I’d never see you again!”

My voice shook. “Taran, did you see anyone else?”

She glanced over her shoulder at Gemini. “No one else came back?”

He placed his arm on her shoulder. “No, but we need to give them time.”

I pushed my hair back and paced, trying to avoid staring at the
weres
around me. Horrid scars covered the vast majority. Some had limbs completely burned off while others were swathed with heavy dressings to protect their fresh wounds. The few vampires that remained appeared unharmed. They must have dodged Ihuaivulu’s deadly fire. Had the creature’s flames even grazed them, they would have joined the heaps of ash surrounding the mountainside.

The injured watched me, fear and pain claiming their distorted features. None of them seemed familiar. None were who I longed to see. A horrible sense of dread claimed the pit of my stomach and twisted my gut. “Are Aric and Koda . . . ?”

“They’re alive, Celia,” Gemini answered me quietly. “The ones with the greatest trauma have been moved into the tents.”

My knees buckled when I once again took in the
weres
with the missing limbs. They waited out in the open, not in tents . . . which meant they were the ones in better shape.

Taran draped her arm around my shoulders. “I’ll take you to them. But Aric especially is not . . . well.” She led me to the rows of tents, pausing outside one of the larger ones.

The flaps of the tent opened as the Elders exited. Anara regarded me with his usual distaste, while the others met me with a mixture of sadness and compassion. I took a deep breath before stepping inside and tried to imagine the absolute worst.

Nothing could have prepared me for this. I gasped in horror. It was all I could do not to scream.

Half of Koda’s body blazed with angry red blisters ready to burst, but the rest of his body was in far worse condition. His right side resembled thick charred leather, patterned much like the scales of a snake. His right eye had swelled shut and he’d lost an ear. And his hair, once long, thick, and silky, now lay singed or was missing from the sections of his burnt scalp. He hunched over in agony.

And still he’d fared better than Aric.

The top and sides of Aric’s hair had vanished, devoured by the seared indentations speckled across his scalp. His face, neck, chest, and arms were brutally damaged. He’d lost the first two layers of skin in some parts, and all three in others. His ears—
my God
—were nothing more than shrunken pieces of deformed flesh. And where his right eye had been, only a patch of burnt skin remained. His left eye moved to where I stood, shrouded beneath an alarmingly swollen slit.

The wolves watched me closely, but didn’t move. Taran leaned in close to whisper. “Ihuaivulu’s power was too great. They’re slowly healing their infections and pain, but the scarring . . . appears to be permanent.”

Shayna’s heart-wrenching sob made me jump. She staggered past me to fall kneeling before Koda. “Oh, my God, no. Puppy,
no
!” Her screams pounded my chest like vengeful blows. She reached out to him, but pulled back. Her eyes swept over his burns, unsure whether to touch him.

Koda pulled her onto his lap, subjecting himself to obviously excruciating pain. Yet he didn’t care. He just wanted to hold his mate. Shayna kissed his lips and cheeks, weeping hysterically. He tried his best to comfort her, but it was no use. She hurt as much as he did.

Aric’s ruined face met mine, yet I couldn’t bring myself to go to him. My hands balled into fists and tears leaked from my eyes. I trembled with the force of my rage—livid for the pain he’d endured and for how he would continue to suffer.

I wanted to scream from the injustice. Aric had honorably protected the earth, and
this
was his reward?
Fuck. YOU!

My tigress eyes replaced my own and hatred filled my rampant heart, scorching the edges of my soul and demanding I destroy anything in my path. My beast roared inside me, clawing and biting at my rib cage.
Kill
, she demanded.
Kill!

Taran gripped my wrist. “Celia . . . Celia, are you all right?
Jesus
. Celia, just breathe, honey. Just breathe . . . Oh, God. Honey, please calm down . . . I swear we’re going to get through this . . .”

My own personal hell raged inside me. I didn’t know how to control it, or whether I wanted to. And then the ground quaked, hard enough to shove my tigress aside and pull my human side forward.

Ihuaivulu, that wretched son of a bitch, was nearing.

Misha stormed into the tent and spun me, grasping my shoulders tight. I tried to toss him, but he held strong and thrust his face in mine. “Now is not the time for mourning, Celia. Bren is back with Emme
and
the stone.” He shook me hard when I tried to break free. “
Listen to me!
We have the power to finish this. Do it.
Now
.”

My mind struggled through the vile fog twisting and distorting my thoughts.
The stone. The stone is back.
I bit down hard on my lip until it bled and snapped me out of my misery.