Feral Passion (25 page)

“Romero!” Ulrich shouted, not answering
Raff’s question. Pushing himself away from the helping man, he
stumbled his way over to his friend.

The wood that had almost killed Ulrich had
landed on Romero.

A roar resounded through the house, a sound
that made the very hair on his arm stand up straight, the utter
pain and rage causing him to flinch. He turned away from the site
of Ulrich bending over Romero’s still body, the site of losing
someone that had been with you their whole life.

Everyone had exited the house by then, except
for the bloody, crushed body of the ex-police man, Ulrich, and
himself. As much as he wanted to let Ulrich grieve, to get it out,
they were surrounded in danger and one of them had already died in
the horror house. He wasn’t about to let his future wife’s brother
die.

Grabbing Ulrich up by his shoulders, he
ignored the tears streaming down the man’s face and attempted to
drag him out. Plaster, sheet rock, and anything else that you could
have thought of, fell from the roof of the house, the whole place
shaking. Embers danced around them, horrid, ashy smoke clogging any
attempt at breathing.

He would have got on his knees to crawl,
would have gotten them to safety, but before that could happen, a
screech from above brought his head open. “The hell…” he started,
coughing into his sleeve. He looked to see Ulrich with the hem of
his shirt pressed to his nose, cheeks covered with soot and
ash.

“I’ll kill her!” a gurtle voice rang
throughout the house, sounding as if the person who was speaking
had had his throat dragged over gravel.

Raffaele froze, as did Ulrich.

He would have turned around fully, would have
looked upon the face of a man that should have been dead. The scent
of the bastard was similar to that of the man that had been
upstairs, dead and unmoving. Now, though, it was tainted with blood
and dirt, as if it had risen from the earth.

Fire ran along the walls, even more so than
it had before. He Panicked, thinking of Mary and if she were in
danger. He was almost brought to his knees in pain at the very
thought, and Ulrich must have been having the same thought. He was
looking at the door, not as an escape, but with a warning that
proposed he was willing Mary to stay back.

“Tell me where she
is
,” the voice screamed, or maybe groaned. Raffaele
was drawn to turn around, to look upon the monster that had risen
from the dead. His hands started to shake with the effort not to
pass out from all the smoke he had inhaled.

It was so clogged up in the room, that all he
could see was smoke, clouds and balls of it, everywhere. But the
figure that lit the space inside the fog…He blinked trying to see
clearly, praying that he wasn’t.

All of Raffaele’s training, all of his
past experience in staying calm, almost fled him as he thought
about Mary. She most
definitely
hadn’t left the house—her brother was in here. He wouldn’t
have left either. What he was scared of, though, was that she would
try to come in.

Horror ran through him as he pictured her,
running into the house, finding them and this…devil. That’s what
came to mind when he looked at the firy, blurry creature. The
flames of blackness were there, as it had been on the outside of
the house, and he could only watch in acute horror as the thing
walked—more like slid—towards them.

Ulrich grabbed his shoulder, pushing him to
the door. “Go!” he shouted, turning around, holding his arm—as if
he planned to face the demon on his own.

“I’m not—“

The sound of the door splitting made both of
their heads turn. What came through the door, he could barely make
out. A feline screech rang through the room, and in seconds, the
smoking black figure was thrown back, to the ground.

A top the thing was a white feline,
splattered with black spots, eyes a glowing red. It looked like an
albino animal, but Raffaele knew it to be what it was.

Mary.

In Archaeos form.

On the devil.

Raffaele stared as red liquid dripped from
her pointed tips, the cat-like eyes blazing with pure fire as the
–supposed-to-be-dead bastard struggled under her. When the black
hand came up, blue fire sprang forth under the blackness.

His breath stopped.

His heart stopped.

And then started pounding with a force so
strong, it amazed him that he held back the shift to feline in the
time that he had. He was across the room in seconds, shoving his
bonded woman to the side, and tearing into the creature.

Unearthly sounds came from the
man—abomination—that had murdered countless woman, had tormented
his woman, and had almost touched her with the cursed flames that
made Raffaele’s fur covered.

Raffaele dug his claws into the creature's
chest, tried to get to its heart as his instincts screamed at him
to. The feel of skin and bone was a sensation short lived, when the
bitch brought his legs up and kicked. In the same clothing as he
had been when Raffaele had seen him, he was exactly as a human
was—except for being covered in flames and a gaping slash at his
throat.

He growled, launching himself at it, losing
his ability to tell what was real, what wasn’t, and what he
shouldn’t hurt. The fury was running high inside of his blood,
clouding his brain and eyes, making him see only the object that he
was meant to kill.

The object that had touched tried to touch
his bonded woman.

Had tried to
hurt
her.

Claws dug into his shoulders, claws
exactly like Raffaele’s. He gripped the things neck, tried to tear
his artery out. He wanted to smell his blood, feel it in his mouth
with the knowledge that
he had been the one
to kill it
.

He was pulled off sharply as the creature
under him kicked him off, but clawed hands reached for his face, a
murderous growl entering his conscious right before he felt the
pain of a slash at his face. Raff shoved his claws deep into the
smoking leg, making to inflict pain, to maim.

White flashed in front of him, before he had
a chance to react. A feline scream echoed, the sound of flesh
tearing from the bone telling him that Mary had taken over the
spot, more feral than anything Raffaele had ever seen in his
life.

A paw of a hand grabbed onto his flank,
yanking him back. "Don't interfere," came a rough, gravelly voice.
He looked to see Jackson, almost as tall as the ceiling, high
enough that his head brushed the top. Raffaele growled, realizing
that the bear was telling him to leave his bonded mate to the hands
of pure evil.

"I'm serious, Raffaele. Do not touch her,"
Jackson warned, slowly finishing the transformation into his animal
form. By the time he was done, Jackson was in full form, his
grizzly shoulders hunching, brown eyes trained on Mary as if
waiting for his chance to enter the fight.

Mary screeched, and Raffaele turned in enough
time to see her body fly into the wall, crashing through the brown
boards that had peeling-paint from all of the fire. Raffaele
snarled, a black claw slicing through the ground as he tried to
stay back, as Jackson had instructed.

The only reason he did so was because Jackson
looked like he knew what he was doing—and although Raffaele was
skeptical, he also knew he couldn't interfere with Mary being so
close to feral rage it was almost terrifying. Actually—it was
terrifying.

Her eyes were a deep red, blood was dripping
from her mouth, and parts of the creature were covering her in the
most gruesome site he had ever seen. For a moment, he feared that
she wouldn't get up, heart almost stopping as he stared at the
blood on her and wondering who's it was.

But, the more he looked, the more tense
Jackson became, and the more she started to glow. He looked at
Jackson, wishing that he could demand an answer as to what was
happening to her. A low growl filled the air—and it wasn't his.

Slowly, oh so slowly, she rose to her feet,
her haunches tense and her body looking tightly enough strung to
spring across the room in a second flat. Ulrich, who had gone to
try and get Romero out of the debris that had crushed him, was
watching his sister with a knowing look in his eye.

He barely held himself back, knowing that
something was completely right with her, or something horribly
wrong with her. Her graceful, white and spotted black body swayed,
yet the glow, the illuminating light that came from her, grew
deeper yet.

The whole room was silent. No one was
breathing, no one was moving, and no one was looking away from her.
The metal stench of blood seeped into them slowly, aware that death
had happened, and by the look of Mary--more was to come.

One second.

That was all it took.

Raffaele stopped breathing.

Mary lunged forward, the movement so furious,
so quick and sleek, it was as if watching a blur cross the room. At
that moment, Jackson threw something. The creature screamed, fell
back a step, clutched his chest.

The feline ripped into him with the darkest
passion, with the most cold blooded intent he had ever seen.

No longer bloody, but ashy, spewing black,
oil-looking smoke that appeared to be liquid even as it bled into
the room with a sickening stench.

The demon disappeared.

The silence was deafening.

And Mary...collapsed.

Epilogue

Life.

The very word was fragile, as if using it,
risking it, would break the word into small pieces, forever lost to
the one who had dared to push so far. But then, it held strength.
For those who believed in the force that kept the world full,
prosperous, giving life to new beings.

Precarious, dangerous, undecided. Mere words
that described life, while the actions that had ensued portrayed
them.

Death.

It was The End.

The final destination met by either
accomplishment, or failure. Who’s to decide whether you should be
worthy of torturous death, or sweet solace of the afterlife? What
had happened, if you had been sentenced to the black depths of
eternity, forever lost?

Was it by your doing?

The blade that you pulled, what had it caused
you to do?

Judge, jury, executioner, was it someone
other’s demise that you administered...or your own?

Sequel coming soon.

The End