From the Shadows (A Shadow Chronicles Novel) (43 page)

“Believe me, I will,” she said, and then hurried to carry out my instructions.

I turned back to the door and gave my
Sibe her freedom, changing into my battle form and, after crying out a menacingly loud snarl, I charged toward it.

The vampire on the other side was surprised enough by this unexpected development to not be quick enough to move out of the way, and I pinned him underneath the mostly intact wooden door as my weight tore it out of its frame. The owner of the shaved head I’d glimpsed recovered quickly, throwing the door aside with me on top. I rolled with it, coming up on all fours and snarling at him again, leaping as he ran at me. My forepaws caught him right where I’d wanted, and I pinned him by his shoulders to the floor as I clamped my jaws around his head and tore it off.

Spitting out the repulsive mouthful, I ran for the living room, where by this time the fight had apparently moved. Every vampire in the room was engaged in a fight with a wolf. I looked for Merrick, and spotted him with his arms around a dark gray wolf that was howling in pain. I ran for them as Merrick managed to get an arm around the wolf’s neck, stumbling in my stride as he snapped the vertebrae with a loud crack.

I lifted my head and howled, but I didn’t get to spend more than a second mourning the loss of the wolf whose body was slowly morphing back into human form. I couldn’t even stop to see if I knew who it was, as Merrick had spotted me and was coming toward me with a sickening smile on his face.

“I told you what would happen, bitch, if you changed form,” he taunted me. “Mommy Dearest belongs to Silas now. And you, bitch, are
mine
.”

I raised my hackles and growled at him, snapping my jaws as we started circling each other. If I were in human form I’d have told him to go fuck himself.

“Oh, I’m gonna have so much fun with you, mutt. I’m gonna break both your arms and both your legs so you can’t fight back, and then I’m gonna fuck you so long and so hard, and then I’m gonna drain that sweet little ass of yours as dry as the Sahara. And I’m gonna make that freak-ass boyfriend of yours watch every agonizing minute of it.”

Anger surged through me and I charged forward. No way in hell was I going to let this twisted bloodsucker get the chance to act out his perverted fantasy. No way was I going to let any man force himself on me
again, to torment and torture me, not while I was still breathing.

Merrick laughed as I leapt into the air, batting me aside as though I were a fly. I landed with a crash, rolling over the body of the werewolf he’d killed. I glimpsed briefly at the man’s face and saw that it was Marcus
Drewby. I wanted to mourn for him—I’d met this man, spoken to him—but I couldn’t do it right now. Pushing to my feet I ran at Merrick again, aiming low with the intent of taking a leg off. Though I did manage to lock my teeth around his calf, breaking the skin and getting the gag-inducing taste of vampire blood in my mouth, I wasn’t able to break it off. Merrick twisted as I tried to snap the leg off and used his free leg to kick me viciously in the ear. The pain reverberated around my skull and I reflexively opened my mouth, allowing him to scramble to his feet.

The vampire took a moment to examine his leg. His designer blue jeans had been shredded from the knee down and hung in tatters. Blood ran in rivulets down his leg
, although the wounds themselves were already starting to close.

“You fucking
bitch!
” he screamed at me.

I was shaking my head again as though I could cast off the pain when he ran at me and kicked me again. I yelped as the pai
n crashed through my skull once more, causing my legs to weaken and give out from under me. Merrick grabbed a fistful of my fur and started punching me in the ribs. Blow after blow landed and I cried out vocally with a howl, as well as telepathically, when one of my ribs cracked.

Race, help me!

A loud, almost deafening snarl resounded from the foyer, and a moment later a huge white wolf came bursting through the double doors, bowling over wolves and vampires alike as it headed toward us. Merrick’s head snapped up and he released a snarl of his own. Grabbing me by the head, he wrapped his arms around my neck, spittle flying from his mouth as he hollered, “Back off, freak, or she dies!”

The wh
ite wolf reverted to human form and a Race red-faced with rage stood before us, breathing heavily. “Let her go, bloodsucker!”

Merrick laughed while squeezing my neck tighter. I could no longer breathe, and kicked reflexively with my back legs, trying to get purchase to wrest myself free of his grasp. “Oh, why should I do that, hmm? I’m thinking watching
this piece of puppy pussy die right before your very eyes will just break that little freaky heart of yours. What do you say—will widdle Race’s widdle freaky heart be broken?”

He jiggled my head as he
asked, his question rhetorical as he knew I was presently incapable of answering.

Race…
can’t…can’t breathe
… I pleaded desperately as blackness clawed the edges of my vision. Soon the lack of oxygen would force my body to revert back to human form, and I’d be helpless against the vampire imprisoning me.

“Let her go, Merrick,” Race said again. “This is between you and me—and Vienna, that fucking bitch, once I’m done with you.”

For a moment it seemed as silent as the grave, despite the fighting still going on between Race’s wolves and Merrick’s vampires, and then Merrick laughed uproariously. “You really are one stupid freak,” he said. “I mean, come the
fuck
on—haven’t you figured it out yet? Or are you really so fucking blind that you can’t see the fucking city for the skyscrapers?”

If I didn’t hate Merrick with such a passion, I’d have thought his rephrasing of the old “forest for the trees” analogy rather clever.
But as he’d taunted Race he’d shifted his position, the arms clamped around my neck loosening enough to allow me to draw air, which I sucked greedily through my nose.

“Ask yourself this question, dumbass: When was the last time you—or anyone else, for that matter—got a look at that self-absorbed, conniving little whore?
Hmm? About six months ago, wouldn’t you say? Yeah, right about the time you started getting your marching orders directly from me. Why do you think that is, dipshit?”

Race stared for a moment, and then he burst out laughing. Outraged, Merrick threw me to the floor and stood, stalking toward Race as I scrambled out of the way as fast as I could.

“You have the nerve to fucking laugh at me, freak?!” Merrick yelled. “Vienna’s little empire has been
my
empire for months and nobody—not even your pansy-assed new boss Mackenna—has noticed that I’m the one calling all the shots.”

“Oh, I get it now, bloodsucker,” Race replied, still chuckling
, his eyes on the vampire in front of him while his thoughts turned to me.

Baby, we got here as fast as we could. How bad are you hurt? Where’s my mother?

Though I was breathing freely now it was still difficult, as Merrick had definitely broken a rib and my advanced healing was causing it to repair itself at a bad—meaning incredibly painful—angle.
Your mom’s hiding in a closet in one of the bedrooms. I’m a bit bruised up and I have a broken rib that isn’t healing right and hurts like hell. Other than that, I’m just glad to see you
.

Race flicked his eyes in my direction for but a moment, but I knew in that split second he was visually assessing my condition for himself, though it would be difficult to see that I was hurting in my animal form (which I was maintaining through sheer force of will at this point).
We’ll get you fixed up soon, Jules, I promise you
.

Only a few seconds, the space of perhaps
three heartbeats, had passed while we caught each other up on the last few hours—the benefit of being a bonded pair was the ability to communicate much in a very short amount of time. During those few moments the combatants around us had either achieved victory or separated, suspending their fights in order to watch their commanders confront each other.

“You did…whatever the fuck you did to Vienna, I don’t give a shit…so you could
give the orders and hog all the cash,” Race continued, giving no indication that he and I had been able to communicate. “I get that—money is power these days. But I’m laughing because you’ve been letting everyone believe she’s still around. You let them believe that because it’s
her
name that they know. It’s
her
name that they respect. It’s
her
name that they fear.”

He laughed again. “You
’re letting them believe that she’s still around because nobody knows you, Merrick. Nobody respects you like they do her. Nobody fears you like they do Vienna Silk. You’re fuckin’ pathetic, man. Nothing but a two-bit, cockmunching poser hiding behind your mommy’s skirts because you know damn well ain’t a person alive or undead that gives a flying fuck who
you
are.”

With every word Race said Merrick’s face became a darker shade of puce, his impressive musculature visibly trembling with tightly controlled rage
until my mate’s last sentence. The vampire loosed a scream of anger and launched himself across the few feet still between them, which seemed the signal the others were waiting for, and the brawling resumed once more.

I
crawled carefully out of the line of fire, stepping gingerly with my left front paw in order to spare my bad rib as much pressure as possible. Maneuvering into a corner near the hallway I’d come out of, I watched as Race and Merrick fought each other, punching, kicking, grappling as each tried to get the upper hand. Each time Race landed a blow I wooed, and each time Merrick landed one I cringed. I wanted so badly to rejoin the fight, to help the man I loved defeat his foe, but I was in no condition to fight a flea. Though werekind healed fairly quickly from minor wounds, when a bone was broken it took longer, from minutes to hours—it was why I’d been too weak to fight off Peter and Martin when they’d tied me to that bed in Diarmid’s mansion. And when a broken bone didn’t knit itself back together in the proper position, the healing could hurt almost as much as the injury.

I didn’t even want to think about the fact that I’d have to have the rib re-broken in order to prevent complications.

A yelp of alarm escaped me as Race and Merrick rolled across the floor then. Though there were still other fights going on—I was cheering inwardly each time I noticed a wolf getting the upper hand, because we were winning the battle—my focus was mainly on my mate and his opponent. They were fighting as men, and although I knew Race had several times the strength of a human man, I feared that Merrick might be just that much stronger. Both of them were bleeding, striking each other mostly on obvious points of injury in their attempts to weaken the other.

My fear for Race intensified as Merrick
landed on top of him, his knees pinning my mate to the ground as he wrapped his hands around his throat. Alarm shot through me and I began barking madly as Race grabbed Merrick’s wrists and tried to force his hands apart. Two of the wolves abandoned their vampire counterparts to come to their Alpha’s aid, but the vampires scrambled to their feet and rushed to stop them. Race’s face began to turn purple, and in his thoughts I saw that he was, for the first time, beginning to entertain the notion that he was going to lose.

I refused to let that happen, and forced myself to my feet. Even if I provided little more than a distraction for Merrick I had to do something to help Race.

Suddenly a wild scream sounded and a gray blur rushed past me, heading straight for Merrick and Race. Caroline ran headlong into the fray, one of the chair legs I’d broken off clasped overhead in both her hands. I had only time to start another round of excited barking before she stopped next to them, just long enough to swing the makeshift club—sharp, pointy end down—straight into Merrick’s back.

He howled in pain, immediately letting go of Race and turning a hateful glare in Caroline’s direction.
She stumbled away from him as I started running toward her, mindless of the pain in my side, and at the same time a silver wolf with a black streak down the middle of its back snapped the neck of his or her opponent, then sprinted across the room to stand between the vampire and the human with a snarl.

Merrick moved to stand but stumbled, though as I joined the wolf in protecting Caroline, I couldn’t be sure if it was because he was weak from the would-be stake in his back or because Race had just reached out and grabbed him. The vampire hit the ground hard and attempted to roll away from his attacker, but Race was quicker. He planted a knee in Merrick’s back and, grabbing his mother’s weapon in both hands, pushed it through until it touched the floor. Thick, dark blood, which already stained the back of Merrick’s white t-shirt, now spilled out of his chest, pooling beneath his suddenly still form. His eyes were
frozen open, his mouth still a wide “O” of surprise.

Race stood and spit on the back of Merrick’s head. “Take that, cocksucker! You just got beat by a gi
rl—a
human
girl. How do you like them apples?!”

Caroline sobbed and pushed past the wolf and I to throw herself at her son, who wrapped his arms around her tightly, cradling her head under his chin. The wolf next to me nodded once and trotted over to the prone vampire it had been battling a moment ago, took the she-vamp’s head in its mouth, and promptly bit it off, hurling the severed head across the room with a swing of its own.