“I accept your challenge,” he said loudly. “Shift!”
Nick felt the surge of his magic, it was nothing compared to Melody’s, a drop in a bucket, but the wolf instantly changed, a raven haired beauty sitting on top of him. She leaned forward, kissed him hotly, then crawled off him, immediately shifting back to her wolf form and sitting at his side. Her tongue lolled out in a very dog-like manner, almost like she was laughing.
The man stroked her silken fur, and she moaned, leaning into his touch.
“About fucking time that pair got their heads on straight,” Mrs Hardinger muttered. “They’ve been dithering over it for fucking months. They’ll both be stronger tonight.”
Nick chuckled. It was a moment of much needed levity.
Justin? he sent over the pack link. Where the fuck are you?
Behind them, Justin replied. About to fuck up their night.
There was an almighty roar, and flames lit up the sky, the shrieks of witches on the far side of the forest easily heard as they burned.
Nick could see the shifters now pounding over the lawn towards them, several of them dropping and twisting on the ground, shifting back to their human forms and screaming as their witches died.
His heart broke for them. If they survived the battle, they wouldn’t likely survive the night. Even from here he could see how thin they were. The shock of the bond breaking would likely strip them of the strength they had remaining.
“INCOMING!” Nick roared.
He took a deep breath and shot flames into the air, lighting up the battlefield. Justin’s dragon roared again, more flames appearing in the distance, and more shifters dropping to the ground. Nick recognised a few, they were some of the shifters missing from the academy. The fools. He wondered if they had voluntarily bonded, or been taken against their will.
Coven Bestia stooped to a lot of things, he had no doubt they had worked out a way to bond a shifter against their will.
There were still enough shifters left to pose a threat, and thus enough witches too. He could see Justin clearly now, warding and dodging against spells being cast up at him, even as he tried to find a moment to flame them again.
He felt his dragon rise inside.
Apparently so did Melody. “Don’t kill them,” she begged. “Most of them have no choice. They’re broken, completely subjugated by their witches. They have no control. Attack the witches, not the shifters.”
Her cool hand on his skin helped to sooth his beast. He could do that. If she asked him, he would steal the sun and set fire to the moon.
“Try and knock them out, they’re compelled, but don’t hesitate for the kill shot if you’re under threat,” he ordered. It was the best he could do. When shifters fought, their beasts came to the fore, knowing better how to move in that body. It also meant their baser instincts took hold. They might not remember the order.
They all stayed behind the cottages and waited, it would provide them some cover, forcing the shifters to split up to move around them, while they could create a united front.
Melody refused to climb up on the roof, so the six of them pushed her behind them. She huffed but obeyed, knowing they’d be distracted if they thought she was under threat. Nick felt her draw her magic forth, goddess she was powerful. Even tired as she was from defending against the petty spells of the other witches all day, and the magical demands of her classes, she still was more powerful magically than he was.
His dragon snorted in his head. Of course she was, otherwise she would not have been able to force their shift.
The realisation made him hesitate, but the wolf leaping at him soon woke him up again. With a flick of a taloned hand, he ripped it open from shoulder to hip and flung it aside. He’d torn through muscle, if the beast survived until the end of the fight, they’d be able to save it and break the bond. For now, it was out of action, crying piteously on the ground.
That was the last moment he had to think, the battle at hand taking up his every thought. Neither he nor Justin had shifted last time, the fighting had been too close to use their flames and their larger beasts would have been more hindrance than help. They were more suited to aerial assaults against large groups. But their half shifted forms were nothing to be sneered at either.
Nick cut a swathe through the beasts that came at him, his brothers, his pack, his clan, all fighting alongside him to protect Melody. She wasn’t idle either, casting sleep spells and stun spells, taking out as many beasts as he did. Where had they all come from?
He hadn’t realised he’d spoken aloud until Melody answered him.
“I thought they were dead. Half of these people disappeared years ago, and we thought they were dead.”
Nick shuddered. The description that Melody had given of the basement where she’d lived with close to a hundred shifters had haunted him. If these ones had been taken elsewhere years ago, he hated to think of what they’d been through. Those who shifted back bore terrible scars, their bones protruding and their eyes dull. He wondered if it wouldn’t be a greater mercy to kill them. Men and women alike, they looked like they’d been through hell and had given in.
Justin roared again, and Nick dispatched a puma and looked up at him, horrified to see a gaping hole in Justin’s wing, and the dragon plummeting to the ground.
His shift had overtaken him and he was in the air before the thought had even occurred to him, but it was already too late. Justin crashed into the forest with an explosion that threw everyone to their knees. As soon as he checked that
