Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
When I turned to face them, the man jolted and the wolf froze. It was probably my eyes. I knew they were glowing an unnatural shade of electric green, quite different from how they appeared normally.
“The fuck are you, man?” the guy with, I noted now, blood-smeared weapons asked as he faced me.
“I am…other,” I answered, and then I breathed out my humanity.
Normally, I took long moments to experience the change, to embrace the great passage of time, taste the weight of the history I’d witnessed before taking on the mantle of the primeval creation I was. But I didn’t have the luxury of time at the moment, I had to stand between children and death, so I concentrated, as was necessary, and discarded the facade of a man quickly.
When I shook my head a moment later, I was there, all at once, in my true form. Originally, I was an enormous dog, but I had altered my shape a lifetime ago, preferring the look of the dire wolves that had allowed me to run with them. I’d always been bigger, though, and I still was, roughly the size of a cow, with long fur that allowed me to meld into the primordial forest—deep and dark green.
Most ran when they saw me. It was the natural reaction to seeing something preternatural. If that didn’t happen at once, I gave a warning—head down, low growl, the sound chilling, ominous, like distant thunder. It seeped into the soul, making lungs seize and muscles quake, filling the mind with terror and dread. I was a harbinger, after all, crafted to deliver punishment and death. But the wolves in front of me had descended the stairs to kidnap children on another’s order, and later, if they couldn’t shift, to murder them. That meant all the children, and two of the kids had been running with infants in their arms: a girl who looked around sixteen, and a boy who I presumed, since he looked so much like Cole, was his brother, Evan. So the reaping was upon them. There could be no other end.
It was fast. I never made anyone suffer, so I had the wolf’s neck between my jaws in seconds, his life snuffed out in one quick snap before he dropped heavily into the grass. Even having watched the slaughter, the man still came at me and was eviscerated, a splash of blood staining the newly made wooden stairs.
I lifted my head and was myself again, or at least in the human form I’d come to think of as myself over the centuries. I was about to head up the stairs and go inside when Tuss and eight others came running down with Cole and other Swann Pack members chasing after them. Clearly, the Haviland heir had not understood that when you attacked people in their homes and threatened their families, they would fight to the death. It didn’t hurt that Cole, not Abel, was leading the pack members. His strength fortified them, whether they were aware of that fact or not.
Seeing the two men dead on the grass jolted them all, I saw it on their faces, but I gave no one a moment to think. Feigning fear, I bolted toward the trees after the children. Tuss and the others followed me. They had no choice; I alone had killed two of their brethren, so I had to pay with my life.
I flew over ground I knew well, keeping them close instead of using my normal speed. I needed them to be able to see me. It wasn’t a long run, or I never would have told the kids to make it without me. We were off the land that belonged to the Swann Pack and onto mine in minutes. It was funny, but I saw the female black bear and her two cubs that lived on my land, and I could have sworn she shot me a look, as if wondering what I was doing out so late tearing around like a lunatic. She much preferred me in my true form. I was quiet then.
I turned after seeing her, and found, as expected, nine men lying face down in the long grass. Moving quickly, I took all their weapons from them, then waited for the pack to join me.
“Mere!” I heard Cole call out. Funny that he shortened my name just as most people who knew me well did.
My heart gave a lurch that wasn’t at all normal for me, and I worried about it for a moment before he came into view. He was bloody and bruised, shirt torn, with slash marks that I knew he could heal but were still hard to see.
“Are you all right?” he rasped when he reached me, cupping my face and checking me over, the concern clear in his voice.