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Heath leaped at me, but I backhanded him across the face. Wasn’t a perfect hit, but my sheer size and strength sent his body flying away from me and into the gathered thugs, hitting them like a bowling ball.
He roared, attempting to get out of the mess of arms and legs. “You bitch!”
I extended one arm and gestured with a come hither motion. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
He ran at me, and I stepped forward into his path. He hit the core of my body with tremendous impact, but I was pissed and I was huge, and the momentum only moved me back a couple of feet. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jareth pull my sister out of harm’s way.
Heath saw him, too. “You!”
He started toward them, but I grabbed one arm and yanked him backward.
“I made you!” he seethed. “And you side with her? What are you without me? You are nothing. Nothing!”
Jareth stood, my sister in his arms. “I’m happy to be nothing, if it means no longer associating with the likes of you.”
“Get them out of here,” I yelled.
“No!” Heath pulled out of my grasp. “They belong to my master!”
I reached into the air in front of him, clutched the threads that held the hostages, and crushed them in my paws. “No, they belong to no one.”
All around us, the hostages woke from their haze with blinking eyes and confused looks. They rallied to Jareth in a flood of concern, anger, and questions. He led them to the other side of the warehouse.
One angry naga decided right then to punch my square in the jaw. He hissed at me, all spit and fangs, and I kicked him in the middle of all those glittery scales.
He landed on the concrete again, but this time when he got up, he pointed at me and yelled to his minions. “Get her!”
Now I was a pretty badass dire wolf, more so in this amazing half-wolf form, but not even I could stop a bullet, much less the barrage being fired at me right now. I jumped to the right and rolled under the shower of metal, managing by some miracle—thank the gods—to avoid each one. There wasn’t much time to count my blessings, as new magazines clicked into place and those thugs with bats moved along the fringe to reach the hostages.
Oh, and Heath had sprung his serpent tail and slithered my way.
Shit. Where the hell is Ethan?
I pushed up and got on my feet, and with two quick breaths I took off toward Heath. If I could take him down, the rest would follow; just had to make sure he didn’t get up again.
We collided in a loud crash of flesh, and somewhere behind us, someone yelled out for a ceasefire. Guess they didn’t want to shoot the boss.
I pushed him backward through another line of his minions, scattering them and their weaponry in our wake. We slammed into the far wall with a resounding thud. “Give up!”
“No!” Heath swung at me with open claws, and I stepped back to return the favor.
My reach was longer, but his talons were sharp. Two thin red lines appeared against the dark fur of my forearm. I grabbed his head and pounded it against the wall. “You can’t win this!”
“I can and I will.” He wrapped his tail around one of my legs and yanked, causing me to fall away from him.
My head hit concrete, and stars sparkled in my vision. The ground shook, and when my vision cleared, Heath had grown almost as big as the Great Naga I’d seen in the vision. What in the name of the gods was he doing?
He picked up two of the discarded gas cans. “Sacrifice will be rendered.” He threw them at the wall above the hostages’ heads, where the containers split on impact and rained down gasoline on the humans. He then grabbed two more.
“No!” I kicked out one foot and dug deep welts in the front of his tail.
Golden scales showered the ground around us. He hissed and dropped one gas can to cover the open wound with his hand. “Bitch!” He threw the other gas can at me, but it was clearly not his dominate hand, as the pitch wobbled and the can fell short.
I kicked it away and stood up out of arm’s reach. “You keep saying that like I’ll object.”
We were on equal standing now. His new form was more snakelike: his torso a multiband of muscle, the flaps of skin at his neck forming a hood around his head. Even his tail had thickened.
“Still bleeding.” I pointed to the gash ruining his otherwise impressive change.
He pointed at Sera. “Still dying.”
Sonofabitch. “Yeah, shouldn’t have said that.” I kicked off in a dead sprint. He flicked his tail, but I jumped over it. I was done playing games. If Sera was going to die, so was this bastard.
I turned and caught his tail on the return slither, and yanking up as hard as I could, dug my claws in and pulled.
He wobbled for a minute, but then he found his balance and flexed his tail. The movement caused his tail to snap upwards and smack me right in the muzzle.
The impact made the stars return, and I had to let him go. I stomped on the end, claws extended, breaking skin... er, scales, eliciting more blood and more screams of frustration from the naga.
We were close enough that I could punch him like one of those kiddie punching bags, over and over until he didn’t get back up. He swatted at me with his talons, causing fur and blood to fall from my arms, but I didn’t stop. He managed to grab one arm and bit me twice before I could pull away, so instead I straddled the massive tail and beat the ever-lovin’ shit out of his face.
“This is for Jacob, you asshole,” I growled. “This is for Lucy. This is for Sera and Esther.”
“Stop! Stop! You can’t kill me!” he wailed beneath the meaty mask.
I paused and grabbed the sides of his hood. “You killed my sister, motherfucker. You stole my niece and who knows how many other babies from the mothers in this warehouse. You were going to set these people on fire and walk away. No, I think you have me confused with the good guys, but if you’re lucky, they’ll be here soon.”
I raised a fist, but his eyes rolled back in his head and he lay limp on the concrete. I poked him in the chest with a claw, but he didn’t even flinch. I could hear his heart beating, albeit slowly. Good, he’s alive. As I stood up, he reverted back to human form, his skin absorbing the extra mass and all the scales like water. Do I look like that when I change back?
The instantaneous and unmistakable sound of multiple weapons being readied echoed in the silence. I looked up from Heath’s still body at the minions.
“Gentlemen, you don’t want to do this. He’s a supernatural creature and I just beat him to a pulp. What do you think I can do to each of you? Let me help you out.”
I flipped on my other vision and found the rest of the threads that connected them to Heath. It must’ve looked silly, an overly done charade of grabbing them up, invisible to everyone else’s eyes. I pulled, and Heath’s body moved. In one crushing blow, I shattered them into fine magickal dust.
They all blinked together, and once the haze started to lift, they looked around confused, put their weapons down, and raised their hands.
I didn’t want prisoners. I wanted my sister to be okay.
Jareth had her on the floor, head cradled in his lap, but the sadness in his eyes told me plenty.
“She’s not dead,” I whispered. “I can feel her heartbeat.”
“She doesn’t have much longer. You should say your goodbyes.” He laid her flat on the ground in front of me and ushered the rest of the people away. “I’ll get them out.”
The adrenaline seeped away, and I could feel myself getting smaller, changing back into my nude, human form—no more wolf, just little ol’ me. That didn’t matter. Nothing mattered at that moment except my sister.
A quiet filled the now-empty warehouse as I lay down beside her and pushed the hair away from her face. “I’m sorry I failed you, little sister. I didn’t find Esther. I couldn’t even stop him from hurting you. There’s nothing more I wanted in the world than to protect you both, but I failed you.”
Tears, hot and heavy, poured down the side of my face. “I can’t even make it up to you, because I went and got myself bit, too. Twice! And I don’t think I gave Dr. Seth good directions, ‘cause he was coming with anti-venom to save you, but he’s not here yet. That’s what I get for all the stupid shit I pulled this week, but Goddess, I would do anything to save you right now.”
“Would you strongly suggest your best friend go on a date with a handsome doctor?” a voice boomed from the entryway, his dark shadow stretching over us.
I rolled on my back and cried more. “Seth.”
He ran over, opened his bag and pulled out a stethoscope. He listened to her heartbeat for several seconds. “She’s not too far gone.” He caught my eyes. “I can save her, but I’m going to need your help.”
“Anything.”
He pulled out a glass vial filled with murky white stuff and uncapped a syringe. “I need your blood.” Seth measured a dose out, found a vein in Sera’s left arm, and pushed the plunger.
I shook my head. “I’m not some TV show vampire. My blood won’t save her.”
He gave me the ‘aw, that was a cute human trick’ look, as he recapped the syringe and put the anti-venom away. “Your blood has antibodies now, and lycanthropes have an amazing ability to replicate them at an inhumane rate. Add that with the anti-venom, and not only can we save your sister, we can keep her safe from any future naga attacks.”
I extended my arm and then retracted it. “I got bit again. I can feel the poison in my system.”
He grabbed my arm. “Trust me. Antibodies. You’re going to be fine—a little nauseous, so you should probably stay lying down, but you’ll be fine.” He pulled another syringe out of his bag. “You’ll feel a small prick....”
“Owie.”
He smiled. “We’re done.” He injected it directly into Sera, raising one hand as I started to object. “You’re a supernatural human, she’s a sensitive human, and I’m a magickal creature doctor. Trust me, this is the best way. We can work the details out once we get her in the hospital, okay?”
I curled up next to Sera and closed my eyes. Her heart was beating stronger already, her breathing less shallow. It was working.
I sighed. Just have to wait until the cops get here.
