Kobal
Two more bullets slammed into my shoulder, causing me to stagger back a step. I spun, leaning back and toward the side when the whistle of a bullet sliced through the air toward me. A small breeze tickled my cheek as it went by. It would have hit me dead between the eyes.
“Fuck!” I snarled.
Bale cried out when blood pooled across her thigh to soak her pants. Morax leapt on top of Verin and pulled her down beneath him. His body jerked as it was pummeled by bullets. Intending to draw the human’s attention away from them, I dodged to the side as another round of gunfire pierced the air.
Racing through the forest, bark exploded around me as the bullets smacked into the trees near my head. My claws extended, and my fangs pricked and lengthened. I should end this now, but still I hesitated to kill them. These humans had survived this long; I actually admired the cunning and strength it had taken them to do so, and I had promised River I would restrain myself from killing unless it was absolutely necessary.
However, if this didn’t end soon, I was going to torch these assholes and call it a day. The bullets in my body burned as they worked their way out while I raced through the woods, circling around them.
The woman kept her gun trained on me as she followed my movement through the forest. Moving too fast for her, no more of the bullets she fired at me pierced my flesh. Resting my hands on a boulder, I vaulted over it. Bullets smacked off of its solid surface and shards of rock shot into the air. I ran behind the boulder and burst out the other side, jumping over a log before turning and charging at the woman.
Her bullets sliced over my skin but none of them directly hit me. I was almost on her when a man stepped in front of her and lifted his gun to aim at me. I grabbed the end of his rifle as he fired. The bullet tore a hole into my palm and out the back of my hand as I yanked the gun away from him.
His mouth fell open before I drove the butt of the rifle into his forehead with a loud crack. Blood exploded from his skin, his head jerked back and he crumpled to the ground.
“No!” the woman cried.
Spinning the rifle around, I pointed the gun at her. Warm blood oozed from the hole in my hand and dripped onto the forest floor as the woman stared defiantly back at me with her gun aimed at my chest. “Drop it!” I barked.
The other man with her stepped closer against her side and protectively in front of the one I’d just knocked out. The man raised his rifle and aimed it at Shax.
“You’re only going to kill us anyway,” she replied.
“If I wanted you dead, you would be already.” To emphasize my point, flames rose around my wrists. “Now, put it down!”
Her hand wavered, and her blue eyes widened on my flames before she lowered the weapon. Stepping forward, I ripped the rifle from her hand and tossed it aside as Shax and Bale approached the man. They both looked mad enough to kill. Shax jerked the rifle out of the man’s grasp and threw it into the woods.
“Morax, you okay?” I demanded.
He shook his head as he sat back. A bullet was making the way out of the back of his skull, and more holes riddled his shoulders and back. “Fine,” he grunted as the bullet in the back of his skull finally fell out.
Verin sat up before him, her hand resting against his cheek. She leaned forward to kiss him before leveling the human woman with a lethal stare. The woman stared back at her as I lowered the rifle and set it butt first onto the ground.
“What’s your name?” I asked of her.
“What does that matter?” she retorted.
I shrugged and threw the rifle into the trees. “It doesn’t.”
“Why aren’t you going to kill us?” the man inquired.
“I never said I wasn’t going to,” Verin muttered as she wiped away some of the blood on Morax’s cheek.
Across from me, the woman lifted a blonde eyebrow and wiped her forearm across her dirt-streaked forehead. Her pale blonde hair hung over her shoulder in a braid. Leaves and twigs were interwoven through the braid causing it to blend in with the forest around her.
“Bale, go back and let the others know they can proceed, and bring us some rope,” I requested.
She nodded then turned and disappeared into the forest without a sound.
“I’d rather be dead than be a prisoner,” the woman grated through her teeth.
I chuckled as I folded my arms over my chest. “We don’t do prisoners. You’re going to be staying right here.”
Her eyes widened as realization dawned on her. “Tying us up here is as good as killing us. You have no idea the things that are in this forest.”
“I have a very good idea what is in this forest. You had better hope your friends regain consciousness in time to untie you two, but I’m not leaving you free after you tried to ambush us.”
“No one ambushed you. You came into our territory.”
“Wren—”
“Shh,” she hissed at the man beside her when he started to speak.
Verin helped Morax to his feet; they spoke in a low whisper before she broke away. She continued to glare at the two humans as she stalked over to stand beside me. “What would you call it then?” Verin demanded. “You were setting yourselves up to attack us when we came down the hill.”
“I’d call it protecting what is ours,” Wren replied flippantly.
“Those supplies and trucks are ours, Wren,” I said, drawing her infuriated gaze back to me.
Her lip curled up in a sneer. “Not if they’re in our territory. Besides, we always have to defend ourselves against demons such as you.”
The woman irritated me, but something about her reminded me of River. Most likely, it was her unwillingness to back down. They were both stubborn and defiant, but this woman had a savage air about her that River didn’t possess. This woman would cut off someone’s head as easily as shake their hand.
“You have no idea what kind of a demon I am,” I told her as the rumble of the trucks neared. “Or the things I am capable of. Consider yourself lucky to still have your feet attached to your body and your tongue in your throat.”
For the first time since the altercation began, the woman showed some hint of alarm as the color drained from her dirt-streaked face. Beneath the layers of grime and her abrasive demeanor, she may have been pretty, but it was difficult to tell.
“If it wasn’t for us, your entire species would be dead already!” Verin said. “And believe me when I say you’re walking the edge of death right now.”
Wren shot her a look, her mouth clamped together but hostility radiated from her.
“Easy,” Morax said and walked over to rest his hand on Verin’s shoulder. “I’m fine.”
Verin took a deep breath before relaxing her shoulders. She brushed her fingers over the dried blood still sticking to the fading bullet hole in his cheek. “Yes, you are,” she murmured.
Wren’s eyes shot back and forth between them before her gaze landed on me. I stared back at her, keeping my expression blank as I felt the sting of the rest of the bullets working their way out of my body. A door closed, and a minute later, Bale returned with rope in her hand.
“You can’t tie us up and leave us here,” the man said. “Just kill us. It would be kinder in the end.”
“Tempting, but I promised someone I would try not to kill humans anymore. Maybe leaving you here is a death sentence, but maybe it’s not. Not my problem either way,” I replied. “Hands out.”
Wren tilted her chin up further but didn’t move her arms.
“Either do it willingly, or I’ll knock you out and tie you up. I think you have a better shot of surviving if you’re not unconscious,” I told her.
She hesitated before thrusting her hands out before her. Taking hold of her wrists, I tied them together before wrapping the other end of the rope around a tree and binding her there while Shax and Bale worked to tie the man up. Retrieving the rifle, I propped it against a tree.
“We are not all monsters,” I said to her.
She jerked on the rope and lifted her hands into the air. “Are you sure about that?”
A cruel smile twisted my mouth as I leaned toward her. “You have no idea what monsters truly are, but if we fail, you will. If that happens, you will look back on this moment and know I was right.”
“Fail at what?” she demanded.
“I see you again, I will kill you,” I told her, ignoring her question. She glowered at me but didn’t say a word. “Let’s go,” I said to the others. “We’ve already wasted too much time.”
A sense of urgency drove me as I ran through the woods to the waiting trucks. I had to get to River before it was too late.