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THE OWLS LEAD THE CHARGE, swooping out of the cave behind the one Liam birthed, its fervent hoots urging them on. The wolves and I follow, beating into the scuttling scorpions with our feet and bare hands.
The owls were dead until moments ago. As Mimi’s spell fades, they’ll likely return to their posts. Until then, they’re living and soaring and eating, flapping their immense wings and tearing into the scorpions.
The leader dives down, snagging one of the larger scorpions in its talons. Another jets toward it, snagging a claw. Together, they rip it in half, the remains of the scorpion sending the other owls into a frenzy and enticing them to attack.
“Look out!” Celia screams.
I think she’s yelling to Liam, until the original scorpion, now longer and meaner, whips its tail right at my heart.
The stinger grazes my skin, but it doesn’t penetrate. I dodge out of its reach when it strikes again, only for it to turn on Celia when it sees her exposed.
Celia swings the poker and clips the tail. The scorpion shakes off the dead stump, growing another stinger in the time it takes before he leaps again. The creature’s movement are quick and exact. Celia takes another swing, aiming low. She barely nicks it and doesn’t come close to hurting it.
She leaps backward, the wicked thing slicing at the fabric of her dress and almost stinging her. I break open the two other scorpions I’m fighting like lobsters and go after the one bent on killing Celia.
I don’t wait for it to strike again. I snatch it by the tail and pound its body into the ground like a hammer. Over and over it collides against the earth until the tail rips off and the lower half stops moving.
“Aric!” Celia yells.
She’s edging back toward the cave. Liam is near the garden. Gemini and Koda are on the path leading back to the forest.
The scorpions have separated us. We’re several yards away from each other. But it ends now.
The first thing I learned as a wolf was to never separate from your pack. You hunt and you bring down your enemy as one.
“Regroup, now!” I yell.
I charge toward Celia, kicking the scorpions in my path onto any hard object I find, or up into the air and toward the ravenous owls. Mimi doesn’t have much we can use as a weapon out here, but I have plenty of anger.
I send one giant scorpion soaring across the yard, slamming it into another around the same size. They attack one another, striking their stingers like cobras and forgetting all about us.
I ignore them, dashing toward Celia as she climbs on top of Mimi’s cave to avoid the band of scorpions scuttling after her. “Celia!”
Every part of me stalls as Celia leaps backward off the top of the cave, doing some flippy thing and landing full force on two super-sized scorpions. She doesn’t stop there. She kicks the remains of one scorpion into several smaller ones that leap toward her, stunning them and allowing the owls to attack. She then brings down the poker onto the head of another.
Never has a woman been this hot.
The entire incident happens in mere seconds. If I wasn’t a were, I would have missed most of it. Celia sprints toward me, kicking away the smaller scorpions flicking their tails at her.
I blindly catch a leaping scorpion and break it in two, tossing it aside as Celia reaches me, barely aware that I’m gawking.
Celia jumps, using her weight to crush those she can’t beat to death with the poker. I snatch two more that jump, feeling their hard shells snap beneath my grip, but not before their claws rip at my flesh.
Like Gemini said, these aren’t regular scorpions. One manages to sting my calf before I can stomp on it, its venom burning my flesh like liquid fire.
The invasion into my system awakens the healing components of my wolf. It attacks the venom, localizing it before it can spread and destroying what’s left of it. Another few stings and I’ll be on the ground. But hell will freeze over before I let anything hurt Celia or my friends.
I snatch another one that leaps toward Liam’s exposed neck as he reaches us, mutilating it with my hands before it can sting.
Koda joins us, followed by Gemini.
“More than half are down,” I yell, over the excited tittering of the owls. “Let’s get this done and get out!”
There’s no grace to our movements, no organization, no precision strikes or mad skills that make us look sleek. You won’t find Superman among us. No. The Hulks are in the house and hulks smash.
These scorpions jump high. When they do, our fists sail, punching as we would any opponent stupid enough to cross us. When they don’t leap, our feet find them, stomping hard enough to kill or stun them. These aren’t just bugs, scampering around and trying to hide. They come at us full force, like hungry locusts invading a large field.
Nothing we practiced ever prepared us for an attack like this. That doesn’t mean we’re not crippling these things, or that the owls Mimi sent aren’t effective.
I’m not sure how long it takes. An hour, maybe longer. Koda makes the final kill, his large foot coming down on the last of the scorpions. I tried to avoid the stingers and I think I would have avoided most of them if I hadn’t been trying so hard to spare Celia.
She falls into a crouch, covering her mouth when she sees the large hole burrowing through my right thigh. The final few kills cost me. But Celia is safe and that’s all that matters.
“Don’t touch it,” I say, when she reaches out her hand. “My wolf is already mending it.”
Her large, soulful eyes blink back at me. “Does it hurt?” she asks.
“Totally,” Liam interrupts. He turns around, exposing his back. Gray lines branch out, spreading the venom and leaving indentations of melting skin. As the venom reaches his shoulders, the power of his wolf pushes it back, centralizes it and smoothing the damaged tissue.
It doesn’t take long for Liam’s wolf to repair him from the inside out. It also doesn’t take much longer for him to speak. “I tried to get creative and trample them with my back.” He makes a face. “It wasn’t a good idea.”
Celia rises. “Liam, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about him,” Koda says. “He’ll be all right.”
Celia gasps when she sees the chunk of arm Koda’s wolf is working overtime to fill in. “Koda,” she says. “You poor thing.”
Very gently, Celia takes Koda’s wrist, turning it back and forth so she can examine the extent of the damage. Koda’s face turns two shades redder than Mimi’s squashed tomatoes. “Uh. It’s fine,” he says, tripping over his words.
“It looks awful.” Her words cut off when Koda shrinks away. “Why is your face so red?” She reaches up on her toes to feel his head. “Is the venom making you feverish?”
Liam cracks up. “No way. Koda is blushing. Gemini, are you seeing this? Celia is totally making Koda blush.”
Which makes Celia blush, Koda’s face reddens further, and oh, boy, isn’t this fun?
“I’m sorry,” Celia says. “I wasn’t trying to embarrass you.”
“It’s okay,” Koda says, his flaming face turning up another notch. “I just, you know what I mean.”
“Nah, we don’t,” Liam says, grinning ear to ear. “Please, elaborate and enlighten our feeble, yet studly, minds.”
“Liam,” Gemini interrupts. “Now is not the time.”
He starts walking, but neither of my knucklehead friends follow. They’re too busy waiting on Celia, who seems unable to detach herself from Koda. As if on cue, the wind lifts their hair, making them look like they should be on the cover of some sappy young adult novel. Awesome.
“You don’t owe me an explanation,” Celia tells him. In general, her voice sounds a little gruff, reflecting the worst of the world she’s seen. It shouldn’t come across as gentle as it does. Somehow, she manages just fine. “I just want to make sure you’re all right. All of you are hurt only because you tried to help me.”
“Females tend to stay away from me,” Koda blurts out. “I’ve never had one touch me.”
I think Koda was trying to make Celia feel better. Instead, he ended up revealing an ugly truth about his life.
Females are drawn to me, because of my status. They seek Liam out, gushing about how “cute” he is. Gemini is considered handsome, although his quieter disposition keeps those who might be interested in him at a distance. Then there’s Koda.
A few girls I’ve met have seen Koda’s picture on my phone. Most of them jabber on about how “hot” he is. One went as far as to call him the future father of her children. But then they meet him and everything his wolf does to harden and protect him against the cruelty he’s endured rises to the surface, causing those interested females to look elsewhere.
Koda shuffles after Gemini, embarrassed for admitting what he does.
“Why?” Celia asks.
Koda pauses, scowling over his shoulder. He thinks she’s placating him, but then he sniffs and realizes she’s genuinely confused. His frown dissolves. “I guess they’re intimidated.”
“I know how you feel.” Celia shrugs. “Males tend to stay away from me—”
“Naw. Really? I don’t believe it,” my friends interrupt.
Great, now it’s time for Celia to blush. It’s taking everything I have not to nail my pals with chunks of dead scorpion.
Celia covers her face, trying to get it together. She drops her hand away, speaking fast. “My sisters would be more than happy to hang out with you. Especially Shayna.”
Koda perks up. “Yeah?”
Celia smirks. “Koda, she would talk your ear off.”
With all the attention she’s getting, I’m sure Celia forgot all about me. But then she turns to me, smiling in that way she only seems to do around me. “Are you ready, wolf?”
“Yeah, let’s go.” I start forward, limping. Next to Celia, Gemini suffered the least amount of damage. I might have suffered the worst. The hole in my thigh burrowed into the bone, making it harder for my wolf to heal it quickly. I can’t stretch out my leg yet, but the venom is mostly gone, and the wound has begun to knit closed.
Celia jogs to my side. “Here. Let me carry you.”
I jump away when she bends and opens her arms. “What are you doing?”
“It’s okay,” she assures me. “I’m a lot stronger than I look.”
“If my bloody corpse lay covered in scorpions as my decapitated head looked on, I still wouldn’t let you carry me.”
She crosses her arms, one eyebrow raised. “If you were decapitated, you wouldn’t be able to see anything, let alone protest.”
My friends crack up, even Gemini, who’s trying to hide it by wiping his mouth.
“Ow, Celia,” Liam whines. “I think the scorpions hurt my little toe and Koda’s pinky. Could you carry me? Maybe both of us? We promise to let you.”
“Knock it off,” I growl, hoping Celia doesn’t take them up on it.
“I’m sure you big, menacing wolves will be fine on your own,” Celia says, glancing down.
Her cheeks are still pink when she looks up at me, strands of her hair partially covering the left side of her face. “Will you walk with me?”
I clear my throat, dropping my voice several octaves. “Someone has to keep you safe,” I growl.
With my head held high and my leg almost healed, I march forward, allowing my friends to lead the way. In my periphery, I catch Celia’s fingers lift toward mine. The movement is subtle, and I almost don’t see it. I think she’s trying to hold my hand, but then thinks better of it.
My head lowers as I thread her fingers through mine. I’ve never considered myself the shy type. In the past, I’d shake my head when Gem withdrew from females or when Koda intimidated them simply by being. I didn’t understand why it was so hard for them to connect with the opposite sex.
Then came Celia.
Being this shy and insecure around a female doesn’t seem fitting, especially after years of being told what a catch I am. But if I’m going to feel this way, I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather feel it with.
The warmth that spreads between us when our skin touches is like sunshine following a long week of storms. She makes everything worth it, all the good and all the bad.
“Thank you for the Wonder Woman underwear,” she whispers. She nibbles on her bottom lip. “They’re a little small, but she’s my favorite.”
And you’re mine, I almost tell her. I’m realizing that more and more, unsure how I’ve gone my whole life without knowing her.
The owls sweep down from the sky, settling on any perch they can find to watch us leave.
“What if there are more scorpions?” Celia asks, glancing behind her.
I motion to the owls. “They’ll take care of them.”
The earth shifts around us as the destruction in Mimi’s yard begins to repair itself. Stalks bearing fruit too large for their vines straighten, spilling over the garden gates attempting to seal them in.
There’s power and then there’s Mimi.
We reach Gemini’s wolf, the remains of several scorpions littering the ground around him. The elk we brought is gone. Mimi took her payment.
We start out in a jog back to my place. Behind us, the owls take to the sky, circling the area as Mimi’s cackles erupt.
“You’re staying with me again tonight,” I tell Celia, giving her hand a light squeeze.
“Are you sure?” Celia says. “You heard Mimi, anyone who’s with me is in danger.”
“Then we’ll be in danger together,” I say, reassuring her that she’s not in this mess alone.
“What’s wrong?” I ask when she stares blankly ahead.
“Mimi said my sisters will be in danger if I go back.”
I stiffen, recognizing how scared she must be. “That’s right.”
“Does this mean I can’t go back? Ever?”
“No,” I say. I’m not trying to make promises I can’t keep. Somehow, I’ll find a way to help her. “It just means we have to figure out another way.”
It’s like her heart breaks right in front of me. “And if we can’t?” she asks.
Then stay with me and be my family so I’ll never have to know a day without you.
“We will,” I promise.
I don’t tell her what I’m thinking. I can’t. Not when the thought of losing her hurts as much as it does.
