Chapter 4

I re-doubled my efforts to get up, but it was worthless. Pictures of that dratted knife he was wielding kept flipping through my mind, and just for variety, an image of myself getting squashed even further into the sidewalk by magical means flashed by a few times as well.

Was this it? Was I going to be taken away to some dark facility for who knew what purpose? Or would they just kill me? It really depended on what this particular hunter group wanted, to sell my fur (oh please no) or use me as an experimental subject (I’ll pass, thanks), but to be frank neither prospect was very appealing.

“So, now it’s your turn to decide,” Assailant One taunted, stepping nearer until I could see the shadows every dirt clod was making on his shoes. “Will you come with us peacefully, or do I have to do some persuading?”

He glanced to his side, and as I watched, Assailant Two raised the tip of his knife so that it was aimed at the exact middle of Shannie’s forehead. Her eyes widened, finally betraying her fear, and I prayed that the blade would just stay put and not move any closer. Two feet was plenty close already. It could move away, that was perfectly fine by me, but if she got hurt or worse, I didn’t know what I’d do with myself.

“S-Stop…” I whispered. I’d meant to shout it minus the stuttering, but my voice was still hiding from me and it was taking a great deal of coaxing on my part to drag it back out. “I’ll go… just… please, promise me… you won’t hurt her.”

“That can’t happen, I’m afraid,” he replied, and my stomach writhed like a slug in a salt bath. What?!? ‘That can’t happen’? So he was going to hurt her no matter what I said? Then what was the point of asking me?!

How totally unfair. But I’m sure Shannie had more reason to complain, except she wasn’t quite capable of it at the moment.

Eyes smiling at my petrified expression, Assailant One crouched down and pushed me over with one finger. Since it had already been such a struggle just to stay on my knees and elbows, the little shove easily knocked me back onto the ground, and this time I stayed there. The magical pressure only seemed to increase, and I lay on my side with gritted teeth, indignantly helpless.

“I’ll hurt her. Just you wait.”

Before I could check Shannie’s reaction to this declaration, he gripped me by the roots of my hair and lifted my head. It was only a few inches or so, but trust me; some parts of the anatomy just weren’t meant to support one’s full body weight versus gravity, especially while one was being crushed into the floor by someone’s enchanted pendent at the same time. I refrained from yelping but couldn’t stop the few tears of pain.

“She almost knocked one of my teeth loose,” Assailant One hissed, his glowering face blurry in my damp vision. “I’ll just return the favor… but I haven’t decided how far I’m going just yet. What do you think, hm?”

He tightened his grip, and as a whimper rose from my throat, I heard Shannie make a hateful noise from behind the hand over her mouth.

Good news: it distracted him enough to let me go, aching scalp and all. Bad news: now his attention was back on her, and I knew from his swagger as he approached that he was going to do something she was about to regret.

If only I could move—!

Assailant Two shrugged and stepped back to make way for Assailant One, who was tapping his knife’s flat edge thoughtfully against his hand. One look at that shiny steel and Shannie was trying to edge away, but her retreat was halted by Assailant Three. He laughed at her (making me mad), and even pushed her forward.

The moment that sharp tip touched between her eyes, I think both Shannie and I temporarily forgot how to breathe.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you to shut up?” he murmured, barely loud enough for my supernatural senses to catch. With two cobra-esque snapping motions of his wrist, Assailant One brought the knife’s hilt down on her head, then again across her cheekbone. I heard the sounds they made as they connected, and they echoed between my ears like a drum, loud and heavy.

Something else also began to echo between my ears, something familiar. I couldn’t quite put a name to it, but it filled my unmoving limbs with warmth.

Shannie hadn’t been knocked unconscious. Though her head hung low, her feet were slowly shifting, trying to regain balance. I didn’t even need to smell the blood to know that she was cut when he struck her… I could see for myself the red drops falling onto Assailant Three’s hand.

The familiar warmth within me bubbled up and crashed over, now a roaring wave. That wave rushed into my body through my bloodstream, and as the warmth grew into a scalding fever, I remembered what it was I was feeling.

Fury.

I won’t pretend I’m always sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. I can be downright mean if I have to be, I’ll kick butt if the situation calls for it, and there have definitely been times where I wanted nothing more than to sink my teeth in somebody’s throat and shake them until I heard bone snap.

This was turning into one of those times. A person, werewolf or not, could only handle so much torment. Threatening me alone wouldn’t do it, perhaps not even hurting me was enough to test that line, but harming the people I cared about was the last straw.

Blood had been drawn at last, but that wasn’t what had broken the camel’s back. It was the look in Shannie’s eyes when she finally raised her head again. For once in my life, I didn’t see any spirit reflected in them. Even when she had been sad or scared, there was always that glimmer of her warrior’s willpower present that convinced me she’d just come back to throw more punches the first chance she got, no matter how badly she was beaten.

But not this time. I saw nothing in her glazed eyes. Only emptiness. Defeat.

They had no right.

They had no right to break her fighting spirit.

Not Shannie’s, whose grins could blind the sun.

… How dare they.

My fury twisted in my very bones, and I twisted in tune, battling the magic that bound me to the floor.

It wasn’t much at first, but after a couple of seconds, some of the pressure lifted and I was able to rise onto my knees again, digging my nails into the sidewalk and growling under my breath. It wasn’t quite yet a bestial growl, but it was getting there, and I suppose I gave our robed companions a bit of a fright when they glanced over and saw that I was in the process of standing up.

“How did she-?”

Assailant One and Three only hung back, but Assailant Two mustered up the courage to come closer to me, brandishing his knife in a frightened way that seemed like he was fending off a grizzly bear with a stick. I returned his anxious stare with my own, narrowing my eyes and pushing off the ground as hard as I could. I managed to get one foot secured beneath me and rose into a kneel.

“Y-You…” he began to stutter, but I interrupted him with an icy demand.

“Let. Her. Go.” Let Shannie go (you made her bleed, you creeps!) or I would be breaking all of your faces as soon as I got free.

His eye noticeably twitched before he looked back at Assailant One for instructions. Thus, I had to match my glare with the leader’s for several seconds, neither of us blinking or mentally surrendering. I sure as heck wasn’t about to quit halfway, and besides, my rage had jumped to too high a level. If I transformed into my wolf body, it would probably be all too satisfying to kill them.

Meanwhile, Shannie’s eyes, glistening without her familiar courage, were studying me with trepidation, but I only let my gaze linger on hers for a split second before I swiveled it back onto Assailant One.

“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” I snarled. I got my other foot on the ground and began the arduous process of straightening my knees. “Let her go. Now.”

Assailants Two and Three appeared more than ready to obey, but as usual, the stubborn Assailant One refused to comply, and marched over to me, deliberately drawing his pendent out from underneath his robes. As the scent of werewolf blood struck me full-on, I felt the magic shoving onto my head, shoulders, and back with fresh strength, and clenched my teeth as my knees bent without my permission, bringing me back onto all fours as I had started out.

A hiss raked the air, and it took a moment before I realized the sound had emerged from me.

Goodness, I was really getting carried away here, wasn’t I?

Fury, powerful as it was, could only continue for so long before it began to die out, and I felt the scalding anger drain from my body as Assailant One crouched down, chanting under his breath another incantation. Even though despair was teasing me from the edges of my mind, I tried desperately to cling to the wrathful emotion that had gripped me only a minute ago; without it, there was no way I had the motivation to face our attackers and save both Shannie and myself.

But it was too late. In one fell swoop, the last of the heat was blown clean away, leaving me frigidly cold. At the same time, the pendent’s imprisonment spell forced my forehead to the floor. I probably looked like I was bowing to my would-be captors.

All that for nothing. In the end, even I couldn’t help us. Shannie had tried and now it had been my turn, but I blew it.

Maybe this truly was the end of the line.

“You really had me worried there,” Assailant One casually remarked in my ear. “Quite a temper you’ve got, just like your friend.” His voice lowered and he leaned in. “Little werewolf, why do you care so much about a human? I’d have thought your kind would rather eat people like us three square meals a day.”

This was the first time he’d directly acknowledged my true identity as a lycanthrope, and though I’d already convinced myself that my initial suspicion about them being hunters was true, hearing it from his mouth still sent shivers slithering down my spine.

On the other hand, I was a tad insulted that he assumed werewolves were man-eaters by nature. We were not man-eaters by nature. Honestly, most of us were very friendly on all except one day every month. Not even one day. Just one night. That was significantly different from his stereotypical werewolf assumption.

“Nothing to say?” Assailant One was speaking loudly again, and when he stood up, I distinctly saw his foot swing back. He was going to kick me, and I didn’t want to find out how much it would hurt. According to some movies, a well-placed kick from an adult male could break a rib. Or two. Or more.

I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for impact and pain.

Waiting.

Still waiting.

When nothing happened, I tentatively opened one eye, then the other, and twisted my head to the side so I could see what was going on.

A burst of red flame hurtled past my vision and collided with Assailant One, blowing him across the road until he disappeared into the darkness. Not too soon after, a second and third burst screamed into the scene, barely missing Assailants Two and Three, and consequently Shannie. The fire danced briefly on the asphault before it dissipated into smoky ash.

Suddenly, the magic binding my movements lifted completely, and I was finally able to properly control all my muscles. I immediately celebrated by getting up and charging at Assailant Three, and I guess my earlier bout of anger had really spooked him, because he quickly released Shannie and ran away, following the direction in which the mysterious fire had knocked Assailant One.

It only took two more fireballs whistling overhead to coax Assailant Two into withdrawing, too. The sound of their footfalls faded into the night.

While I was curious as to how exactly we’d been saved, I was more concerned about Shannie—the smell of her blood was still strong—and I rushed to check on her. She’d collapsed into a heap on the ground, one hand supporting herself and the other cupping her cheek, and I felt a twinge of mingled fear and sorrow when she faced me and revealed a jagged crimson line above her right eyebrow. Assailant One had hit her there and cut her.

“Oh, Shannie…” I breathed, dropping to my knees next to her. I couldn’t formulate a single thing to say to her. What right did I have to say anything, anyway? This was my fault—I was the werewolf, the one those guys had been after, and since she had been with me at the time, she got dragged in and was now sporting these injuries as a result. Iron guilt prevented any apologies or excuses from leaving my throat.

But miraculously, when one of her eyebrows lifted and a quirky smile traced her mouth, I saw that familiar spark in her eyes, that fighting spirit I thought Assailant One had broken. Thank the heavens I was wrong. That smile of hers was all I needed to see, and I knew she was going to be alright.

“Jess…” she muttered, expression dropping back to neutral as she slowly turned and stared at where a fireball had landed only seconds ago. “What… the heck was that?”

I wished I could provide further insight.

And then I wondered how I hadn’t caught that particular person’s scent earlier.

My nose was more than trustworthy. I didn’t even need to look back to visually confirm what it told me, but I still did, and it was with a delighted grin that I shouted, “Ben!”

My wonderful (and after tonight, even more supremely wonderful) lab partner Ben was running up the street, panting like he’d just participated in a marathon to hell and back. He was red from exertion and sweating quite a bit, and when he stopped beside us, his arms were trembling. “Oh God…” he gasped, eyeing us both with great worry. “Are you two okay?”

Of course, I’d already realized Ben had been the one to rescue us with his wonderful (and did I mention supremely wonderful?) fay magic, but Shannie was shocked beyond belief. I didn’t blame her.

“B-B-B-Ben?” she stammered, swiftly turning almost as red as he was. “What the—what the… what are you doing here?”

His eyes darted to me as if begging me to come up with a good reason, but I only gave a quick shrug in response. Hey, don’t look at me. I didn’t know why he was here, either. Uh, not that I was ungrateful or anything.

So he decided to dodge the question for now. “That’s not important. Are you okay?” He’d just noticed the blood on Shannie’s head; she’d also removed her hand from her cheek by then, so the ugly purple-blue bruise there was totally visible.

“Surprisingly, yes,” she replied, blinking. Again, her head turned to stare at the spot where one of Ben’s flame bursts had fallen. “Dude, what just happened here? I thought Jess and I were about to kick the bucket, but then—man, this is insane—these fireballs came flying in from out of nowhere and… and…” She paused, mouth slightly ajar. “Was that for real?”

“Um, yes…” I mumbled timidly.

“Oh, good. For a moment there I thought I was losing my— What?”

From the way she critically fixed her eyes on me, I sighed and resigned to the fact that despite my feelings on the matter, I would have no choice but to tell her the truth. There was simply no other explanation for what had occurred tonight… the hunter attack, their targeting me, Ben’s amazing flying fire… Whether she accepted me for what I was or shunned me like the people in Grandpa’s stories… Well, though the very idea shook me to my bones and brought my pulse to an agonizingly high rate, I’d have to put my faith in her.

Ben would have to confess as well, and when I shot a sidelong glance at him, the tension in his jaw told me he’d realized this, too. But he was just a fay, not a man-eating werewolf, and besides, she did have a crush on him… He had better odds than me of keeping her goodwill after all was said and done. I swallowed hard.

“Shannie, I’m a lycanthrope.”

“A lycan-what?”

“A lycanthrope.”

“A what?”

“A werewolf.”

“Oh.”

“……”

“Wait, did you just say you were a…”

“Yeah.”

“Holy effin’ hell.”

I only nodded in silent agreement. For several very long seconds, Shannie only gaped at me, and I was worried she didn’t believe it. Sad as it was, it was important that she understood I was not joking.

“That’s why those guys were after me… I don’t know precisely what they wanted—either to… to… take my fur and sell it, or use me in some sort of experiments, but… Shannie, I got you involved, and…” I sniffed, scolding myself for being the reason why I could smell her blood on the air, “… You got hurt. Oh God, I’m so sorry…”

She quietly digested this, but didn’t say a word. As more lengthy seconds ticked by, I grew increasingly nervous that she was preparing an end-of-friendship speech. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Please, please don’t be thinking of all those werewolf movies and stories floating around modern society. Trust me, they were horribly inaccurate!

When she did speak again, it was directed at Ben, to my disappointment. “So then, if Jess is a werewolf… What on earth are you?”

“Uh… Well, Shannie… eh-heh… Actually, I’m part fay.”

“Fay?” Her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. “Wait, you’re a fairy?!?!”

Ben looked absolutely mortified.

Even I couldn’t help but laugh. To be called a fairy was his worst nightmare, and I could only imagine what it was like for him to be called such by the girl he had a crush on. Oh, poor Ben…

“N-Not a fairy!!” he argued. “I’m part fay! Fay!”

“It’s the same thing!”

“No, it’s not!”

“Yes, it is! Look it up in the dictionary!”

I intervened before Ben could retort. “Shannie… You’re not mad?”

“Mad?” She got to her feet and dabbed her upper lip with the back of her index finger, calmly checking for blood. “Naw. Why should I be mad?”

… Really? This was too good to be true. She’d just been told I was a werewolf and Ben was a fairy—I mean, a fay, and she wasn’t freaking out?

“You… You got hurt,” I repeated. “You’re… okay with that?”

I was stupefied when she just laughed in answer. “I’m not the one who almost got kidnapped by a bunch of wannabe cultists. Can’t you think about yourself for once?” Giving one more chuckle, Shannie added softly, “I don’t care if you’re Bigfoot’s daughter. You’re my friend, the same ol’ Jess, and that’s all I need to know. Besides, to be chased so people can make you into a coat or a rug or abduct you as a guinea pig seems like a pretty shitty deal to me. You got it tough already. Why should I make your life harder?”

Again, she smiled with that fiery spirit blazing in her eyes, and at that instant I was reassured at last. So she wasn’t angry or scared…

“Well, uh…” Ben had mustered up the courage to ease back into the conversation. “You know this is kind of a huge secret, right? That you can’t tell anybody about us?”

“Yeah, I kind of figured that. It’s not just the two of you, then?”

We nodded in tandem, and Shannie sighed. “Alright. Dang, who would’ve thought there really are supernatural creatures among us… And idiots dumb enough to try and capture ‘em?” She scowled and gingerly felt her cheekbone. “Don’t worry. I can keep a secret better than a dead man buried under ocean soil. Jess’ll vouch for me on that.”

And I would. That was precisely why the uneasiness was steadily evaporating from my mind.

While I was releasing a big sigh of relief, Ben sidled up to Shannie, prompting her to step back in slight surprise. Attention caught, I watched quietly as he matched her step and carefully took her wrist, lowering her hand from her cheek. Was he…? Oh, man. He was. Even in the darkness of night I could see them both blushing.

“Here, let me help…” A faintly white glow surrounded his fingertips as he touched the bruise and began to heal it. For some reason his head was slowly nearing hers…

Benjamin Pace was making a move.

I had to hide my grin at Shannie’s loss for words.

Perhaps it hadn’t been such a bad night after all.