The pain of a foot to the stomach didn't drop the man I'd hit. Instead, all I managed to do was infuriate him enough to cause a full shift. And once one of these piece of shit swamp wolves went, so did the others.
With a howl, Tyrell dropped the wooden bat to the ground, the other man's lead pipe following shortly after. Wasn't a relief though. Hell no. I'd much rather deal with these pieces of shit in human form. The weapons they'd be wielding as wolves were much, much worse.
Tyrell lunged at me, his body that of a wolf, but instead of paws, he still had human hands.
When he hit me full force, knocking me to my back on the pavement, he curled his fingers around my biceps and held me there, his breath reeking of booze and rotten meat. When those inch long fangs of his plunged into my neck, I let out a scream that killed the sounds of the bayou for the briefest of moments before the animals resumed their infinite song.
Another rougarou came at me from behind, latching his jaws onto my skull and squeezing hard enough to crunch bone.
Fucking shit! I thought as I heard the blonde woman I'd picked up at the bar laughing.
The acrid stink of magic punctured the air around me, swirling in the breeze of the bayou and mixing with the stale piss and garbage smell of the alley. I was flailing around next to empty bottles, bleeding out near discarded used condoms.
What a way to go.
Wrapping my hands around the second rougarou's neck, I squeezed as hard as I could, snapping bones. The creature released me with a scream, giving me a moment to refocus my attention on Tyrell.
I could hear the blonde woman—one of the swamp witch's handmaidens, no doubt—casting a spell that I knew would fuck me up a hundred times worse than teeth and claws.
For an immortal, I sure as hell was convinced I was about to die.
But I knew from personal experience that there were things much, much worse than death.
Grabbing Tyrell by the scruffy fur on the back of his neck, I used all my strength to chuck him against the brick wall of the bar. The bricks cracked along with his bones and dust lifted into the night air, tainted silver by the moonlight.
Scrambling to my feet, I stumbled over to it and grabbed a handful of dust and debris. I wasn't no voodoo master, no black magic manipulator, but brick dust was powerful stuff.
I threw it in the witch's face, interrupting her as she worked to conjure some sort of elaborate set of supernatural chains.
But fuck, Reece was right—I was Cernunnos, and nobody challenged the Horned God.
I wasn't discriminatory either—if a man tried to kill me, I kicked his ass. If a woman tried to kill me, I kicked her ass too.
I hit the blonde in the face with the force of a Mack Truck, sending her stumbling back and slumping to the ground, just before teeth latched onto my ankle, another set taking hold of my bicep.
Two different rougarou spun me around, dragging me back to the pavement as several more rushed through a brand-new hole in the chain-link fence.
Shit, the whole MC is here …
I knew then that I was screwed up the ass.
Three, four, even five rougarou, I could handle. But twenty? Thirty? Plus a couple of witches?
Several more of the men latched onto me, dragging me back through the hole and out toward a waiting line of motorcycles.
A woman sat on one, looking down at me with eyes the color of ice.
She said something in French that I couldn't quite hear, too much blood sloshing around in my skull, too many broken bones. I hurt all the fuck over.
Letting my glamour crack into pieces, I reached into the earth and pulled strength from the ground, sending the long, wild limbs of a nearby angel oak ripping into the cluster of rougarou.
But the witch on the motorcycle, she silenced my magic with an easy wave of her hand.
The world around me went silent and this time, the animals did not resume their song.
Fuck.
I wasn't looking at another handmaiden.
Right now, I was looking at the swamp witch herself.
Oh blessed Morrígan.
The rougarou backed away, leaving me bleeding and broken on the ground. I struggled to sit up, my ribs shifting inside of me in a way that wasn't natural. My head was swimming and all I could taste in my mouth was the copper burn of blood.
“What the fuck do you want?” I snarled, red misting from my lips.
The witch didn't respond, dressed in leather, her mouth curving to the side in a terrifying semblance of a human smile. She stood up off the motorcycle as I watched, making her way toward me. In the human world, a woman riding her own bike, being the president of a motorcycle club? It was pretty slim, unless it was an all female group. And even then, there were those out there with views older than my goddamn grandpa's. They wouldn't like it.
But then, they'd never met a fuckin' swamp witch before.
She said nothing as she made her way over to me, kneeling low and reaching out a hand that I promptly slapped away. With a slight gesture of her head, she summoned several rougarou to take hold of my arms, pinning me in place. The most disturbing part of the whole situation was that one of them had the body of a wolf … but the head of a man, his all too human fucking mouth latched onto my arm.
If I survived this, I was going to need a friggin' rabies shot.
The witch reached out again, and I dug my fingers into the earth.
I was the youngest incarnation of the Horned God, the warrior aspect. I should be able to fight, and I should be able to use the earth as my weapon.
Instead, I was powerless.
For the first time in my life, I was fucking powerless.
The swamp witch licked her lips.
“Quel animal de compagnie adorable vous ferez,” she told me in French, still smiling that strange smile of hers. What an adorable pet you'll make.
I clenched my jaw hard and waited to see what she might do.
A low, rolling snarl broke the silence and the forest burst back into brilliant, melancholy song.
The witch whipped her head around and snapped something low in French that I couldn't quite hear, rising to her feet as a large wolf stalked out of the shadows, the size of a fucking pony.
A werewolf.
Not a goddamn lousy rougarou, a human twisted into lycanthropy by magic.
The creature I was looking at, he lived and breathed by the moon.
Shifting into human form, the man stood well over six feet tall, his hair a brilliant and shocking silver, like liquid moonlight, his eyes a bloodred shimmer that radiated power.
He blinked several times before pulling his lips back in a wild snarl.
The fuck is this? The hell does the local alpha give a shit about my ass?
Behind him, several more enormous wolves prowled up, staying in animal form and flanking their leader with the flawless synchronization born of their ability to mind speak.
“This doesn't concern you, Raphael,” the swamp bitch—I mean witch—snarled at the silver-haired man. He wasn't old, despite his unique coloring. Wolves simply carried the color of their pelt over into their human forms, and the Louisiana Pack Alpha was a rare silver wolf.