Eve’s voice was urgent in my mind, and I wondered if she wasn’t able to read my thoughts; I was trying to shift and not having success, and she should have known.
The SAVO bitch was screaming, and I saw Eve use the arm like a club to smack the woman’s face. More blood sprayed everywhere, but as I watched, the red liquid began to drip up toward the evil vampire’s arm, and it looked like it was taking the shape of a new limb.
“She is regenerating!” I shouted as I tried to find the tiger in my soul. He wasn’t answering me, and I let out a scream as the SAVO kicked Eve away from her. My wife tumbled backward, but then sprang to her feet like a gymnast.
It seems as if she cannot paralyze me, but I am unable to use my powers on her either. I will try to--
Eve turned her head to me, and then I felt the manacle on my right hand wiggle a little as she tried to yank it out. I flexed my arm again to help pull it free, but then I felt Eve’s pull on the band falter when the SAVO bitch jumped on top of her. Both women were screaming at each other and slashing with their claws, but their identities quickly blurred because of the blood and similar looking outfits.
I looked for the tiger in my soul again, but he was nowhere to be found. How was it possible? It normally took all of my will power to keep him at bay, but now he was silent when my wife was being attacked by the very creature we had vowed to destroy.
I screamed with frustration when I saw both women grab each other’s throats. Eve’s boots didn’t have blades on the toe, so I was able to tell she was on the bottom even though they were both drenched in blood. I knew I didn’t have much time. Eve seemed equally matched against the SAVO in this dreamstate, but she needed my help to win.
And I didn’t know what would happen to her or me if we lost this battle.
“Come on,” I growled as I tried to find the beast inside my soul once again. He just wasn’t there anywhere, but then I noticed that the empty sensation wasn’t really correct.
I could feel the beast, but not where he normally was, he felt like he was the cage, he felt like he was me.
Then I knew what I had to do.
I just shifted without unleashing him.
My body began to change instantly. My spine elongated, my muscles grew, my teeth fell out, and the fur sprouted from my skin as my eyes adjusted. There was normally a bit of pain when I shifted, but I felt none when I transformed, except for the bands around my wrist grew too tight.
I growled and yanked my now much stronger right arm away from the black stone wall. The manacle shifted just a tiny bit, but I still felt like I didn’t have enough leverage. I risked a glance back to the battle between Eve and the SAVO and saw that the evil vampire was slowly lowering her open maw to Eve’s throat.
I needed to get free of my bonds. Right. Fucking. Now.
I turned back to my left hand and yanked downward with my arm. My wrist broke painfully and immediately started to heal, but then I twisted the bones against my hand and let out a scream as I tore the bloody stump free of the metal band.
Blood sprayed across the room, and what remained of my left hand started to twitch where it still hung against the manacle, but I didn’t have time to inspect the damage I had done to myself, I rotated to my right arm, pushed my feet against the wall, and then yanked hard against the manacles. The metal ripped free of the wall easily, and then I dashed toward where the two women fought.
The SAVO was only ten or so centimeters away from biting Eve, but I grabbed her as if she were a puppy by what would be the puppy scruff and yanked her off my wife. The evil vampire bitch’s eyes opened in surprised when I grabbed her, but her eyes opened even wider when I sank my tiger teeth into her throat.
I bit, tore, and pushed her toward me with my right hand so that all of her neck could fit into my maw. I felt her attempt to choke out a scream, but one of my fangs popped her vocal cords before she could get it out. She could do nothing more than frantically spasm against me. But that only lasted a few moments. Then I tore my teeth away, and her head popped off her body.
Eve’s boot was waiting, and my wife stomped down to smash the SAVO woman’s skull like a rotten pumpkin. More blood and bone sprayed across the floor, and then she let out a scream.
MY. HUSBAND.
I actually had to cover my ears, but my left hand was still a bloody stump, and my head still ended up spinning with her cry. It actually didn’t matter if I covered my ears, since the voice came from inside my head again, and I didn’t even think she knew she was hurting me.
“Eve!” I barked out as she gnashed her teeth at the ceiling and took a deep breath. My voice seemed to bring her out of her rage, and she gasped before looking over to me.
“Adam, I am so sorry,” she said as she ran over to me. “I am sorry. I did not mean for my rage to hurt you.”
“It’s fine,” I said as I stumbled on my feet and tried to shake the pain out of my head. “Fuck that bitch. We beat her, and now--”
“No,” Eve said as she looked at my head with concern. “They have us here because of me. She said so. There must be something with my DNA which gives her access, and now that we are bonded it--”
“Now that we are bonded she came to fight both of us,” I growled as I gestured at the woman’s headless corpse. “Look at how that turned out for her.” I could still taste the woman’s nasty blood on my tiger tongue, so I hacked out a small puddle of the stuff when I finished speaking.
“I do not believe that she is dead, though,” Eve said. “This is not real. It is our minds which she can infect. What if others come to help her? What if--”
“Eve,” I interrupted her as I pulled her to me with my right hand. “Let them come. You and I will kill them. Nothing can stand in the way of our love.”
Her red eyes stared into mine for a few seconds, and their angry glow slowly faded. Then she sighed, nodded, and smiled with her blood smeared lips.
“Thank you for helping me. Your hand? Does it hurt?”
“Yeah,” I said, “but I’ll be alright. It’s stopped bleeding already.” I glanced back to what remained of my arm that was still stuck in the manacles and then down at my stump again. Then I looked around inside of the temple. “If we are in a dream, we need to figure a way out. Normally I see Persephone in them, but I don’t remember us falling asleep, and that’s when I normally have these.”
“It was once we were bonded,” Eve sighed. “I did not know that would--”
“It’s fine,” I said as I lifted her chin. “You would never betray me. I know how much you love me.”
“And soon you will feel it through our bond.” the beautiful woman let out a relieved sigh and then rubbed her cheek against the fur of my palm. “Let us leave this place. Where do you think we should go?”
“Front door,” I said as I turned around to face away from the cylinder that Eve had been trapped in. The massive double stone doors looked to be a hundred meters away, and Eve’s boots made soft clunking noises as we walked across the black stone floor.
“Did you wake up in the cylinder?” I asked as I pointed my only thumb over my shoulder.
“Yes,” she answered. “It was strange. I could breathe the blood but could also see what was happening. I wonder if it is a form of a sleeping chamber or if it is how they are born.”
“Elaka Nota had you in a cylinder made of glass with water in it,” I commented.
“Yes,” she said. “The water was actually a synthetic plasma mixture. So it was a bit like blood.”
“Hmmm,” I replied. “I think Elaka Nota knows about these assholes. That is going to be our next stop after we get the Jotnar on board.”
“But first, this place.” Eve gestured to the door, and I moved to grab the handle.