In my peripheral vision, another man in a navy-blue hoodie and jeans is midair. He lands on my back. As the three of us scramble on the floor, CeCe wiggles out from under—her eyes do not register the familiarity mine probably do. Grabbing discarded shorts, she bolts through a small dining room, knocking over a plastic lawn chair on her way into a kitchen.
I try to buck the guy on my back off. He pushes a Rondel dagger through my right hand and effectively nails me to the wood floor. I immediately know he’s an assassin paid by my family, but not because the weapon dates him; he smells Down Under.
To pull the dagger from my hand, I have to let go of the guy in the dark suit that was raping CeCe. My free hand is still squeezing his throat. I foolishly give in to my rage and tighten my grip and, in doing so, give the assassin a heartbeat to put a pistol to my temple.
Before I can calculate my next move, the assassin grunts, expels air from his lungs, and is torn from my back. The gun skids across the wood floor in one direction, and the assassin is skidding in the opposite direction with a sexy blonde chick attached to his back. Long red fingernails dig into his eyes, and a line of trashy dispute rolls off her red lips. She’s wearing thigh-high boots and they tighten around his midsection. He effortlessly drags the woman off and tosses her across the room, using strength only an otherworld creature would possess. She bounces off the wall behind the couch and, spewing blaspheme, falls onto a makeshift coffee table behind my head, wood chips flying in all directions.
He scrambles for the gun. The busty chick rolls off the table, lands on both feet, and glares at the guy under me for a heartbeat. She yanks the knife pinning me to the floor out of my hand and drops it by my knee. Her eyes scanning the room, the woman leaps over the assassin, kicks the gun farther away, and heads out of the room in the same direction CeCe left.
I’m breathless. The whole thing took seconds. As I watch the wound in my hand begin to close and listen to the assassin growl obscenities, I have about two seconds to wish for another chance encounter with the woman who just put me back into the game. Then I smell him, the human under me, urine darkening his pants, and the sweat of fear coating his body. I let go of his throat. His body stiffens. My eyes are still on the guy slithering closer to the weapon the blonde chick had kicked away.
Scales are forming on the assassin’s cheeks, and the skin on his hands rolls over cracking and relocating bones underneath—a shifter. He sees me changing too.
He’s a dragon; a forked tongue escapes with a hiss. Calm rolls over me as I completely give in to the wendigo trying to emerge.
We face off. Pain registers in his eyes. Bones distort skin, groans ride pheromones, and everything seasons the air with the upcoming battle. The man that was attempting to rape CeCe is all eyes as he scrambles across the room and through the broken front door.
Feeling the emerged wendigo’s rage fill my body, I strut on two hind legs, angel hair billowing behind like white fire. My skeletal body is all bone and muscle. Long sharp claws project from my hands and feet.
I catch my reflection on the shadowed glass of a framed picture: a wolf-like face and protruding jaw. My eyes look manic. My teeth don’t quite fit into my mouth and drip the musky smelling saliva that slowly and painfully renders my victim a slow death—it burns small holes on the wood flooring around my feet. I’m eager for blood as I slowly turn and head for the shifter still roiling on the floor with the change.
He grabs the pistol, blows smoke from his nostrils, and gets off a round that misses its mark by less than an inch. I howl as the bullet soars through my chest, past my heart, and rips an exit on the back of my shoulder, skin spraying blood. The heady scent coats my nostrils.
Panting the pain away, I spring through the air and latch onto the partially formed dragon. I know the hole in my shoulder has already begun to heal. Bones burst through the assassin’s hand, transforming it into a dragon paw. The rest of his body balloons outward, and black scales the size of a human hand begin to form. Red eyes grow in widening sockets, and an elongated maw sprouts teeth as long as my arm. I sink my teeth deeper, mouth salivating the poisonous juices that should make the seconds it takes to kill him seem like a lifetime for both of us, as he shakes me like a small house pet hanging from his neck.
Jane
I break from the back door, hating to leave Gaire in the house with Vuur, and hoping his wendigo nature is a good match for the dragon.
I run past the yellow VW, hurdle a hedge, and hammer the grass as I gain on CeCe.
“’Ey! Stupid! Wait!” Jane shouts, buzzing on adrenalin and totally in her element. “I’m tryin’ to save your skinny little ass! Will ya slow down before ya give me a damn heart attack?”
Yeah, right, she just fought like a cornered feline with a damned assassin, and managed to escape before he hurled a fireball at us.