Then he swung at me again, striking me hard against my right cheek with a sickening crack. I slumped in his grasp. Now that I was limp and defenseless, he finally let go of my arm, and I crumpled to the ground.
“I wondered if you could use it, the magic in your blood.” He kicked me hard in the gut, knocking the wind out of me. I lurched to my side, holding my stomach. “Guess not.”
My eyes scanned the ground. Of course I would leave the stupid gun over there. Of course I would.
“D-Dalton …” I said, my voice nothing more than a thin rasp. “P-Please …”
“I wish I could stop, Char.” He advanced, his fists morphing into sharpened claws. “I’ll make it quick.”
This was it. He was going for the finishing blow.
“You can stop,” I murmured. “You can.”
He raised his right hand over his head, readying to bring it down on me. “Pleading won’t save you. Nothing can save you now.”
A blur whizzed across my line of sight. In a blink, Dalton was on the ground, gasping for air with scratches across his face.
Looking up, I saw Abram standing there in his human form, bare-chested and glistening in the moonlight. “I think I’d like to test that theory.”
My heart leapt. The rest of me would have followed, but I was as bruised and battered as the honorees of Mr. Blackwell’s ‘What Not to Wear’ list, and my heart was the only part of me capable of doing any leaping.
Abram glared at Dalton with enough animosity to break glass. His chest huffed up and down like waves crashing against a gorgeous shore. He was obviously pained. Panicking, I scanned his torso, searching for the bullet wound. All I found was dried blood. It seemed the injury had closed itself. I should have known better than to worry. It would take more than a bullet to stop Abram.
Of course, the same could be said for Dalton.
But what did that mean? If Abram wasn’t injured any longer, then why was he in so much obvious pain? The answer came to me almost immediately. It was after midnight. He was trying to maintain his human form, probably so that I would recognize him.
“Are you okay?” he asked, speaking to me but never removing his gaze from Dalton.
“I think he broke something,” I answered, already feeling how much my jaw was swelling up.
Abram growled. “I’m about to break him.”
Dalton smiled from the pavement. His wounds were stitching themselves together, too. This wouldn’t be an easily won fight. The only thing clearer than that was the fact that I seemed to the only person around who couldn’t heal her own wounds, which put me at a distinct disadvantage.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with you, Abram,” Dalton said, getting to his feet much quicker than he should have been able to. “Run along like a good dog, and you just might survive this.”
Abram leaned toward Dalton, not a wrinkle of fear to be found anywhere on him. “I would say the same about you, but I’m not going to afford you that luxury.”
As they circled each other, Abram’s eyes flashed down to me.
“Run,” he said, his worried voice gravelly with warning.
Then he sprung forward, morphing into full-on beast mode as he came down on Dalton. His elongated jaw went right for Dalton’s throat. He was obviously not wasting any time, freeing up of whatever energy it took him to remain human and going right for the kill shot.
Dalton ducked out of the way, and Abram landed, spinning around on his paws. Deep claw marks gashed into the pavement.
I darted off, heading right for the woods. But Dalton appeared in front of me.
“Stick around,” he said. “I don’t want you to miss this.”
Grabbing my arm, he flung me hard. I stumbled back and crashed against a parked car. The impact dropped me to my knees, and I curled up, spikes of pain shuddering up my back.
Abram’s howl pierced the night air. It was, at once, terrible and wonderful. He looked over at me, his beast form lean and muscular. His eyes traced me, taking ownership of all they saw. He lunged toward Dalton, but this time Dalton wasn’t lucky enough to get out of the way.
Abram collided with him, a mass of fur and teeth. Soon, Abram had eclipsed him, and all I could see from where I slumped against the car was Abram’s massive form huddling over what surely by now was Dalton’s bloodied corpse.
Astonishingly, though, Abram’s form lifted from the ground—Dalton held him over his head. He flung Abram through the air. The beast hit hard against a nearby building and yelped.
I shivered, realizing what Dalton could have done to me. But he wanted me alive—at least until he was ready to drain all my blood for himself. If I died before then, I would be no good to him.
Dalton started toward me. “Let’s go, sweet thing. I don’t exactly have an endless amount of time.”