I said, “You don’t want to do that.”
He shot toward me, claws stretched wide.
His mouth was filled with pointed teeth.
GORDO RUN PLEASE RUN I’M COMING RUN RUN RUN
I said, “No,” and ran toward him.
The raven took flight.
Pappas leapt at me, claws glittering in the moonlight.
I dropped to my knees at the last second, leaning back on my legs as I slid through the dirt.
My father had told me magic was an ancient thing. That it lived in the blood, constantly moving. It could be controlled through sheer force of will with the proper marks carved into the skin. But it could grow beyond one’s control, he’d said. If there was no trust in it. No faith. I had to believe in what I could do. What I was capable of. The earth of the Bennett territory was unlike anywhere else in the world. The Livingstones were tied to it just as much as the wolves.
My father said his magic felt like a great and lumbering beast.
Mine always felt like a symphony, all these parts moving in concert. It called out my name, and at times I thought it alive and sentient, with its own free will, and it begged me for release. It would arc along my skin, jumping from tattoo to tattoo, zipping along the lines and shapes on my arms, spelling out ancient secrets for earth and healing and destruction and fire.
It hit hard. I felt it in the trees and the birds that sat in them, the autumn wildflowers that bloomed throughout the old growth, the leaves that broke from the limbs and fell toward the ground. It was in the blades of grass, the gnarled roots that grew beneath the surface, stretching on and on and on.
This place was mine, and this fucking wolf had made a goddamn mistake.
Pappas flew over me and crashed onto the ground behind me, rolling once, twice, before coming to a stop in a crouch. He was moving even as I pushed myself up, but before he could reach me, I held my hand up, palm toward Pappas, and I called upon the territory. The trees groaned as the air rippled around my hand. I closed my eyes and found the web of threads that bound my pack together and wrapped them around my arm, digging them into the earth. I felt the Alphas along those threads, sending pulses of packwolf magic. Carter joined in behind his Alphas. Mark didn’t. His focus was singular, and he was singing gordo gordo gordo.
The tattoos were bright as they’d ever been as I opened my eyes.
I pushed, and earth cracked and rolled beneath Pappas’s feet, causing him to stumble onto his hands and knees, and he roared angrily. But before he could pull himself back up, I took three steps and kicked him upside the head. He fell back, an arc of blood spilling from his gaping mouth. He landed hard on his side, blinking up toward the night sky.
“Stay down,” I warned him.
He said, “Gordo” and “Witch” and “Help me” through a mouthful of sharp teeth. “It’s wrong. Everything about this is wrong. I can feel it breaking. It’s in my head, oh god, it’s in my head.” Even before he finished talking, he was already pushing himself up, his claws digging into the dirt.
“Don’t,” I snapped as I took a step back. “I will put you down. I don’t know what happened, but I will fucking end you if you can’t find your control.”
“Control,” he growled, eyes bright again. “It’s frayed. It’s breaking. Can’t you see? I didn’t think—it wasn’t supposed to be me. It’s happening.” He tilted his head back toward the sky, shoulders stiff as his jaws opened wide. “She knows. Infection. She knows about the infection.”
“What are you talking about?”
He jerked his head forward, orange eyes on me. He was tensing again like he was about to attack. “Omegas. All of us will become—”
A large brown wolf crashed into him, knocking him off his feet. He landed on his back, the wolf atop him, snarling down into his face. Pappas growled back up at him and, before I could move, turned his head and bit into Mark’s right leg.
Mark yelped angrily, trying to jerk his leg out of Pappas’s mouth. His skin tore, blood splashing down onto Pappas’s face as he shook it side to side.
I didn’t hesitate.
I ran toward them, the raven’s wings flapping furiously. The roses in its talons were burning, the fire pulsing from the Cen rune on my arm. It was short for Kenaz, the torch. My father had whispered an old poem in my ear as he pressed it into my skin, saying this is live fire, bright and shining/more often, it ablaze, where noble men rest in peace.
The fire spread, and it caught the rest of the runes, burning up through my arm to my hand. Fire could be a light in the darkness, a healing that seared away scars that littered the surface. It could be warmth from the cold, a means of survival in an unforgiving world.
Or it could be a weapon.
I pressed my hand against Pappas’s leg, and he screamed, Mark’s calf coming free
from his mouth. Mark moved off him, leg bloodied as he held it lamely folded up against his body. It didn’t stop him from bending his head toward Pappas’s throat, lips curled over long fangs, growling down at him.