Amora
In the silenceafter Frost’s angry roar, Malix whips his large head around, his toothy jaw opening in a look of shock. Then he throws himself in front of me right before a commotion on the stairs indicates someone is coming up. I hear snarling, growling, the skittering of giant claws on wood, and several big crashes from the darkness below.
Then Frost’s shadow wolf leaps from the dark recesses of the basement, wisps of dark magic trailing behind his body, remnants of his transformation. He flies through the air in a smooth arc, his bulk taking up an ungodly amount of space in the small kitchen, and he lands so hard that the house shakes beneath his paws. His glowing blue eyes turn on us, flashing like the burning hot core at the heart of a flame.
But he doesn’t attack.
Not us, anyway.
Frost launches himself at the nearest shadow where it spreads like an oil spill on the scratched wooden floor. He leaps onto it, claws digging, teeth snapping. He’s like a starved wolf unleashed—biting, scratching, growling, snarling, taking out his anger on the shadow with devastating consequences. He tears right through the black shape, leaving gouges in the floor. The creature falls into shreds and evaporates, although Frost doesn’t wait around to see it disappear before he chooses his next victim.
Malix and I remain frozen, watching as Frost snags another shadow off the wall and rips into it. He leaps onto the kitchen sink, his claws scraping at the metal for purchase. Another shadow monster is torn from the cabinets and absolutely annihilated in his jaws.
More shadows pour into the kitchen from the outside. The more that come in, the darker the kitchen appears, despite the bright daylight outside. Frost bats a shadow off the ceiling, and it screeches with that bone chilling sound I’ve heard before. Kian bounds up the stairs from the lower level, shaking off whatever blow he took in the fall, and halts abruptly at the top of the steps, staring at Frost on top of the counters.
Kian’s large head rotates to look at me and Malix as if to say, What the actual fuck?
But he doesn’t wait for either of us to acknowledge him—he just leaps back into the battle. A split second later, Malix does, too, leaving me alone with the broken table.
I clutch my useless-ass fork and spoon like they’re going to do shit against the shadows and watch the coordinated violence unfolding around me. Even though Frost doesn’t seem aware of Kian and Malix even being beside him, they’re still able to dance around him, snatching at spare shadows when they break free from his powerful jaws.
Frost is a force of nature. He leaps off the walls and slams into counters, mowing through the shadows ferociously. He fights like a wolf possessed, decimating the shadows so thoroughly that my gaze can hardly keep up with him.
He pounces on a larger shadow hovering near the door that passes into the hallway. His giant, muscular shoulders slam into the doorframe, splintering the solid wood on either side, and he falls through, taking the shadow down onto the hardwood floor. Kian and Malix leap after him, growling as they snatch at more of the monsters surrounding their brother. All three wolves clatter across the floor, vanishing into the hallway.
In the sudden, abrupt silence, I realize the kitchen is bright again—there are no more shadows slipping through the open back door and gliding like black voids across the walls. The ones the three shadow shifters haven’t yet killed, they’ve chased into the foyer.
I shove against the wall and stand, stumbling a bit in my haste to chase after them. My silverware “weapons” drop to the floor as I leap over broken table legs and race out of the kitchen. Damn things were fucking useless anyway.
When I pause in the crooked doorway, I have to duck as remnants of a destroyed shadow are tossed right toward me. Frost slams into the stairwell bannister and the carved wooden columns collapse beneath him. He snatches at two more shadows and tosses his head violently, then immediately leaps back to his feet.
He barrels through a cluster of shadows, slams into the locked front door, and the whole lot of them fall into the sunshine while turning the solid oak door to kindling. Kian and Malix follow on his heels, and the shadows clear out, following the fight into the yard.
I leap over debris from the door and hit the porch running, taking the front steps two at a time as I chase them into the yard. The grass is warm and soft beneath my bare feet, and my wolf perks up with the hope that I’m about to shift. But I don’t. I’m helpless to do anything to assist them in the fight, either in wolf form or human, but I refuse to cower. I want to be here in case there’s anything I can do.
As the fight rages, movement in my periphery catches my attention, and my heart jolts, worried that another shadow is sneaking up on us.
I whip my head to one side, realizing as I do that it’s not a shadow at all. It’s a human walking around a neighboring farm. He’s pretty far away, just a silhouette beneath the blazing sun as he walks toward his old barn, but the sight of him makes my stomach twist into a knot. He raises a hand to cover his eyes and stares our way. I can’t see his expression, but it’s obvious he’s seen us.
Exactly what we don’t want to happen. Three giant black wolves and a human loitering around an abandoned farmstead? There’s not a chance in hell he isn’t going to call the cops.
The farmer backtracks, circling back toward his house, although he keeps glancing over his shoulder at us.
Fucking fuck. That’s going to bite us in the ass later.
Frost yips, and the sound makes me tear my gaze away from the retreating farmer. The last shadow vanishes in a puff of smoke at Frost’s feet, and he looks up, his eyes blazing bright blue as he seeks us out.
I can see immediately that he’s still not in his right mind. He may have broken free of his chains and come out swinging against the shadows, but inside his head, he’s still being driven mad by those same damn monsters.
I’m only a few feet behind Kian and Malix, who have preemptively placed themselves between me and Frost. In an instant, I see the trouble coming—his broken mind, his attack, his brothers defending me. One or more of them getting hurt.
Or dying.
Frost lunges forward with another bone-shaking snarl, but this time, he’s coming for us.
No!
That desperate thought propels me into motion before I realize I’m moving. I refuse to let him hurt Malix or Kian. I refuse to stand by and watch the three of them fight again, because this time, his brothers might kill him.
I run past Malix and Kian, the soft ground sinking beneath my bare feet, and throw myself in front of them.
Frost slams into me at full speed.
I feel the force of it in every part of my body. Every bone in me rattles from the impact, and I fly off my feet. I slam into the ground hard, throwing one arm over my head in an automatic attempt to save my head from flattening on the dirt. My arm absorbs much of the second impact, and I thank Grady for those karate lessons when I was a kid. He always warned me little wolf girls needed to learn how to fight and defend even without their teeth, and thank God for that beer-guzzling, protective old man.
Frost follows me down, snarling as he pins me to the ground.
My fight-or-flight screams at me to run. His teeth, his growls, his bulk, the lack of anything that makes him Frost in his eyes… it’s all terrifying.
But when I promised I wouldn’t give up on him, I meant it.
So I’m sure as hell not running now.
I wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face in his fur.