The beast’s head jerked up at that, then his jaws fell open, his red, red mouth panting.
Let me go, I said, all my prior life’s wishy-washiness blasted away in the furnace of whatever the fuck this was. They are pulling me home, to be with them, to raise my child. To put that cunt, Rick, into the motherfucking ground. You want a sacrifice like she did? I will cut his fucking throat, then spread his blood in your honour.
By the flare of those red eyes, that idea pleased him greatly.
You will do that anyway. It is written in every cell.
I was treated to a rapid flicker of scenarios. Me holding a gun out as Rick stormed our house, blood staining his skin, then bursting from his forehead as I shot him. Slamming a knife my searching fingers found in the chaos of the dining room floor into his neck as he thrust himself into me, showering me with blood. My pack emerging like shadows from the darkness around the house, padding after him as he approached Kade’s window, hand on the screens, our claws extended.
Will you surrender to him? Will you let him have his way?
Never.
Then I accept your sacrifice, but I want more.
Of course you fucking do. You’re a man, aren’t you?
No, not yet. The balance was broken when those two became our avatars. It must be restored. If you ask this of me, to release you back to the world, this burden will become your community’s. They will restore the order.
Being around the Great Black Wolf helped me claw back a kind of savage selfishness. I nodded, the first time my body had been able to move. At that, the big paw I hadn’t realised was standing on my chest was taken off, the sensation of being reeled up dizzying.
You will remember. You will make your sacrifice.
“This is absolutely the way,” a man said, forcing his way through the mass of people in the room and taking a place next to a pregnant woman. The look of love that passed between them as he took her hand was so pure and intense, it felt intrusive to watch it. “We defeated Lonen in the form he was in, but we had no idea where he went. The Black Wolf swallowed him and…?”
“I saw them, the way they were manifested by Branwen and Lonen in Wolflantis,” the pregnant woman said.
“Oemis, love.”
“Whatever. Just as we manifest our Tirians on the full moon, I think they did the same at special events. The Great Black Wolf is free now, but who manifests him?”
?
??That we even speak of such a beast is an abomination!” one woman spat.
I coughed, unable to do anything else, a splutter of fluid erupting everywhere.
“What the actual fuck!”
“Flick! By the goddess…”
“Let me through!” A cool hand was placed on my forehead, a bright light shone in my eyes.
“Ouch,” I said, blinking against it.
The debate continued to rage around me, but that dark certainty inside kept me quiet. Now wasn’t the time. Instead, I lay where Aidan had, my pack surrounding me.
“Flick…” Peter contained so much in the few words he said, the tone tearing at me. I resisted it for a moment, that hard black seed inside me ready to protect me, armour me against the world if I’d just let it. Rather, I reached up with a clumsy hand, taking his hand, and his squeezed mine painfully in response.
But I had to like the pain. Why else would I scan each of their faces, see the devastation I’d wrought spelled out plainly there?
“You’re…” Noah couldn’t get the words out, his eyes, his throat, clogged with tears. But Sen, he remained stock still, staring at me with red eyes, his stillness an excellent copy of the Great Black Wolf’s. His grip on my arm hurt as he hurt, his gaze going on and on, as if that was all that held me here.
“Flick… This isn’t what I wanted,” Aidan said, shouldering forward. “I…I did it for you.”
“And I did it for you,” I forced out, ending with a spluttering of coughing.
“Mum? Mum!”