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I ran toward the battle just as more Southerners—one of them a massive shifter who had been one of my torturers years ago—snarled and lunged for Brand. I stepped in between Brand and two of the men I’d trained alongside. One of them screamed at me to get out of their way, to help them.
“Weapon,” I demanded, holding my hand out for a blade. He handed it to me.
I quickly flipped it around and used it to cut them both down in the space of a few seconds. The knife stuck in the spine of one as I made sure he wouldn’t heal to fight again, but I let it go when I heard Margarette’s panicked scream.
“No!”
I kicked my fallen pack members to one side, trying to reach her. She had been wounded severely, a huge gash running from her hairline to her neck, blood pouring down her shoulder. Van was lifting the sword again for the killing strike.
There were no more weapons to grab, but it didn’t matter. I leaped over the bodies in front of me and threw myself between her and Van.
He snarled, licking blood from his lips. “Out of my way, boy. Your daddy ain’t here to save you now.”
I snarled back, shifting my fingers into sharp claws, feeling my teeth move into position.
“Your funeral,” he sneered and pulled one arm back, the sword glinting.
I heard Finnick call my name, and one word—“Catch!” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something long and brown flying toward me. I caught and lifted it, blocking the blow that Van had leveled at me.
His blade skidded off my weapon as I angled it to diminish the force of the strike. I heard a snap of wood breaking. Finnick had thrown me a staff, a weak one, with a strange metal screw on one end.
I almost smiled when I realized it was a mop. Her mop.
I could work with it. In fact… I snapped the staff at the spot where Van’s blow had weakened it. I preferred fighting with two short staffs anyway. I spun them around, licking my lips as Van watched the splintered ends twirling close.
But fighting an expert swordsman with what amounted to two large sticks wasn’t sustainable. He had made sure I never got enough training to best him or any of his cronies. Dad had made certain I stayed weak and small from years of being forbidden to shift.
I was fucked.
Van went on the offense, making me hop over the dead bodies of fallen shifters, forcing me away from Margarette. I was fine with that; I wanted him farther away, but then I realized he had taken me closer to another group of fighters. At a short whistle from him, two of them charged me, and Van disengaged, heading back to his primary target.
“Glen!” I yelled, hoping he could get to his mother, though he was facing down a half-dozen Enforcers many yards away.
Unable to get past the two who struck at me with their blades, I half-watched Margarette pull herself up on her bleeding arms. Then Van was there, yanking her long hair up with one hand and pulling back the sword with the other. He was going to cut her head off, on top of her mate’s broken body.
“Mom!” Glen screamed.
Samuel roared, Brand echoing him, but they were too far to help. Too late.
Then I heard something that made my heart pump faster, made my wolf inside me howl with terror and panic. A high-pitched scream, filled with years of rage.
My mate had arrived.
32
The Obvious Target
FLOR
Iknew something was wrong the moment I woke up in Luke’s bed. I lay there in the dark, surrounded by his scent, and terrified by the sound of something sliding against the wall outside the room.
A part of me wanted nothing more than to bury my head under the covers and pretend I didn’t notice the faint, metallic scent of blood seeping under the doorframe. But I’d been trained by Del to survive, and I owed it to him to get out of this pisshole.
For a moment, I pondered my best route of escape. I had shifted, or at least Margarette had told me I had. So my senses were stronger now, and my healing should be more advanced. I was still weak, though, and I knew better than to try and shift again. For one thing, it would take too long. For another, I had no idea how to fight in that form.
But I could kick ass on two feet any damned day of the year.
Suddenly, I heard a distant chorus of howls and screams from outside, in the direction of the fighting ring. Were the Games still on? But no, I could make out the clang of metal on metal, and far too many screams. It sounded like a war had begun.
