Sealed With a Curse(34)

The wolves’ hackles collectively rose as they set their diabolic sights on me. They moved as a single unit away from Taran and toward their newest prey.

Thanks, Taran.

A black-and-tan wolf leaped on me. An avalanche of blasted bedrock wouldn’t have rammed me as hard as he did. He aimed his bear-trap fangs at my jugular. My claws dug into his shoulders, keeping him from making confetti out of my throat.

In the wild, he wouldn’t have stood a chance. A tigress could shred through the hide of a wolf like packing foam. But this wasn’t the wild, and he was no mere wolf. Four hundred–plus pounds of abominable lupine threw me around like a dead squirrel. My claws and teeth appeared to have little effect. Unlike the students in the alley, this guy had seen his share of combat.

“Get ’em, Celia. Show these bitches what you’re made of!”

Taran didn’t get it. The most I could do was continue to dig my claws and fangs and use the wolf as a shield against his pack. He wasn’t, however, a willing participant. His claws scratched and pressed into my chest with the bulk of his weight while the others continued to pound against him to get at me. Their frustrated growls and impatient hunger for battle terrified me, and my stomach lurched from the wolf’s blood dripping down my throat. I needed to get him off me, but the floor wasn’t thick enough to shift across. If I tried to shift down, I’d land in Misha’s basement and damage my already battered ribs, allowing the wolf to easily finish me.

“What are you doing, Celia?” Taran screamed. “Beat them shitless and let’s get the hell out of here!”

Taran missed her calling as a motivational speaker.

I tried to use the wolf’s momentum to roll us into his buddies, but my bones ached brutally and my muscles begged to stop moving. We banged into a butcher block stacked with kitchenware. Plates, glasses, and a few pans kerplunked, banged, and shattered onto the floor as we shoved our way through it.

Taran must have finally reabsorbed enough magic and realized my struggle to the friggin’ death. She detonated a clamoring jolt, sending the wolf airborne and into an industrial-size stove.

That would have been great had a brown wolf not ransacked me. I think my skull made a serious dent in the stainless-steel refrigerator—or at least it should have, considering the canaries circling my head insisting I not move and just die. My broken rib now had a friend. Or two. I couldn’t tell, since my lungs had stopped working from the increasing strain of my attacker’s weight. I briefly heard the beautiful howl of a wolf before the abundant mass lifted off my chest.

I didn’t so much leap to my feet as creep. Even my eyelashes hurt. They fluttered, trying to help me focus. When the haze and pessimistic canaries vanished, I took in the remains of the ransacked kitchen. All the wolves had disappeared but two. An oil black wolf with a white spot on his front paw sniffed at my head. The other waited near my trash-mouthed sister. Taran was clearly all out of supernatural juice. Exhausted and terrified, she could barely hold on to the cabinet door.

Taran’s wolf was the identical twin of mine, except the white spot was on his opposite paw. He watched her, but failed to move, whereas my wolf nudged me with his head, trying to encourage me to stand. It almost seemed strange for him not to try to eat me, but his touch remained gentle and reassuring.

Because my luck generally sucked big, hairy moose, Taran misinterpreted his actions as another attempt on my life. “Get the hell away from her!”

It appeared Taran had some juice left after all. She propelled her last bit of lightning at my wolf, hollering with the anger of a thousand Latinas.

The wolf easily leaped out of her path.

I didn’t.

The force from the bolt knocked me back into the fridge. Sparks flew as the huge appliance short-circuited. Some might argue that it took the brunt of the shock. My scrambled insides argued not.

“Oh, shit,” Taran muttered.

My wolf sped to the one at her side. I flopped onto my belly in time to see the pair curl their necks together as if embracing.

Before joining to form one enormous wolf.

The transformation happened so fast, I almost missed it. Two halves merged in unison, the perfect blend of yin and yang except beautiful, frightening, and mesmerizing all at once, like the death of two and the rebirth of one almighty.

Taran gawked as the wolf placed his paws, now both white, on the countertop. The scent of were magic tickled my whiskers as the wolf vanished and changed into Gemini.

Oh, hell. Never had another lived up to a nickname like this.

“Don’t be afraid,” he murmured to Taran. “I promise to protect you.” He left Taran briefly to lift an overturned kitchen chair and place it next to the counter. With the elegance of a king, he took Taran’s hand and led her down his makeshift staircase. “Are you hurt?”