The blood and gore of it all, hearing the bones break, watching them shake chunks of skin from their coats had been terrifying, something unlike any horror movie had ever done or any special effects team could ever hope to emulate. I felt sorry for them another second before a true wolf got in my face. He came at me, mouth open, teeth dripping with saliva, a ferocious growl to match the deranged glint in his eye. I ducked under his mouth, using my shoulder, easy on all fours, to barrel into him and knock him to the ground, literally taking his four legs out from under him.
As I did so, I got a glimpse of Lex being bitten by the alpha. Lex yipped, a high pitched sound mixed with a fierce growl, as the alpha tore at his neck with his teeth. Heat boiled up inside me, tightening my muscles, accelerating my heartbeat, even blurring my vision as the wolf opposing me jumped on my back. My entire form shook, violently, my rage growing, again, tossing the other wolf like a rag doll as Lex wrestled with his opponent. The tearing of skin, the sound of jaws snapping, tightened my stomach, made me sick even as my magic built.
I couldn’t do magic in my wolf form, but as my opponent came at me again, the energy inside me made me feel like a pressure cooker about to explode. Everything around me seemed to slow, from the dripping of blood onto the earth to the howls, like cheers after a good hit that rose up and disturbed the already unstable night air.
While my opponent tossed his body, turning from his back to right himself, the world moved in slow motion around me, as if the power that threatened to end me could slow time itself. The sound of fangs elongating in a vampires mouth clicked in my ear as I watched them descend, Nira’s mouth opened as she jumped at a wolf. Another set of wolves, tangled up in each other, rolled slowly, mouths trying to bite, but chomping only air. The crack of a tree trunk, the wood unable to take the hit of a wolf that had been pushed into it echoed around me, the sound radiating out, in a wave, making the very earth tremble.
Even that, the connection I had to everything, from the anguish of that tree, to the drowning cry of the blood soaked grass, it hit me, affected me, struck me as profound. I had a lesson to learn here. The very world, the magic inside me, it wouldn’t take me away, it would make me rise above it, control it, as I had its blessing to do so. The Royals had talked about such a thing, but I’d thought it their luxury, given their untainted bloodline.
I straightened rather than cowered, as Lex’s body fell. His heartbeat strong, shock more than anything taking him down, still, it was more than I could bear, especially as in touch with the world as I was at this moment. I had it within me to stop it, to connect with every element, to alter the movement of each atom, to move the world, to alter people, to save each and every one here. These were fundamental truths I didn’t shy away from.
No more violence! The words screamed through my head. Not another angry bite will be taken. No more pushes or growls. No more hating. Not one more wolf or vampire will die! Not another single drop of blood will be shed!
Before I realized what was happening to me, I lost control of it all from my rage to my magic to these truths. A powerful mix, the fighting around me stopped if only because I’d turned into a white hot ember, a mass of light so bright, I might have been blinding them all permanently. Part wolf and part woman I yelled the single word, stop, part human language and part growl, a sound foreign to even my ears though I knew I made it. The world responded.
All at once, everyone there fell to the ground, just collapsed like someone had instantly put them all to sleep. As my light died down, and my body returned to fully human, I looked around me, in shock a moment, wondering if I had somehow killed them all. Yet a confidence, a strange sensation, took over, reassured me that they were all fine. I moved to Lex first, grabbing him around his neck, hugging his large wolf head to my body. As his warm blood ran over my bare skin, he shook his head and opened his eyes.
“You’re alive,” I cried with joy, as he turned back into a man, my arms still around his neck.
“Yes. I guess I am. I, uh… what did you do?” he asked. “One minute I was fighting, and the next my girlfriend is some sort of torch, half wolf, half human, blinding white light streaked with reds and yellows and blues, erupting, literally. For a second, I feared you would self-combust, but then everything went from white to black. It was like I passed out, though a calm surrounded me first, circled around me like a warm blanket, hugging me before my eyes closed and my thoughts disappeared.”