Tear! Shred! Defend!my inner wolf cried as I lunged for another shifter’s throat, both of us snarling. But I didn’t quite make it before an impossibly large fist slammed into my side, sending me skidding a bit to the side.
It doesn’t matter that she’s a dryad because I’m a fucking empath, not a psychic!
She’d lied to me.
Cherry had lied to me.
There was a not-insignificant part of me that hoped it was somehow a ruse, but I couldn’t dedicate much thought to it because I was fighting for my life. Before, I hadn’t been fighting for justmylife, but considering that Cherry had split as soon as she could, I was a solo act now.
I can’t let them kill me. Not for free!
It was a dark thought, but it powered the howl that ripped out of my throat as I charged the massive man who’d sideswiped me. He looked to be part-ogre, and he was fast despite his size.He blocked my bite with a chair, grabbing a hunk of my hide with his other oversized hand.
Well, two could play that game.
I bit down, and I bit downhard,snapping the seat in two. Surging forward, I sank my teeth into his shoulder. It wasn’t a deep bite, but it was enough that webothhad each other in a hold.
It was a stalemate, but his side of it was far more painful than mine.
The other wolf shifter collided with my side, ripping into me.
Fuck!
There weren’t many times in my life that I’d had to call on my accelerated healing, but I was quite grateful for it. Especially when the two of us went tumbling, limbs over limbs and claws over claws until we slammed into a wall.
At least my father had been responsible and made sure all of us were trained in how to fight—even Jackson, although he had never really been that enthusiastic, stating he was a lover, not a fighter. I had a feeling if my father hadn’t insisted on it, I would have bled out ten minutes ago.
However, even with my training, I was pretty sure my time was up.
I rose up onto my four legs. I was surrounded again, but this time with a solid wall behind me. That was less than ideal.
“Call your friends off, and I’ll let you live,”I growled in shifter-speak to the wolf as he started to get up, shaking his head this way and that as if trying to clear the stars from it.
“I wouldn’t if I could,”he answered.“I don’t know who you are, outsider, but you made a poor choice in coming here.”
Apparently, I’d been making a lot of poor choices lately, such as inviting a charlatan onto a murder investigation and following her into a pit of vipers. Metaphorically, of course. I wasn’t using that as a slur for the basilisk at the door.
I spun, swiping him with one of my hind legs and sending him flying back into the wall. With him off me, I could face the coming hoard of assailants with my head held high.
“Hey! Up here, fuckface!”
Cherry’s voice was about the last thing I expected to hear, but suddenly, a handful of things were happening all at once. A bottle of strong liquor shattered down on the head of the part-ogre, a dark shape landed on the back of another, and then a third of my would-be attackers jolted like they’d been struck by lightning and collapsed to the ground, seizing slightly.
“You came back!”I exclaimed, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. Because, as it turned out, she wasn’t a psychic at all. Just anempath, whatever the hell that meant.
“Go down easy now, big boy,” she said, and my brain finally processed that she had simultaneously thrown a liquor bottle down at a target, then leaped onto the shoulders of another like a superhero, and now had him in a rear choke, having tased another. That one was still twitching on the ground, the prongs of the weapon attached to his torso.
Cherry might not be a psychic, but she sure was a force of nature.
Her impressive display had our aggressors reevaluating, and I took advantage of that to leap back into the fray, snapping my teeth around what I could and slashing with my claws when my jaws were occupied. Somehow, despite all odds, the two of us managed to put space between us and those who wanted to harm us. When the part-ogre Cherry was choking finally collapsed to the ground, I whirled to her and snarled.
“Run!”
She seemed to understand me. She took off yet again, this time heading for the entrance we’d snuck into rather than the tavern. I followed her, occasionally leaping ahead to barrel into or challenge anyone who tried to get close to her.
I couldn’t say why I was still defending her after what she’d pulled, but it was an instinct I couldn’t ignore. Somehow, in the short time we’d known each other, my wolf had identified her as someone in my custody, someone to protect and defend. Besides, she could have gotten away, but she chose to come back and help me. Even if she had lied about being a psychic, that wasn’t the type of thing that I would forget or ignore.
But we were going to have a really serious talk after this, assuming we survived. Because she’d done so many amazing, impressive things, I supposed I was still clinging to the hope that it was somehow all a ruse, and she wasn’t a fraud.