“SUBMIT.”
The shaking turned into near-vibrating, and I felt something warm and wet drip from my nose. Blood? Perhaps. It felt like my brain was cooking in my head. My entire body was at war with itself, me fighting to keep myself upright while hundreds of thousands of years of ancestors tried to make me obey my alpha.
But still, I did not submit.
Maybe if I had an ounce of spare brain power left, I would have been proud of my resistance. However, as it were, I couldn’t fight. Hell, I couldn’t even move. I wasn’t submitting but I certainly wasn’t going to win any battle either.
“SUBMIT,”his voice echoed in my head again—no, my verysoul—but I stayed there, staring him in the eyes, daring him to try to break my spirit.
Another step forward. His blade was once again at the ready while my heart thundered in my ears, which were dripping warm liquid, the same as my nose.
Was this the end? Perhaps. But I was buying time for my siblings to try and resist his initial order. Alpha commands were impossibly strong, but they didn’t last forever.
If this assassin truly was my brother, he would know that, and he would make his repeated orders apply to everyone instead of just me. But no, I could sense that all his command, all his aura, was focused solely on me and my inner wolf.
“SUBMIT!”
He had reached me. I bared my teeth and let out something that was akin to a snarl but filled with just as much pain as it wasdefiance. It would besoeasy to just lie down and spend my final moments in the blessed relief of adhering to my alpha’s orders.
Except I didn’t. With what little extra wherewithal I had, I braced myself for death.
“SUBMIT!”
“No.”
I saw the blade start to swing down, cathedral-light glinting along its polished length. I braced myself, hoping against hope I’d bought enough time for the Chevaliers’ niece and Tadgh to heal, maybe even the Whisper too. But before the weapon could swing through, there was a yell from above and something came flying down from the balcony screaming bloody murder.
Wait, not flying. Falling with style and on a skateboard. I had to be hallucinating, because that was Cherry colliding with the assassin, her board connecting with his ribs as she slammed aliteral brickinto his skull.
“Get the hell away from him!”
And with that, the two tumbled to the floor, and the world fell out from under me.
Chapter 15
Cheribelle
Bad Anatomy
Ow!
I hit the floor, and I hit the floorhard,bouncing several feet into the air before I slammed back down. It felt like an entire NFL team had tackled me. Not for the first time, I found myself wishing I had the fancy healing powers of the shifters all around me, because I was pretty sure in an hour or so, I would resemble a moldy banana.
However, if Iwerea shifter, I would no doubt be as immobilized as most of them had suddenly become. I had no idea what was going on, but I figured it had to be some sort of pack thing. That was when I’d gone booking it outside forsomesort of weapon that could give me an advantage against the über assassin that had dropped into the middle of our trap.
A trap that wasn’t quite working out how I’d pictured it.
Congratulations, Cherry. So far your plans are zero for two.Not the time, man!
Normally, my mind would spin off into feelings of failure and thoughts of how much of a loser I was, but adrenaline had a funny way of regulating my system—as it did for a ton of neurodivergent people. Those voices quieted, and I was able toconcentratein a way I normally couldn’t.
And what I was concentrating on was utilizing the tiniest shred of an advantage I had by landing on top of the assassin. An assassin who looked an awful lot like Paul’s dead brother. Had to be a trick, because that guy was dead-dead.
“Hey! Look up here!” I screamed like a banshee. Getting him to look at me wouldn’t really accomplish anything but startling him could only help me. He was stronger than me, faster than me, had blades and a shit ton of magic at his beck and call, so I had to be smart if I wanted to live.
Because there was no way I could beat him on my own. But what Icoulddo was delay and disorient him. And if there was one thing in the world I was really,really,good at, it was being fucking distracting.
“What formula will get you the area of a circle using its radius?” I shrieked again before clapping both of his ears as hard as I physically could. Ameanmove, that was for sure, but when I’d gone to MMA camp, they’d taught us some moves to use outside of official fights. For when our lives depended on it and there was no such thing as fighting dirty.