Filed to story: Tangled in Moonlight Unshifted Novel by Lenaleia
“How long has it been like that?”
Since they started fighting.
Perfect. Even our mental communication is compromised.
Strange. Everything’s just too strange.
The wind howls around us, drowning out everything in my ears except for my own ragged breathing. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to focus on anything else besides the growing knot of dread in my gut.
Lisa’s face flashes through my mind—her smile this morning as she joked about the cold, the way she laughed when Selene tackled her.
“We have to go faster,” I whisper helplessly. “How far are we now?”
The wolves are already at their limit, Grimoire says. Any more and they risk injury. Your heart rate is increasing dangerously. You need to maintain control.
“I don’t care about control right now!”
You should. If we arrive and you’re too worked up to properly channel magic—
“Fuck!” Pain bursts through my fists as I slam them against my knees in frustration. My magic pulses erratically inside of me. The bitterness in my voice surprises even me. Grimoire falls silent, but I can feel his disapproval radiating through our bond. Fine. Let him disapprove. Let him judge.
It’s okay for me to be angry, damn it.
It’s okay to be frustrated.
As long as I don’t lose control.
Another jolt from the sled has me gripping the edges. The wind cuts through my clothes despite the blanket, but I barely notice the cold anymore. Every cell in my body seems focused on one thing: getting to my people.
The distance between us feels like a physical weight pressing against my chest, making it hard to breathe.
Ava, Selene’s voice is gentle in my mind. We will reach them.
“Not in time.”
Not fast enough. But I know you. And I know Lisa. She’s stronger than you give her credit for. They will hold firm until our arrival. Trust in your pack, Ava.
She’s right about that, at least. Lisa’s been training. She has her brace. She’s with Kellan and other wolves. She’s not helpless.
But against ten unknown entities that can mask their scent and interfere with pack bonds? Against creatures that move through our territory like ghosts?
My teeth clench so hard my jaw aches. The sound of blood rushing in my ears almost drowns out the wind. Almost.
But I take a deep breath, forcing myself back into control, even as magic floods through my limbs, eager to rush out of me. Eager for my next command.
LISA
Mira stands in front of me, fully wolfed out, gray fur bristling.
Snow crunches beneath my boots as I back a little further away.
Something isn’t right. Ten massive wolves wrestle with the Westwood wolves, brutally aggressive, and yet not a single one glances my way.
A gray wolf—one of our guards, I’m pretty sure—flies past us, blood matting his fur. He slams into a tree with a sickening crack. My stomach lurches. I can’t recognize the wolves by sight like Ava does, because they all look alike. Only Kellan stands out from the rest, a little larger and more russet than gray.
He launches at two attackers, his teeth finding purchase in one’s throat, trying to pull him to the ground. But these wolves don’t seem to notice pain.
The brace on my wrist is warm, already charged with a few drops of blood and ready to fire. But there’s no way I can use it with them all tangled together like this. I’m as liable to hit one of my guards as I am an enemy.
My fingers hover over the brace. If I can just get a clear shot…
But it doesn’t look like that’s happening anytime soon.
Another guard crashes nearby, his leg bent at an impossible angle. Still, not one of the attacking wolves turns our way. It’s like Mira and I are invisible, or…
“They’re only targeting the pack,” I murmur.
But how do they know?
Kellan roars in pain as three wolves pin him down. My heart leaps into my throat. The brace grows hot against my skin, responding to my panic.
But why avoid me? Unless…
Unless someone wants me alive.
No. That’s crazy. Who would—
Mira whirls suddenly with a vicious snarl, bounding behind me in an instant. Before I can turn, something whistles behind me.
Ice floods my veins. My muscles lock up as a primal part of my brain screams danger.
Red sprays across pristine white in my peripheral vision, and I jerk around while stumbling back, slipping in the fresh now.
Mira’s body crumples in front of me, and I’m already raising my arm, aiming my brace at—
No.
My whole body trembles.
Marisol stands before me, but she’s wrong. All wrong. Her delicate features remain unchanged, that same pixie-like face that had brought me food in that dark cell. But power radiates from her. Or something does, anyway, with an aura of darkness and fire. Her unnatural green eyes practically glow like fluorescent toxicity, and her skin… her skin seems to ripple with shadows that shouldn’t exist.
“Sweet Lisa.” Her voice carries the same musical lilt I remember, but now it scrapes against my ears like broken glass. It’s strange, like it isn’t her speaking, even though her mouth moves with her words. “Did you miss me?”
The brace is right there, charged and ready, aimed straight for her face. But I can’t say the words. Can’t make my body respond to my mind. I’m frozen in fear and memories I’ve done my best to bury.
Those eyes. Those horrible, beautiful eyes hold me captive, as if all this freedom is nothing more than an illusion.
The shadows writhing beneath her skin stretch outward, reaching for me with grasping tendrils. My legs won’t move. My lungs won’t work. The sounds of fighting fade to a distant roar as those toxic eyes consume my world.
Just like before. Just like that cell. Just like every nightmare since. I can’t do anything.
But this isn’t before, and I’m not the same helpless girl I was then. This time I have power of my own.
“Shape,” I whisper. In my head, all I can see is a giant lance made of flame.
A spear of pure flame, ten feet long and thick as my arm. Its tip blazes white-hot, the shaft a swirling inferno of orange and gold. Something large enough to contain all my terror. All my rage. All the helplessness of those days lost in darkness. The grief over Mira’s body, just lying there, surrounded in a sea of crimson.
“What?” Marisol’s melodic voice carries a note of confusion, her eyes moving to the arm I have pointed at her.
Naturally, I picture the lance piercing straight through her chest, burning away the darkness that writhes beneath her skin. The flames would consume her from the inside out, turning those toxic green eyes to ash. My lips part as I whisper the command that will make it real.
“Fire.”
Marisol isn’t a hundred yards away. She’s mere feet from me, with Mira’s blood splashed on her face and clothes. With just a few steps, I could touch her.
I’ve been practicing on giant trees, perfecting my aim from fifty yards out. Destroying them so they teeter and fall, no longer connected to the earth.
There’s no Westwood wolf entangled with this thrall of the Mad Prince.
There’s nothing to get in the way of all the emotions I’ve thrown into this moment, in the lance so clearly depicted in my head, in the horrible death I’m wishing upon this woman. This person I once thought of as a victim, and now see as nothing more than a murderer.
So it comes as no surprise as at all as the lance bursts forth, blazing with all the rage held in my soul. She has less than a second to react, and it isn’t enough.
It slams into her chest, just as I pictured.
For a split second, Marisol’s eyes widen with shock. Her mouth forms a perfect ‘o’ of surprise. Then the flames burst outward from the impact point, consuming her in a blinding inferno of white and gold.
The stench is godawful. Nothing I was prepared for; it’s acrid and sweet, like burning hair mixed with rotting meat. My stomach heaves as memories of that dark cell flood back, but this is different.
It’s flesh and bone burning away to nothing.
The fire spreads rapidly, engulfing her entire body. Her form becomes a silhouette of pure light, so bright it burns spots in my vision. Then she disappears, crumbling into nothing but ash that scatters across the blood-stained snow.