03 - Evolution (32 page)

Like hell!
Michael thought.
His anger over what had been done to him boiled over, fueling his
determination to stay alive. He had already lost his humanity. He wasn’t
about to lose his life, too. And his future with Selene.

He tucked his chin in to protect his throat. With an
explosive movement powered by sheer determination, he rotated sharply to
the right, throwing William off him. Before the werewolf could regain
his footing, Michael leaped on top of him. He stared furiously into the
monster’s scarlet eyes, seeing in William’s bestial face Lucian, Kraven,
Viktor, Marcus, and every other heartless monster that had brutalized
him and Selene over the past few nights. He pounded the werewolf’s snout
with his fists, taking out his fury on the subhuman creature beneath him

No more!
he raged.
I’m ending this… now!

Sinking his claws into William’s muzzle, he ripped off
the werewolf’s snout.

“No!” Marcus reacted in shock. He turned to go
to his brother’s defense, and Selene saw her opportunity. She surged
forward and drove her fingers into his throat, then followed up with a
vicious knee to his groin. He dropped to his knees, doubled over in
pain, just in time to see Michael tear off William’s snout.

Blood spouted like a fountain from the werewolf’s ruined
face. He clutched at mangled flesh with his huge misshapen paws, but
there was no recovering from such a wound. He tried to roar, but all
that emerged from his gaping maw was a wet gurgle. He toppled over onto
the snow and debris. His arms and limbs twitched convulsively as he
drowned in his own blood. Finally, he fell still and silent.

After sixteen centuries, William, the father of all
werewolves, was dead.

An anguished cry erupted from his brother’s throat. The
sight of William’s death threw Marcus into a murderous rage that easily
overcame the pain Selene had just inflicted on him. He sprang to his
feet like a demon freshly released from hell. He attacked Selene with
renewed fury, forcing her back toward the whirring helicopter blades
until they were right behind her shoulders. She fought back as best she
could, parrying his blows with every last bit of strength she could
extract from his father’s blood, but quickly found herself on the
defensive. His right hand closed about her throat, drawing blood with
his claws, and she gasped for breath. His hybrid flesh felt slick and
clammy against her skin, even as he crushed her windpipe with killing
force. The spinning blades roared in her ears.

“I knew Viktor made a mistake keeping you as a pet!” he
ranted. Even his voice sounded different in its hybrid form. Harsh and
guttural as opposed to cultured and urbane. “He should have killed you
with the rest of your family!”

His words stung like sunlight, reopening old wounds, but
she was determined not to let her pain show. She faced the mutated Elder
with the same icy mask she had presented to the world for more than six
hundred years, until Michael had come along. Marcus was hardly the only
soul ever to lose a loved one….

Using everything she had, she pried his hand from her
throat and thrust it up toward the blades spinning behind her.

Thwack-thwack!
Marcus’ hand
was removed in the blink of an eye. He screamed in torment, blood
spurting from his severed wrist, and his fearsome wings unfurled behind
him. The right wing struck like lightning, spearing her right through
the chest.

She gasped out loud. The shock and pain were even worse
than when he had stabbed her hand and hip back at the pier. Letting go
of the Elder’s arm, she clutched at the deadly talon with both hands.
She tried to tug it loose, give her body a chance to heal, but the wing
was too strong. The talon refused to budge. Marcus gave the claw a
sadistic twist, forcing another gasp from her lips. She felt her life
force ebbing away, beyond even the power of Corvinus’ blood to keep her
alive.

A thin smile came to the hybrid’s hideous face. He may
have lost a hand, but Selene was only moments away from losing her life,
along with everything she had fought for these past few nights. He drew
back his second wing, preparing to impale her with the other talon.

No!
Selene thought. She
wasn’t going to die tonight. For the first time in ages, she had too
much to live for. Digging deep, she twisted the talon with all her
strength. The rigid claw scraped against bone, and she let out an
ear-piercing scream, but at last the talon snapped off at the knuckle
and she yanked it out of her bleeding chest. The searing pain eased just
a little.

“Bitch!” Marcus snarled. He grabbed her throat with his
remaining hand and squeezed even harder than before.

Selene drove his own broken talon up through his throat
and out the top of his skull. He stared at her with absolute shock, his
black eyes filling with blood, before she spun him around and shoved him
into the spinning helicopter blades. His body came apart, wings and all,
in a tornado of blood and carnage that chopped him up and scattered the
pieces all over. Selene scrambled backward to avoid being sprayed with
hybrid gore.

Sparks flew from the rotor assembly, and the blades
finally slammed to a stop. The clipped steel blades were now slick with
blood. The remains of Marcus, the last of the Elders, were splattered
all over the dungeon. Selene wiped a single smear of blood from her
face.

Now she had killed two Elders.

The morning sun began to glide over the Carpathians,
shafts of daylight slowly penetrating the breach in the dungeon. Selene
heard footsteps upon the stairs and knew it had to be Michael. As far as
she knew, they were the only people left alive in the castle. He emerged
from an archway and stepped out onto the bridge behind her. She could
tell by his scent, which was now almost as familiar to her as her own,
that he had shifted back into his human form. He gasped out loud,
stunned by what he now saw.

Frozen in place, almost afraid to move, she stared in
wonder at the sight of her own hand lying directly in a sunbeam,
completely unharmed. The morning’s radiance warmed her chilled flesh,
nothing more.

“Selene!” he said softly. Awe filled his voice.

She turned toward him slowly, her brown eyes filled with
emotion. Holding her breath, she stepped entirely into the sunlight,
exposing her entire body to the golden rays.

Nothing happened. She was completely immune.

Corvinus’ blood,
she
recalled. She recalled the transcendent look on the old man’s dying
face, as well as his answer when she had nervously asked him what she
would become.

“The Future.”

Michael joined her in the daylight. She knew she didn’t
have to explain how much this meant to her. He was obviously just as
moved as she was. They kissed passionately, the kiss evolving into an
immortal embrace that seemed to last forever.

Together, side by side, they watched the most glorious
sunrise she could ever imagine. Her moist eyes reflected the first light
of a whole new day. Selene felt as though her old life, which had come
to a brutal end one night in a blood-splattered barn, had finally been
restored to her.

She still had questions, of course. The unknown was now
her new reality, for she did not fully comprehend what she had become.
The future would bring many new mysteries, maybe even new dangers and
fears, but the first step, the first new day, had arrived at last.

Six hundred summers,
she reflected.
Six hundred snowy winters.
Thirty-five generations of mortal humanity. And finally, again… the sun.

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