Soul Avenged (Sons of Wrath, #1) (34 page)

She flipped
onto her feet and backed up.

Piercing pain
struck the back of her calf, the burn followed by trickles of
warmth. “Ah shit!”

Her ankle
twisted beneath her, dipping her into a gaping hole in the parking
lot floor. A glance down showed rebar poking through her flesh.

Motherfucker!

Wriggling and
tugging only intensified the spasms of pain shooting through her
muscle.

From the other
side of the car, Kane’s grunts continued to echo across.

The lycan’s
gaze made a slow track from hers to Kane’s position.

“Lycan!” Ayden
pushed the words past the tightness in her chest as the rebar
twisted with the tiniest of movement. “Finish me first, you weak
piece of shit.”

The fury in
its eyes burned a glowing silver. From its haunches, the wolf
catapulted into the air and landed on her twisted foot.

Ayden slammed
back against the concrete with a howl. She pounded the beast
hovering over her, railing punch after bloodthirsty punch.

It curled and
hunched in on itself.

She drew back
again for another strike.

The beast
caught her fist in its mouth and thrashed it like a shark, teeth
tearing at her flesh. Blood flowed from its clamped jaw. The
sandpaper feel of Evan’s tongue against her knuckles vanished to
numbness.

A curse ripped
through her chest. A charge exploded inside her.
Yes!
Seeing
the mangled half of her arm sticking out of the beast’s mouth
roused a black swarm of fury that spread through her body.
Kill.

With her foot
crushed, her fist caught in the beast’s mouth, she punched at it
with her free hand. Her position left her at too much of a
disadvantage, each punch weakened by the awkward angle.

The lycan
released her torn and tattered fist, and as she raised her good arm
for another punch, the beast decimated her attack by flattening her
fists against the concrete with its paw.

Helplessness
tightened her stomach and beckoned rage, creating a haze that
clouded her vision.

Kill.

Both of her
arms lying trampled against the concrete beneath the lycan, she
wriggled her un-trapped thigh to hoist her foot up and give some
leverage to push it off, but the rebar sunk deeper into the muscle
of her snared calf. She groaned as the metal scraped against bone,
tingling her flesh.

Rows of teeth
pressed down on her.

She strained
to hold them back with her boot pressed into Evan’s chest.
Fuck
you.

“Son of a—”
Kane’s words ended on a gurgle.

Evan halted.
His head swung toward the sound.

With a leap
off Ayden taking him to his feet, he stalked toward Kane.

“
No!
”
Ayden bolted upward, tugging at her twisted boot. Sensation had
returned to her mangled arm, the healing already set into motion.
Her ankle, gnarled and disfigured inside the depths of the hole,
however, was a mess that turned her stomach. The rebar had damn
near poked through her shin but the pain was exhilarating.
Fuel.

She drew her
gun from its holster and fired a shot at the lycan’s arm.

Though its
uninjured snaked around the wound, the injury did little to stop
his advance toward Kane.

Oh, just
finish him for, chrissakes.
Easy kills were no fun. She aimed
the gun at its head, but the bullet missed its target when the
lycan disappeared below the vehicle Kane lay behind. “Dammit!”

Fighting
against the numbing sensation that had begun to settle in her foot
as the rush of Lywa antibodies shifted to her leg, Ayden wriggled
against her binds.

Each growl
from the lycan urged her on.

He would tear
Kane to shreds.

A screech,
like claws against metal, followed by Kane’s mumbled grunts, sent
her over the edge. She rolled to the side, wincing at the torsion
to her bone, and forced herself to a stand. Bent forward, one hand
wrapped around her shin, she sucked in a breath and tore her foot
right out of the boot. Searing agony rocketed up through her ankle
and into her thighs, as the rebar dislodged from her calf with a
suction sound. Her bone, clearly broken, made for a sickening
sight, all contorted in an unnatural position.
Nothing I can do
about it now.
She hobbled with one useless bare foot across the
snow-laden parking lot and rounded the car to Evan looming over
Kane.

Kane’s shirt
lay torn to shreds, gaping wounds across his chest oozing
blood.

Ayden unfurled
her whip and snapped it outward.

The end
twisted around Evan’s neck, and his claws flew up and grabbed
hold.

He tumbled
backward, mouth working for breath.

Ayden reeled
him toward her. The large wolf slid across the snow, leaving a
trail of black tarry blood behind. The noose, pulled tight around
his neck, dug deeper into its throat and the lycan bounced against
the snow as its body arched up, its legs flailed out. She wound the
whip around her hand, holding it tight and stood over him.

“Kill … you …”
Evan growled out.

Ayden smiled.
“Me first,” she said, and yanked the whip.

His head
detached from its body and lopped to the side.

Using the whip
to tug his mutilated body to a rusted garbage can, she tossed his
remains inside. After patting her pockets, she removed the pack of
matches and set fire to the can. An huge orange flame plumed upward
from it before dying down to a steady burn.

Dislodging her
boot from where it lay trapped in the hole proved to be a
frustration, but it finally broke free. Taking a deep breath, Ayden
grabbed hold of her gnarled ankle and wrenched it in the opposite
direction.

A crack hit
her ears. “Ah, shit!” She bit her lip as the sensation, like a
dozen paring knives chipping away at bone, moved through her
nerves, and nausea settled in her stomach. “You’ve felt worse,
Ayden. Get over it,” she murmured. Her right hand tingled as the
lycan venom dissolved in her blood, eaten away by the overpowering
Lywa antibody.

With the boot
slipped back over her foot, she staggered back toward Kane.

He lay slumped
against the car. Needing to be sure of his health, she crouched on
her good foot and placed her fingertips to his neck. His pulse
hammered back. She lifted a tattered piece of his shirt. The wounds
had already begun to seal.

Ayden had to
give him some credit, the guy took a beating like a champ. Not many
humans could withstand the pain.

Tiny
snowflakes spilled from the sky, melting against his bruised cheek,
and she focused on his sleeping face as the tiny droplets glistened
like diamonds in the firelight blazing from the garbage can. Her
thoughts drifted back to the moments before she’d killed the lycan,
the panic that had settled over her when it’d gone after Kane. As
if she’d wanted to …
protect him.

She scowled.
Definitely not.
Lifting his arm around her neck, she hoisted
him up.

Kane groaned
and must’ve gained an element of consciousness, as the burden of
his weight shifted.

“Don’t be a
damned tough guy, Kane. I know it hurts. Let’s get out of here
before they sense a pack brother has fallen.”

Lycans had an
uncanny sense, like a sixth sense, keeping them connected to one
another.

Kane remained
silent, stumbling along with her toward the bike, where she flopped
him onto the bitch seat before climbing on in front.

Opening the
throttle sent a roar through the lot, and Ayden swung around and
sped down the dark street, her mangled foot hanging limp over the
pedal.

Kane twisted
and writhed in the seat behind her, his helmet buried in her back.
The night ahead would be one of the worst nights of his change, the
wolf inside him determined as all hell to get out. To feed and
hunt. As his muscles developed, so too would his tolerance for
pain.

It might also
be the last night she would see him as human.

Ayden’s mind
tangled in a mass of confusion as her thoughts roiled. Surely, she
would have seen the memories in the one who’d bitten Kane. Was it
Evan? Maybe. Or perhaps she’d never learn who’d attacked her.

Maybe those
memories belonged to someone else.

~

Wolves swarmed
the building, their glowing eyes a stark contrast against the
darkness in the melee of blood and clashing fists.

Draven severed
the head of the wolf hovering over him with one swift swipe of his
blade. Its blood spattered his face, and he wiped it with the back
of his hand.

Piece of
shit.

Teeth flashed
in the darkness, headed straight for him. He stood in time to issue
a powerful kick to the oncoming lycan, but two more leaped,
drowning Draven in their angry growls.

“No!” Jacob
yelled, plunging a dagger into the flesh of one that tore away at
Draven’s abdomen.

The wolf
turned on him.

With a shaky
hand, Jacob crouched and swung his dagger at the beast.

Jaws snapped
as it dodged every thrust and jab.

Jacob swiped
again, just missing its neck, as Draven’s kicks and punches held
the other two at bay.

The beast
lurched and caught Jacob’s elbow in its teeth.

The young
male’s scream rose above the chaos, heightening when the beast
ripped his forearm away, stringing flesh and bone hanging from its
bloody maw.

Jacob stumbled
backward, the dagger still in his good hand, and as much as Draven
wanted to stop to help him, he had enough troubles with the duet of
teeth and claws snapping for him.

More kicks.
More punches More thrusts with his blade. Teeth pierced his muscles
like a dozen razor blades penetrating his skin at once. “Fuck!”

Managing to
hike his leg between him and the smaller of the two, an outward
boot launching it into the air and knocking the other back a step.
He hopped to his feet. A quick appraisal of his gaping abdominal
wound revealed pink flesh and crimson blood.

Goddamn
sickening.
Draven covered his wound with his left hand and
parried with his right. In a flowing, backhand motion, his dagger
pierced the wolf’s neck. He stuck and jabbed until the beast froze,
then Draven delivered the death-dealing slice across its neck. The
beast’s head hung from its shoulders, suspended by threads of
flesh. One final downward cut severed it completely.

In his
periphery, the beast Draven’d kicked away lunged toward him from
behind. Arcing his arm backward sent his blade into the tough
flesh. The chasing upward incision cut right through muscle. As
Draven twisted to face it, abdominal contents poured from the
wound.

Determined to
finish the beast, he cut forward and backward, his arm a blur to
the eyes, and with one final axe, the lycan’s head flew into the
air.

He spun
around, looking for Jacob. His eyes widened and a groan bubbled in
his throat at the greeting sight.

Every one of
the Alexi fought two or more beasts. In the distance, he could see
more silver eyes edging closer. Nearer to where he stood, a female
soldier screamed as a lycan, burrowed deep inside her abdominal
cavity, feasted on her organs.

Fury swam
through his veins like hellfire.

Jacob’s
screams carried from beneath the lycan that fed at his shoulder as
he lay on the ground.

Kill.

Draven rushed
toward the beast and stabbed its spine.

Over and
over.

The beast
arched, its mouth howling open and releasing the flesh in its
jaw.

All that
remained of Jacob’s forearm.

Draven reached
inside the stab wound and tore its spinal column away.

The spray of
accompanying blood coated his face.

“Come on,
Jake.” His voice, fierce and militant, seemed to snap Jacob out of
his frozen stare-off with the decrepit ceiling, and he hauled the
boy from the ground.

Blood poured
from Jacob’s wounds. His face seemed to be growing pastier by the
second. Even his head appeared too heavy for him to stabilise as
Draven cradled him in his arms.

Draven took
one look around at the carnage.
We were hunted.
No other
explanation. The beasts had known where to find them.

Carrying Jacob
away into the darkness, Draven abandoned the remaining soldiers to
the fight.

***

Ayden’s foot
had mostly healed along the journey back to the mansion, and
scarcely a limp affected her as she climbed from the bike—but the
moment she’d moved, Kane doubled over on the seat.

She tilted him
back enough to remove his helmet.

Sweat
glistened on his face, and his eyes rolled back.

She patted his
cheek lightly to rouse him.

His irises
appeared for a moment before disappearing behind his lids once
more.

Snaking her
arm around him, she hoisted him up off the seat.

Quiet grunts
chuffed in his throat, the crippled twist of his features an
indication of the hell that must’ve ripped through his body.

A familiar
face met her at the door.

Zayne, Zeke’s
twin brother, returned from the Mortuadium where he’d spent
mourning his mate. His deep blue eyes carried the weight of the
ocean, burdened with the kind of sorrow that reached out a
desperate hand while drowning, as he glanced from Ayden to
Kane.

Without saying
a word, he eased the weight off of Ayden and helped Kane up the
staircase.

Kane’s body
stiffened the moment Zayne set him on the bed.

“Gavin told me
you brought home a stray dog.” Zayne’s sad, deep voice and somber
smile could’ve crumbled the stoniest heart. “How ya been
killer?”

Ayden reached
up and wrapped her arms around the bulky demon.