Fang-Kissed

Chapter 29

Raze and Raphael don't fall into a frenzied fight after all. With their hackles raised, growls thundering through the room, there's a strange interruption.

A ghost runs through the Den Core, sending a cold shiver through all of us.

So, you think you can live in the ground, Ray Fang Gold?

A new deep masculine voice echoes through the air, followed by a laugh both sinister and all-consuming. It also sounds... like it's coming from that ghost.

In the darkness of the Den Core, as the lanterns are extinguished in the wave of cold, out of the windows I see a silver cloud.

Raphael is the first to turn and run out of the Den to face the apparition, followed by Raze, while I climb out the window since I'm small enough to fit.

Ren is out here.

She has shifted into her wolf, she stands at attention, her grey eyes glazed, while a larger ghost shadows her. On the ghostly Fang, his eyes are an ice blue, he has sharp teeth and a white coat, black claws and... it's just that the eyes... the eyes hold an authority I've never seen before.

I hadn't even seen it in Raze or Raphael Fang-Gold.

It wasn't a Fang-Gold trait, this piercing stare was very different.

I stand still as Raphael quickly flanks me on my left and Raze flanks my right.

Raze bares his teeth at the intruder, Raphael humbly watches, both their heads are lowered, their ears twitching. They wait, confused with Ren's presence too.

"Beowulf," I guess, because he's attached to Ren like a glove, his silver cloud is around her. Her grey eyes shimmer to blue and back. Her black claws glint in the moonlight as they grow longer and her fur shivers with the ancient spirit's power.

Descendant of Clarissa, Clary Smith, you bred well for a mortal tinged with my blood, Beowulf compliments me, if any other fucker had phrased it like that, even my Fang Golds, I'd have protested. But I just nod and clasp my hands at my sides, Ren is your Alpha now, with Beowulf's command, Ray snarls but Raphael only bares his teeth a little, You won't be living in the ground, either, you absolute fools, go back to Fortitude. Ray, you're pathetic. Raphael, not much better... you both have much to learn, so little wisdom... some free advice; don't step out of line, Beowulf sounds amused, as he smiles and I hear it in his chuckle, as the ghost weaves itself into Ren in the darkness of night. Her ancestor, powering her Fang blood. Beowulf was the only reason Ren could be a Shewolf in the first place. But now his ghost, somehow here, in this Den Core, merged with my daughter.

I watch with shock and horror as Ren blinks and her fur settles, and the glow bugs come back out to light the small clearing Kami had made for a Den garden if we wished it.

Ren doesn't look so playful anymore, her black claws have a silver sheen as they dig into the dirt while she watches Raphael and he immediately bows his head, then she looks at Raze.

Raze hesitates and Ren pounces forward.

A graceful step, she bares her white teeth in front of him, their Fang heads touching.

Why the hell is Ren challenging Raze? Raze was so much bigger.

I'm so fucking scared my words are trapped in my throat, my breath is stuck in my chest. I feel like I might faint.

Ren's lightning stare is tinged with a blue light she didn't have before, or she did, but it was glowing within her soul until now. Beowulf was guiding her. Helping her find her deepest Silver Fang instincts.