Second Fate

26

No more words were spoken. The charged atmosphere had ensured that everyone had been on the verge of turning for minutes by now and it didn't take more than those two sentences by Gideon to start the race for a head start. Neither of the packs won it since our alphas finished turning almost simultaneously. Neal's light brown wolf towered over the older one in a decided stance, but he waited for Meredith to give a sign of offense before he threw himself into the fight.

No one on our side really wants this, it shot through my head, while I allowed myself to fall forward and into the change. My body was rearranging bones and growing skin, hair, and claws, while I concentrated on my breathing to keep the pain at bay. It got better with time, but it never went away fully; still, the more changes you went through, the easier they got. The first ones had been brutal, but at this point in time, I'd acclimated to it. Freya had told me that it was the same with plucking eyebrows, but I doubted that the comparison was fair.

Much worse than the pain of the change, however, was the knowledge that I'd failed at protecting someone again. Had I missed the signs of Meredith going insane? Could I have prevented it? Was me being with Nina really the cause? The questions were endless, but I found no answers.

The blood was rushing so loudly in my ears that I couldn't hear the sound of my own bones breaking. The earth was moist under my hands and knees, but that meant my growing claws could dig into it deeply for grip. The further I changed, the less I cared about my questions or the losses we'd have to face and the more my wolf looked forward to the blood on its fangs.

When I'd finished turning and my sight cleared up in shades of grey, Neal was already biting down on Meredith's wolf, pushing it to the ground where it whimpered as it was forced into a cowering position.

I didn't watch to see how far he'd go, so I turned to the side.

Just in time to see Gideon charge at me at full force. I managed to avoid him last-minute by making a hasty side-step.

After he'd hurled past me, I turned around to face the silver wolf. He was growling with bared fangs and eyes narrowed to slits. There'd never been any secrecy about his affection for Kenna and he'd always blamed me for not saving her, so I wasn't surprised by this open display of disdain.

Maybe he's right, I thought, but maybe she didn't want to be saved.

Maybe someone should've saved you from her, echoed Nina's voice in my head, but I didn't like the sound of it. After all, it would've meant that I'd spent the last seven years taking punches for nothing.

Instead of allowing any more thoughts in, I focused on the wolf's stance before me. He'd been assessing me, probably finding that I was stronger than him on first glance. But he also knew that this meant he'd be hard to catch if he relied on his speed against me.

I knew that depending on the tactic I chose, this fight would either be over quickly or drag on for a long time. But there was no time to waste as the silhouettes of other wolves began to appear between the trees and we weren't clear about their numbers; if Meredith had embraced her new status as an illegitimate pack, she could've gathered more than just her pack's fourteen members for the fight.

For that reason, I didn't dodge Gideon's attack this time around. I just waited until he was in arm's length of me, then I leaned to the side in the hopes of redirecting his bite to a less delicate spot than the back of my neck.

His fangs sank into my shoulder like two glowing-hot irons, so I howled in pain, but the smaller wolf was exactly where I wanted him now.

Thanks to our new proximity, I could use the momentum of my full weight to knock Gideon over – despite the searing pain the movement sent through my shoulder. He lost his balance, tripping over his own feet as we both crashed to the ground. I could hear the dry cracking of bones coming from his tangled legs.