Penance ↠ Volturi Kings {2} ✓

023

I ducked under Doyle's first attack, throwing my weight into his torso and sending him flying back into the wall. He snarled and pounced again, our fight a dangerous dance of fists and teeth. I ripped out a chunk of his shoulder and had nearly removed the arm entirely when Sam and Holt rejoined the fight.

The three of them combined were enough to finally overwhelm me, but not without another minute of frenzied fighting. It was the scent of blood that was my downfall; I made the mistake of looking towards my prey and they took the opportunity to restrain me.

"Take her arms," Doyle snarled, working to reattach the arm that was dangling limply from his shoulder.

Sam and Holt ripped my arms off at the shoulder in unison and I roared angrily, but the pain brought back a semblance of reason that prevented me from attempting to attack again.

"Bitch almost tore my arm off," Doyle growled, replacing the chunk of flesh that I had torn from his shoulder with my teeth. Sam and Holt were still holding me in place, though it was mostly needless considering I no longer had arms to grab them with.

"We've taken heads off for less," Sam said, ignoring how I hissed at him.

"Look at her eyes. Being forced to withstand her thirst will be punishment enough," Doyle said before whipping around towards the other newborns. "Against the wall! Or you're next and it won't just be your arms missing."

I was left in a painful, thirst-induced haze for the rest of control training. Either Sam or Holt hovered nearby in case I attempted to attack again, but the threat of losing my head was enough to keep me back. Having my arms ripped off was painful enough.

My lack of arms ensured that I didn't get a drop of blood from either human at the end, when the rest of the newborns went on a frenzy to drain what they could.

"Good luck reattaching your arms, Cullen," Doyle sneered, still furious at me.

I growled at him, stalking towards where my arms had been discarded in the corner of the room, my reason returning as Sam and Holt removed the bodies and rapidly cleaned the room. I felt incredibly foolish but there was nothing I could do to change my actions.

I was left alone in the now-empty room to awkwardly attempt to attach my arms. Hugo came looking for me ten minutes later, after I had finally managed to get my left arm on.

"Let me help," he said, carefully reattaching the other.

"Thanks," I said, flexing the fingers in my right hand as the feeling slowly returned to it. My other arm, which I had struggled to attach myself, felt wrong, and I couldn't move it. "I think I attached my left arm wrong."

Hugo moved back the rest of the tattered sleeve to look at it, a frown creasing his face. "It looks too far down. I think you'll have to take it off again to fix it, but I don't want to-"

"You don't have to," I assured him. "Let's see if we can find Maxim. He can do it since Caesar's conducting combat training right now"

"Okay," he said, clearly relieved. It was obvious he didn't want to do anything that would cause me pain even if it was necessary.

It was easy to track Maxim down once I picked up his scent, following the trail out to the border with Hugo close on my heels. He was alone and I just saw him in the trees, keeping watch.

"What are you doing out here?" He leapt down, landing lightly on the forest floor and striding over to us.

"I need a little help," I said, gesturing to my left arm. "I had to try to reattach it without any arms and it went wrong."