Scarlett: (GxG)

Chapter 56

Scarlett

The chaos was an explosion. Just like in the movies I didn't move for a few beats while my eyes tried to make sense of what I was seeing. Wolves pounding the granite floor, jaws ripping and tearing... I moved forward, shoulders smashing into the bodies in front of me. From afar I saw a body leaping into the air, spilling blood as she went with a ferocity I'd seen once before.

The panic was similar to something I'd felt before, when I'd seen the stone ceiling fall on top of her and Lee in the catacombs, and when I'd arrived unannounced at her place, seeing blood spattered along that ugly carpet, fearing the worst. But each time the dhampir had made it out alive, like the fucking universe was forever on her side. Still, luck didn't last, did it? It left us all at some point.

While the crowd surged away from the violence, I was fighting forward against them, desperate to reach her, even as the bodies in my view threatened to block her out. I could still hear her beneath the fearful cries. Weapons cutting through fur and skin, wolves howling in pain. She felt light years away from me.

Without warning there was a prickling of my skin as I sensed something I hadn't felt in a while. Magic. Magic in its purest form. My chin tilted up to see a wispy cage shrink and blood spatter along my face and body. The heat and thickness of it distracted me for precious moments while a young man writhed in pain not far away, a horrible gash bitten into his torso. Leaving him felt wrong, but I was willing to burn for it later.

Picking up my pace, I quickly lost track of Zoey. Her scent was there, but so was blood, gore, and the smell of fear from everyone else around me. If I listened long enough I was sure I'd hear those blades working their magic somewhere. That was the kind of time I didn't have. The last I'd seen Jake and Cam they were manning the one door these fuckers must have breached. My mouth was dry by the time I was able to really start running.

Out of nowhere a wolf hit me hard, sending me sliding across the slick floor before I could scramble back to my feet. It hesitated, nose scenting the air. I was reminded of not only what Jordan said, but also what one of the rogues had admitted down in the dark catacombs. They didn't want to fight. They wanted us. They wanted to assimilate. I felt my hands shift in those few seconds the animal gave me, forming gnarled, twisting claws where fingers had been. I was tired of all this. All the dread sitting like lead in my stomach, knowing Marcus was out there somewhere, hiding in the dark, if he wasn't already dead.

My shouting as I leaped onto the animal was drowned out by the world around me which had turned into a crescendo of chaos. I took out my rage on it, clawing and ripping, all the while I knew others were close to descending upon me. I caught one with a swipe of my claws, while another landed on top of me. He was partially shifted too with the stink of swamp water all over him. I was close to losing myself in all that pent up rage, focusing on nothing but doing damage. But I had to reach Jake and Cam, wherever they were.

"I said get off of her!"

A man's hand gripped at the werewolf's human face, wrenching him off me as if he were a ragdoll. Jordan's shirt was cut open with one long line of red along his chest while his eyes were a blazing yellow like my own. When he gripped the man, fingers had pressed into his gaping mouth. Just as I'd been afraid my Beta was about to have his fingers bitten clean off, he wrenched his hand back hard. There was a clean snap and a spasm.

Standing, I looked at him with red spattered against my spiked leather vest and face, chest heaving. The two of us didn't need words. We both ran in the same direction, jumping over bodies of the fallen as we went, shoulder to shoulder. Cam's large form eventually came into view. In his muscled arms was Jake. His jacket was torn, still intact, but the wound at his stomach reminded me that far too many of us weren't gifted luck.