(FREE TO READ) Bad Moon

chapter 51; monsters

She made the mistake of looking back.

Izzy and Elizaveta had turned. The Earth stunk of blood, it matted in their lovely coats. But they were war machines, the Sentinels. The strongest at his disposal. Tisper understood that now.

They'd come from nowhere, a few at first and then dozens. Wolves—so many wolves that she couldn't tell just which ones were fighting on her side. She didn't know if they were real or were—but she supposed the answer was in the painful, demoniac sounds in the distance. They weren't to harm real wolves. But these ones...she feared what they'd look like after Elizaveta was through.

She glanced over her shoulder as she ran, just in time to see two silver coats flank one of the blustering beasts. They took him down with their jaws, Elizaveta and Izzy. They'd done it so many times already, twisting away from harm, bouncing on their haunches and launching themselves into the neck of another wolf. Their jaws dripped with blood and the fur from manes that didn't belong to them, trapped between the crevices of their stained teeth. Tisper turned away just in time to hurdle over a pit before the mud sucked her in.

"Come on, Tis" Matt shouted back to her, ducking beneath trees, launching himself over toppled trunks and jagged stone. "You have to keep up." He'd lost his hat somewhere in the brush. His favorite hat.

Tisper clutched the strap of her quiver, her lungs burning, heart punching a hole through her chest. They were following Quentin, but Christ, he was fast. Fast and accurate, shoving branches from his way, tearing through bushes and bark and thorns. And then all at once, he stopped.

Tisper nearly rammed into the broad wall of his back, had it not been for the roots she stumbled over first, catching herself on the soft forest floor.

"What are you doing?" she worked out, barely cutting the words between hard breath. "Why did we stop?"

Quentin didn't say anything. He just stared ahead. And then Tisper saw the shapes beyond the incline of trees. Some of wolf, some of men.

"There's more," Matthew heaved. "Are you serious?"

Quentin didn't waver. "Get back. Hide."

Tisper knew it wouldn't do any good. They'd smell them, they'd seek them out. They'd find them and tear them to shreds. But she hung back anyways for fear of the eyes lurking in the trees across the knoll.

"Hide?" One of the figures approaching tittered into the night. "Really, Quentin. I know you're not much of a fighter, but hide?"

Quentin glowered, his breath running deep, delivering a voice much too rough on the ears. "Let us through, Kera."

The woman he was speaking to—this Kera woman. She wore an army on her back, wolves breathing hard at her feet, men and women clustered in close; crowded in the cracks of the trees. She was an alpha. She had to be.

"You're adorable, Quentin." Kera ran two hands through her long red locks, binding them back on her crown. She smiled, a certain kind of smile Tisper had seen before. The crooked, thorny kind of grin that only ever seemed to cross evil villains on television shows. "But you know as well as I do that Ziya rewards her wolves with riches beyond your dreams. And it just so happens, I have a job to do."

Instinctively, Tisper reached into her quiver.

Then the wolves and men surged, barreling down the incline towards them.

She pulled back and released so quickly, she'd hardly felt the arrow leave her fingers. One of the wolves toppled over with a yelp and burst into the powdery red vapor. The body of a human laid there now, a small pile of woman bloodying the ground. But Tisper was already reloading, sending another arrow into the air. Again, it pierced the hip of a wolf, sent the beast rolling, spurting into blood and then man.