(FREE TO READ) Bad Moon

chapter 59; teeth

This arrow arched up, piercing the beast in the neck. It was hard to tell how deep it had penetrated, but the liquid left the vial and the beast threw its head back with a piercing wail. It ripped away from Quentin, leaving him bleeding and clutching at the fresh hole in his shoulder.

Tisper slid from the back of the beast and the jump left her stumbling to her knees, but it freed her monstrous steed to move faster. It charged across wet grass, flinging mud from its hands and rain from its coat. And it hit the first beast with such impact they both tumbled into the garden fence—collapsing the wood, breaking the planks in half.

Tisper pushed herself up, ran barefoot in the grass to Matthew and he caught her just as she flung her arms around him. "Matt."

"Tisper, holy shit." He hugged her close, ran a hand through her drowned hair. "Is that him? Is that Jaylin?"

She dropped her arms from around him, but not entirely. She still hung to his shoulder, nodding, nodding wildly. Her eyes found Jaylin across the yard, long, deadly fangs gleaming in the red of the moon. He had his claws in the face of the first beast, tearing the skin down its eye to the angry curl of its mouth.

The beast swung back, ripping him down the shoulder. The screams that came from them both—the voices that somehow still lingered beneath the cords of the creatures, it made Tisper's legs go out again. She couldn't even cry Jaylin's name, she shook so badly. She dropped to the ground and watched in the distance as Jaylin slammed the monster into the earth.

They fought the way brutish animals would. Slow but powerful swings of their claws, teeth long and sharp and effulgent, snapping at one another—striking for flesh in any place their fangs could reach. Each hit held an impact—a shock wave that carried through the air like the sound of a baseball, struck by a bat. Each hit so hard, she could hear it echo from every direction of the cloud-clustered sky.

Then the beast struck Jaylin on the jaw—three long claws tearing down his neck.

He thundered a guttural roar and reached for the creature's face, claws crushing its skull as he brought it to the ground. It fought beneath him, but the poison from the arrows had slowed it down. Jaylin was much too fast now, and bowing in, he opened his jaws—sunk his teeth into the flesh of its neck. And Tisper heard a snap so loud, she could feel it vibrate in her bones, in her fingers and her toes.

And the beast stopped moving beneath him.

Felix was helping Quentin to his feet, shoving the gun into his hands. "Get out of here," he urged, but Quentin didn't budge. He was blanched, rooted to the ground beneath him.

Jaylin had raised his head, blood dripping from his jagged teeth. His moonlight eyes found the faces a distance away and he trotted up the grassy incline. The wolves stood at bay, fur risen on their spines, but Jaylin paid them no mind. His frightening eyes searched the faces of each person until they found Quentin. And it was like something in him clicked. They set, eerily focused on him. So still and unblinking, those wide, empty orbs. And then Jaylin charged.

Quentin gave Felix a shove away, one hand gripping his wound, the other raising the pistol, shaking uncontrollably as his finger found the trigger.

"Don't!" Tisper was screaming, but her voice was washed by the sound of thunder.

The earth jarred under Jaylin's heavy footsteps, each one stamping deep down into the mud. He shot across the lawn, the ground moving quickly under his feet. Every leap hurdled himself forward faster, and the way he ran was almost primate—hands and feet beating against the drenched earth in steady succession.

He slid on the wet ground as he came to a stall just in front of the pistol. So closely that Quentin stumbled back and fell into the grass, his gun still raised to the snout of the beast. His finger still shaking over the trigger. And Jaylin snarled—a small sound, but enough to make Quentin jump—enough to make him nearly drop the gun.