Sly as a Fox {Book One}

Chapter 48

Chapter 48

Lusus Naturae

noun

-a person or animal that is markedly unusual or deformed

-a freak of nature; monstrosity

Screams leapt from the throats of countless people as darkness swallowed us indiscriminately. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the dark and watched as the shadowy figures of those around us staggered back from what stood before them. Once the first panicked shifter bolted off the field, it triggered a similar reaction in those around them; their previous fight instincts instantly shifting to flight.

Like a virus had spread through the people that encircled us, it eventually took refuge in the crowd itself and, when it did, the clearing erupted into anarchy. Shifters ran in every direction except one: ours.

I turned my maimed, partially deformed snout up to Blithe only to find that the same incomplete, misshaped body claimed his features. His shirt hung from his enormously protuberant chest in tatters, his body having ripped through the material with little resistance. His human hair replaced by a sea of black fur, white flakes attached to its surface and were quickly destroyed in the heat that rose from him.

His head not all wolven, not all human, the median position of his ears reflected this strange hybrid nature. Ripped in several places and leaking fresh blood into his mouth, his jowls could barely conceal the full length of the viciously sharp fangs held within his anomalous skull. Against the caliginous dark of his fur, the white tips of his fangs were like beacons.

It was with a sinking feeling that I felt my own top canines poke the skin below my bottom lip, too large to be contained within my mouth as they slid against their bottom kin. Proportionally, all my teeth were far larger than either of my previous forms; that went double for my rear molars. My snout may not have been as pronounced as my true fox form, but it still entered my vision enough so that I could see the naked criss-crosses of my scars raking across its surface. My appearance must have been nothing short of demonic.

Standing on the balls of his once human feet, his heels now stuck out behind him in some horribly contorted way. Hunched forward slightly, Blithe's full height must have bested that of even Brian. His shoulders were broad and thick with swollen, humanoid muscles that ran the length of his incredibly long arms, his fur short enough to make their ridges visible in the growing light of the moon as it peeked above the trees.

Reluctantly, I raised my gaze back up to his face. Huge lupine eyes blinked back at me, their edges reminiscent of the human I had grown accustomed to. Had it not been for their familiarity, I may have found myself just as afraid of him as everyone else; judging by his guarded stare, he probably thought the same about me.

I looked down at my hands, fear like ice spreading through my system at the wicked curve of black claws that shot out from my fingertips. "What the...?"

From beside me, I could see him do the same with his own hands, his claws even larger than mine. He shook his head in disbelief, too full of shock to respond.

Without any true light sources, the scene before us was draped in a celestial blue palette courtesy of my night vision. The fate of Mason Wolf became clear, as did that of the white wolf and any others that had fought against us; their bloody bodies assumed to be unconscious splayed out and collecting snow.

The field very quickly emptying, the bodies of dozens of shifters ran from where we stood. Some sprinted as fast as possible away from us while others backed away in awe. Still more took out their phones and flashed their cameras at us; the resulting grainy picture somehow a higher priority to them than their adrenaline. The bodies of those who came to see a show writhed along the sidelines; their wish fulfilled, though not in the manner they had expected.