CHAPTER 103: HOSTAGE

"Oh, I think I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m taking this pretty shifter girl with me." He snickered, pulling her backward with him, plotting an escape.

"Oh, I think I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m taking this pretty shifter girl with me." He snickered, pulling her backward with him, plotting an escape.

"Oh, is that so?" Odette could easily knock the dagger out of the mans hands. But Ambrose asked her not to use her abilities. But if it came down to it. "I don’t think you appreciate the gravity of what you’ve done. Or who you’ve just threatened."

A wicked grin stretched across her face. Daring him almost. "But you’re about to find out, little man."

Emalea was trembling under the sharp blade; the silver dagger pressed against her skin.

A tiny slice was made and Emalea screamed from the burn the metal made against her skin.

And that was all it took to send Odette over the edge.

No one hurts the people she loves and gets away with it.

She snapped.

Everything in the room shifted. The eyes that were once starring in plain view have since found places to hide behind.

The air became charged with immense raw power. It cackled. The hair rose on the man’s back.

But stupidly, the man didn’t back down. Instead, he pressed the knife further into Emalea’s neck. She hissed as the pain increased, blood now trickled down the knife.

Odette was losing it, power pulsed inside her threatening to burst out and burn the everything in the room.

Odette fumed, seeing her friend bleed was not on her bingo card this year.

"I’m warning you, back off, or I’ll do it, I’ll slit her throat and bleed her dry right in front of you." He stammered over his words, trying to keep his confidence from wavering.

The problem was he’d opened a door to a world he wasn’t ready for. A world that would swallow him whole and leave no trace of his existence.

This guy thought he saw an opportunity to get rich and impress his new employers.

Their town had been struggling but then a strange man approached them, gave them hope, funding business. The town was finally coming to life. He would do whatever his employers asked of him with no question.

Ambrose was sitting in the bar when he felt it. Onyx felt it too. Alarm bells rang in Ambrose’s head. His eyes darted around the room.

The air had shifted from something casual to something dangerous. And the people around him stiffened, they’d felt it too. A powerful presence had nuzzled itself inside the bar, not realizing it came from across the street. Everyone just assumed it was the war that was about to breakout right in front of them.

The people here had thought they prepared for the Alpha King. Thinking they covered all their basis. Pretending to offer an olive branch and under the cover of secrecy told him to come alone. They, however, weren’t as prepared as they thought they were.

They didn’t prepare for him to bring a friend.

They thought it was handled.

"I can’t leave for 10 minutes without shit hitting the fan. Seriously?" He looked at the men in the bar that surrounded him. He felt the charge and recognized their quick movements. They had guns.

’Probably armed with silver bullets, because why not?’ he thought to himself.

Silver could do some serious damage to shifters. But it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle, he’d trained with silver for years, building a resistance to both silver and wolfsbane. After the fullmoon massacre, he wouldn’t be weakened the same way his parents had been. He wouldn’t be defenseless when his pack needed him most.

"Let them come with their silver weapons and poisons. We will still destroy them." Onyx growled.

"Oh... I get it now. You guys are working with the rogues. A whole town right under my nose. Incredible my people missed this. Guess I’m going to have to set some ass on fire when I get back." Ambrose’s senses sharpened. Every nerve, every cell, every fiber of his being readied for a fight. His eyes glowed gold.

They moved.

But Ambrose was faster.

Onyx howled again excitement.

This was Onyx’s territory. He lived for this. And so, Ambrose gave way to Onyx. Letting the shift happen faster than anything they’ve ever seen.

One second Ambrose was sitting the next he had leapt from his seat and shifted mid air.

His muscles twisted and grew, shredding his clothes. Fur grew in waves over his body. rippling downward with each muscle that reshaped.

And what landed was no man. But a massive wolf with thick black fur that shimmered in the light. Gold glittered his fur like spotted sunlight against the darkness of the night.

He was beautiful, majestic, and deadly.

His teeth barred and he snarled low.

A man in the corner shot first. With foresight and ungodly speed, he darted to the slide and in one leap he landed in front of the man, taking his head into his whole mouth with ease and ripping it off. Blood exploded. Onyx’s mouth dripping with red. Guns fired off around him, their aim was weaker than their plan, missing often, making it easier to dodge the ones who fired with better aim.

The men tried to flank them, Ambrose chuckled inside, Onyx grinned. The man from behind was quietly and sneakily approaching Onyx, but he moved in the blink of an eye jumping to the wall behind the man and using the momentum to launch himself at the farthest one, the one with the best aim, biting into the man’s side and shaking him like a rag dog. The man screamed, crying out in pain. Bullets flew by, some hitting the man barely breathing between Onyx’s jaws.

Onyx ran circles around the room slamming some of them, breaking through the drywall.

One by one Onyx was taking them down. And just as Onyx ripped the last one in half he turned and ran. Even after all the men in that room had died, the power in the air remained. Which could only mean one thing.

Something was happening and Odette was involved.

Onyx ran through the streets and burst into the little shopping center. Chasing her scent and the source of the power, they were both in the same direction.

He found Odette, her eyes glowing. Like sharpened daggers. Dripping with blood.

He didn’t notice the man holding a silver knife at first.

All he saw was her. All the power and grace of a goddess. She hovered just above the ground, her eyes narrowed.

She was calculating, not hesitating. He gazed in amazement as he saw her go through the different scenarios in her head, he recognized the look.

Ambrose and Onyx were both enthralled with her strength.

’Don’t hold back.’ Ambrose thought to himself.

And Odette, she felt him enter the mall. She felt him approach, like a lifeline pulling in. She didn’t have to look when he arrived, she just knew he was there. Feeling him there brought her a sense of ease.

She remembered what he told her.

"I accept the darkness in you, and I don’t want you to hold back." The memory of his words made a smile creep up her face.

Unbeknownst to Ambrose, Odette’s powers had grown. Tethers of psychic energy moved swiftly across the floor grabbing hold of him and crawling up his body, taking hold of the man, holding him hostage.

Odette’s smile deepened.

The man was stunned and horrified, he felt like his entire body had been frozen, ice shot through his veins and all the color drained from the man’s face.

She radiated elegance and devastation. Chaos itself seemed to bend to her will.

"I told you I would show you know mercy if you harmed even a hair on her head, and you had the audacity to make her bleed." Odette growled.

She reached out and in response the man’s arm was pulled away from Emalea. She unclenched the man’s hand around the knife snapping his fingers one by one.

The man frozen in place cried out in agony and began pleading.

"Please don’t do kill me. Please I’ll do anything. I have a family!" The man cried to her.

"And did you think of me like that? Maybe I have family to return too, people I love. How dare you ask for a mercy you sneered at? What gives you the right?" She yelled at him.

Emalea freed of the knife, ran from the man and hid behind Onyx

"Why don’t you go help her?" Emalea said in their channel.

"Do you wish me dead? She’d kill me and that man for stepping in, I feel bad for the man. By the looks of it. she’s pissed. That’s not a crossfire any of us want to be caught in, that I can promise you."