Tangled in Moonlight: Unshifted - Chapter 376

Chapter 376: Lisa: First Kill
LISA

Mira stands in front of me, fully wolfed out, gray fur bristling.

Snow crunches beneath my boots as I back a little further away.

Something isn’t right. Ten massive wolves wrestle with the Westwood wolves, brutally aggressive, and yet not a single one glances my way.

A gray wolf—one of our guards, I’m pretty sure—flies past us, blood matting his fur. He slams into a tree with a sickening crack. My stomach lurches. I can’t recognize the wolves by sight like Ava does, because they all look alike. Only Kellan stands out from the rest, a little larger and more russet than gray.

He launches at two attackers, his teeth finding purchase in one’s throat, trying to pull him to the ground. But these wolves don’t seem to notice pain.

The brace on my wrist is warm, already charged with a few drops of blood and ready to fire. But there’s no way I can use it with them all tangled together like this. I’m as liable to hit one of my guards as I am an enemy.

My fingers hover over the brace. If I can just get a clear shot…

But it doesn’t look like that’s happening anytime soon.

Another guard crashes nearby, his leg bent at an impossible angle. Still, not one of the attacking wolves turns our way. It’s like Mira and I are invisible, or…

“They’re only targeting the pack,” I murmur.

But how do they know?

Kellan roars in pain as three wolves pin him down. My heart leaps into my throat. The brace grows hot against my skin, responding to my panic.

But why avoid me? Unless…

Unless someone wants me alive.

No. That’s crazy. Who would—

Mira whirls suddenly with a vicious snarl, bounding behind me in an instant. Before I can turn, something whistles behind me.

Ice floods my veins. My muscles lock up as a primal part of my brain screams danger.

Red sprays across pristine white in my peripheral vision, and I jerk around while stumbling back, slipping in the fresh now.

Mira’s body crumples in front of me, and I’m already raising my arm, aiming my brace at—

No.

My whole body trembles.

Marisol stands before me, but she’s wrong. All wrong. Her delicate features remain unchanged, that same pixie-like face that had brought me food in that dark cell. But power radiates from her. Or something does, anyway, with an aura of darkness and fire. Her unnatural green eyes practically glow like fluorescent toxicity, and her skin… her skin seems to ripple with shadows that shouldn’t exist.

“Sweet Lisa.” Her voice carries the same musical lilt I remember, but now it scrapes against my ears like broken glass. It’s strange, like it isn’t her speaking, even though her mouth moves with her words. “Did you miss me?”

The brace is right there, charged and ready, aimed straight for her face. But I can’t say the words. Can’t make my body respond to my mind. I’m frozen in fear and memories I’ve done my best to bury.

Those eyes. Those horrible, beautiful eyes hold me captive, as if all this freedom is nothing more than an illusion.

The shadows writhing beneath her skin stretch outward, reaching for me with grasping tendrils. My legs won’t move. My lungs won’t work. The sounds of fighting fade to a distant roar as those toxic eyes consume my world.

Just like before. Just like that cell. Just like every nightmare since. I can’t do anything.

But this isn’t before, and I’m not the same helpless girl I was then. This time I have power of my own.

“Shape,” I whisper. In my head, all I can see is a giant lance made of flame.

A spear of pure flame, ten feet long and thick as my arm. Its tip blazes white-hot, the shaft a swirling inferno of orange and gold. Something large enough to contain all my terror. All my rage. All the helplessness of those days lost in darkness. The grief over Mira’s body, just lying there, surrounded in a sea of crimson.

“What?” Marisol’s melodic voice carries a note of confusion, her eyes moving to the arm I have pointed at her.

Naturally, I picture the lance piercing straight through her chest, burning away the darkness that writhes beneath her skin. The flames would consume her from the inside out, turning those toxic green eyes to ash. My lips part as I whisper the command that will make it real.

“Fire.”

Marisol isn’t a hundred yards away. She’s mere feet from me, with Mira’s blood splashed on her face and clothes. With just a few steps, I could touch her.

I’ve been practicing on giant trees, perfecting my aim from fifty yards out. Destroying them so they teeter and fall, no longer connected to the earth.

There’s no Westwood wolf entangled with this thrall of the Mad Prince.

There’s nothing to get in the way of all the emotions I’ve thrown into this moment, in the lance so clearly depicted in my head, in the horrible death I’m wishing upon this woman. This person I once thought of as a victim, and now see as nothing more than a murderer.

So it comes as no surprise as at all as the lance bursts forth, blazing with all the rage held in my soul. She has less than a second to react, and it isn’t enough.

It slams into her chest, just as I pictured.

For a split second, Marisol’s eyes widen with shock. Her mouth forms a perfect ‘o’ of surprise. Then the flames burst outward from the impact point, consuming her in a blinding inferno of white and gold.

The stench is godawful. Nothing I was prepared for; it’s acrid and sweet, like burning hair mixed with rotting meat. My stomach heaves as memories of that dark cell flood back, but this is different.

It’s flesh and bone burning away to nothing.

The fire spreads rapidly, engulfing her entire body. Her form becomes a silhouette of pure light, so bright it burns spots in my vision. Then she disappears, crumbling into nothing but ash that scatters across the blood-stained snow.

She didn’t even have time to scream.

I stumble back, gagging on the smell of her death. The snow beneath my boots is stained with Mira’s blood, and now the air is thick with smoke that carries particles of… of…

I retch, doubling over. Nothing comes up but bile. The magical flames still rage where Marisol stood, but I can’t look. Can’t process what I’ve done. The smell alone tells the story.

I don’t care. I don’t care that I just killed someone. I don’t care that I wanted her to suffer. I don’t care about any of it.

“Mira?” My voice breaks as I stumble forward, falling to my knees beside her still form. Her gray fur is matted with blood, so much blood. “Mira, please.”

My hands shake as I reach for her. She’s still warm. Maybe that means something. Maybe she’s just unconscious. “Wake up. Please wake up.”

The snow soaks through my pants as I gather her head into my lap. “You can’t die. You’re pregnant. You have a baby to think about.” My fingers tangle in her fur, desperately searching for any sign of life. “Please. Please don’t leave.”

Tears blur my vision, falling onto her fur. “Mira, please. You were so kind to me. Wake up. Just wake up.”

But she doesn’t move. She doesn’t respond. Her body grows colder by the second.

“Please,” I beg, my voice nothing more than a broken whisper. “Please don’t be dead.”

Snow crunches behind me and I whirl around, my arm already raised, ready to unleash another deadly blast. My heart pounds so hard I can barely breathe.

But it’s Kellan. Just Kellan and our guards, all of them bleeding and limping toward us with careful steps.

Fresh tears spill down my cheeks at the sight. Blood all over their fur, dripping onto pristine snow. One wolf’s leg hangs at a sickening angle. Another keeps shaking his head, like he can’t see straight.

Not a single whimper escapes them, despite their clear pain.

My gaze darts past them, searching the battlefield. Only three bodies of our attackers lie motionless in the snow. The rest have vanished like smoke.

“Is it over?” The words come out as a broken sob. Mira’s body grows colder with each passing second.

A shimmer of magic ripples through the air as Kellan shifts back to human form. His chest and arms are covered in deep gashes, blood still flowing freely.

“They ran.” His voice sounds rough, strained. But there’s something else in his tone, a wariness I’ve never heard before. His eyes keep darting between me and the pile of ash where Marisol stood. “What happened here?”

I can’t answer. Can’t find the words to explain how I burned someone alive. How I wanted to make her suffer. How her death brought me satisfaction even as it made me sick.

My fingers tighten in Mira’s fur. “She killed her.” The words taste like ash in my mouth. “Mira tried to protect me and that… that monster killed her.”

“Lisa.” Kellan takes a step closer, then stops as if unsure. Blood drips steadily from his wounds. “Who was she?”

“Marisol.” The name comes out as barely a whisper, my eyes dull as I stare at the pile of ashes where she once stood. “She was there—the vampire’s servant. The one who kidnapped me.”