Page 6 of Soulmarked
I didn't waste breath responding. Words were just noise now. Time for the only language monsters truly respected, violence.
The silver knife materialized in my hand as if conjured, moonlight cascading along its blessed edge. The smaller wolf lunged, jaws gaping wide enough to take my head clean off, but I was already gone. The blade carved through fur and flesh in a perfect arc, opening a smoking wound across its flank that madethe creature howl in surprised agony. Silver and werewolf flesh mixed like fire and gasoline.
“That's right,” I growled, spinning the knife with practiced ease. “Stings a bit, doesn't it? Silver's a bitch like that.”
The fight erupted into a brutal symphony I'd conducted a hundred times before. Every step deliberate, every strike a killing blow redirected only by the monsters' desperate defenses. The wolves were strong, but strength meant nothing against speed, precision, and the cold calculation of a predator who'd turned hunting into an art form.
I moved like water between their attacks, never where they expected, never following the same pattern twice. The knife found flesh again and again, leaving smoking furrows in its wake, each cut strategically placed to hamper movement, to sever tendons, to bleed them out drop by precious drop.
But they were smart, coordinated in the way only pack hunters could be. They kept me between them, cutting off escape routes, working in tandem to close any gap I tried to create. Each time I wounded one, drawing a howl of pain that echoed through the warehouse, the other would press forward, forcing me to split my focus.
Blood flowed freely down my arm now, and my ribs screamed from a glancing blow I'd converted from lethal to merely painful with a last-second twist. Pain was just information, and I filtered it like background noise, letting it sharpen my senses rather than dull them.
“You can't keep this up forever, hunter,” the alpha growled, circling wider. “We can smell your blood. Your fatigue. Your fear.”
I barked out a laugh, the sound like a blade against stone. “Fear? Mate, I haven't been afraid since London. And after what I've seen, what I've done?” I spun the knife between my fingers, the movement so fast the silver edge became a liquidcircle of light. “You mangy bastards don't even make the top ten. Hell, I fought a wendigo last month that made you look like a chihuahua with an attitude problem.”
The wolves answered with movement, not words.
They came at me with preternatural speed, but I was already calculating trajectories, mapping their attack patterns before they'd fully committed. The alpha slammed toward me like a freight train, but I was no longer there, pivoting on my back foot, I redirected its momentum with a shoulder check that would have pulverized a normal man's collarbone. The impact sent the beast crashing into a stack of crates, wood splintering like gunshots in the cavernous space.
Pure instinct had me dropping flat as claws whistled through the air where my throat had been a heartbeat before. I rolled beneath the second wolf's underbelly, my knife finding the soft flesh there opening it from sternum to hip. The beast howled, black blood raining down, but I was already clear.
Getting a proper look at the alpha now, the bastard was a true monster even by werewolf standards. Nine feet at the shoulder, with muscles that rippled like steel cables beneath fur that resembled medieval armor more than anything natural. Its breath carried the stench of a slaughterhouse at high summer, hot and rank with the evidence of previous kills.
It grinned at me, too many teeth gleaming like yellowed daggers in the dim light. Those amber eyes burned with an intelligence that elevated it from beast to worthy adversary. This was calculated hatred.
“Too slow, hunter,” it growled, voice like concrete being pulverized.
I didn't waste oxygen on a response. My free hand was already at my belt, fingers finding and deploying a flash-bang with practiced efficiency. The pin came free with a flick of my thumb.
“Here's a trick I learned in Belfast,” I muttered, arm snapping forward with the precision of a striking snake. “Though it works pretty well in Cleveland too.”
The flash-bang hit the ground at the alpha's feet and detonated with a concussive force that rattled the warehouse windows. But this wasn't standard military issue, I'd modified this one myself, packed it with enough concentrated UV to make a vampire combust on contact. The wolf's howl transcended pain, becoming something primal and terrified as its hypersensitive eyes were seared by artificial sunlight.
I moved the instant the flash went off, my hand already drawing the modified Sig Sauer from its shoulder holster. The weapon felt like an extension of my arm, custom-weighted and loaded with hand-crafted rounds, silver bullets blessed in holy water and etched with runes older than Christianity itself. Two shots cracked through the air in rapid succession, the rounds punching into the alpha's shoulder.
But the fucking thing barely flinched.
The wounds smoked where silver met corrupted flesh, but the alpha shook off impacts that would have dropped a normal werewolf. It lunged forward with that uncanny speed, jaws gaping wide enough to swallow my head whole.
This time I wasn't quite fast enough to clear completely. Claws raked across my torso, shredding through my reinforced leather jacket as if it were tissue paper and finding flesh beneath.
“That was my favorite jacket, you manky bastard,” I snarled, converting pain into focused rage. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find decent leather in my size?”
I stepped into the attack instead of away and drove my silver blade up under its ribs with enough force to scrape bone. The beast's momentum carried it forward, impaling it further on my knife, its hot breath washing over my face as it howled in surprised agony.
I twisted the blade viciously and wrenched it free in a spray of black blood. “That's just the appetizer, mate. Main course is coming right up.”
The fight descended into something elemental and precise, a deadly exchange where milliseconds and millimeters marked the difference between victory and evisceration. I kept moving, using the warehouse's architecture as both weapon and shield. The towering shelves became impromptu barriers, the narrow aisles natural choke points that neutralized the wolves' advantages in size and strength.
But these weren't mindless beasts. With each exchange, I could see them adapting, learning my patterns. The alpha's attacks evolved, each move serving a purpose beyond simple bloodlust. It wasn't just trying to kill me anymore, it was playing a deeper game.
It was still herding me.
The realization crystallized as I found myself being systematically forced backward, each dodge and counter bringing me closer to the warehouse's shattered windows. Moonlight spilled through broken glass like liquid silver, illuminating my tactical error with brutal clarity.
The alpha's grin widened, exposing even more of those yellowed fangs. Its eyes gleamed with something disturbingly close to human triumph.
