"We were supposed to get you to Crowley, but I suppose we could just kill you now. Especially since Osmond doesn't like bitches that don't heel, and something tells me you won't bend," he declared.
She focused her gaze, her body riddled with misery, glancing again at the other Silvers who were all in a similar state of duress.
Jola’s white, wolven body lay on the ground, stained red.
No. No, I did this.
Rem’s nostrils flared as her eyes watered, fury contorting her face. She tried to raise her arms, but whatever he did to her collarbone immobilized it.I think he broke it. She looked down at her legs, her right leg a bleeding mess… But her left was already closing up its wounds.
I'm healing...A surge of renewed life breached her torment, trying to move her arms with more veracity. She looked back up at the shifter and writhed harder, panting and groaning as she tried to regain control of her body.I'm not healing fast enough.
Images of Oliver at the orphanage flooded her mind.
Her throat burned as she let out a haunting sob, choking on her cries.
Oliver... Father... Mother… This can't be the end. I was so close.
She bawled, so angry that she lost. She prayed to her grandmother, begging for help and forgiveness for failing, for not matching her in strength or legend.
Rem sobbed harder, emotions coming out that stemmed all the way from the first night of her capture.
The shifter stood over her, unbalanced from blood loss, holding the silver dagger—even though the hilt seared his hand—his eyes hot with fury. “I know silver won’t do what you just did to me in my gut, but I bet it will stop your heart all the same if I aimjustright…”
Oliver, I'm sorry. Find a way, brother. Find a way home. And know that I tried.
A depressing calm chilled her, thinking once again of her gran.
Then of Freya.
Tears blurred Rem’s vision, her breath hitching, but she halted the crying.
She'd greet death without hysteria. She had to. It was the only victory she could claim in all of this, a victory no one would live to remember, but it felt important.
It's what a Luna would have done.
Her eyes moved from the silver blade to the amber ones that stared at her, her lip and voice quivering from a concoction of sorrow and anger. "I didn't ask for any of this but go ahead.Stab me, like it's somehow my fault. You don't even have the balls to maul me yourself," she spat with a weak voice, summoning all of her energy for that moment.
His eyes widened as he lowered the blade, a wild frenzy overcoming him as he dropped the silver edge, the metal clinking on stone.
Nia cried out to them, begging for the man to stop.
The shifter said, "Fine, you human bitch. You were never one of us, anyway."
Rem was ready. She’d roll, or head butt him, orsomething.
It wouldn’t be enough, but at least she’d greet her gran with some semblance of pride…
Then, everything happened at once.
As she saw his features change, his free hand growing out his claws… A large, dark mass barreled over her, her body almost rolling with the sudden velocity.
She darted her gaze towards what the shifter smashed into, dust filling the air along with the sound of bricks tumbling.Something threw him. The shifter crumpled on the ground only a foot away from her, struggling to breathe. All she smelled was concrete dust and blood.
He twitched, his eyes rolling into his head as he spasmed.
She knew that shake. A few years ago, she had seen someone fall from a roof and land on a stump, and he shook the same way. His spine was shattered.
Someone was standing over her. Whatever pummeled the shifter into the wall reached down for Rem, amber eyes looking over her body, a familiar scent calming her.
