Book Five, Chapter 91: Moonlit Charge

~Kimberly~

I felt like my heart was connected by live wires.

The finale was moving forward so fast. As the day went by and the sun started to set, it was our last day. We had to survive, and I didn’t even know if surviving through the night was enough or if we had to defeat all of the werewolves. Either way, if we didn’t find a way to beat the pack leader, we would fail our rescue, and everyone who had died or been turned into a werewolf would stay that way.

I had to fight back tears. I wasn’t the precious, beautiful starlet—I had to be a fighter. That’s who my character was in her own way. But she never fought with guns; she fought with something else, something more tender, and she had lost.

In this dire moment, why was it I could only think of this woman I had never met? I could feel her tears running down my cheeks, her breath in my lungs, her solemn warning to run, to flee…

But not from the wolf. The She-Wolf gave her mind no unease at all.

I tried to lock those feelings away because they weren’t useful to me, but I couldn’t do that. Riley would have been able to. Antoine would have, too. Antoine could hide anything. But I couldn’t, so I had to make them useful. I had to be the one to protect that scared young woman who was so mysteriously connected to me.

And I would have to do it soon.

Riley, as he often was, was right about what would happen next.

The fort was a large complex of old crumbling stone walls, but it was still just a large square with stone walls on all sides. There were lookout towers hastily bolted onto the walkways upon the walls so that we could get a good view of our surroundings as the night wore on.

We waited hours without so much as a peep. The night grew darker and darker.

But when the fight came, it came all at once. I gripped my rifle like it was part of me. We had practiced shooting. Since we all had high Hustle, we were all crack shots. That made sense for our characters, and it helped us gain the respect of the remaining mercenaries.

From the top of the tower, one of those mercenaries who had stayed behind started screaming. Everyone inside became alert, picking up their weapons. None of us were going outside the fort; the main entrance was closed off.

The werewolves could jump over any wall, but that was part of Riley and Andrew’s plan.

But the man on the top of the wall wasn’t screaming about wolves. He screamed, “Survivors!” at the top of his lungs. The cold wind jerked a tear from his eyes, and his scream broke his voice.

Riley was up the ladder onto the wall, and I followed.

Breathe in. Breathe out. I had to be tough.

We did have survivors, all right.

In the distance, at the edge of the forest, I saw the blonde mercenary being hauled out by another mercenary. The second one was bald and had a large claw mark on his chest. The blonde mercenary was limping like he’d been injured.

“Help!” the blonde mercenary screamed.

They were approaching the fort as fast as they could. The blonde mercenary kept screaming, “We were attacked! It was an ambush. There are more survivors. You need to send help!”

He kept repeating that in exasperated cries like it took every ounce of his will to keep screaming.

His cries echoed over the hollow field, and they were all I could hear outside of my own heartbeat.

I had to look suspicious of him. I was On-Screen, and this was my time.

The mercenary who had been on the wall with us, the one who had screamed, was calling for the others to go out and help them. But before anyone could follow along with that, I aimed my rifle and quickly pulled the trigger.

My Hustle was high, so my aim was dead on. The silver bullet struck the kneecap of the blonde mercenary’s supposedly injured leg.

He roared in pain.

Roared.

The mercenary who had been on the wall with us heard that beastly cry and went suddenly silent. He looked at me like I was a stone-cold killer—or maybe like I was psychic. I couldn’t tell.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

We were On-Screen, so I decided to give Riley’s explanation.

“That little drop of werewolf saliva transformed Antoine into a werewolf in a day and a half.” I shook my head. “I never believed it. It should have taken weeks. The only way someone transforms that fast is if they had help.”

Suddenly, I was Off-Screen again, and the blonde mercenary and his friend were back On-Screen.

Riley was right. He was always right when it came to stuff like this, it seemed. After a few moments of trying to feign pain and confusion, the blonde mercenary began to laugh.

And then the hair started to grow.

The claw marks on the bald mercenary who had been supporting him began to disappear, and he, too, transformed, one bit at a time.

But they weren’t alone.

An army of wolves appeared from the forest beyond, and I didn’t have to pretend to be choked up with fear because this was an amount we had never even considered.

“Dozens,” Riley said. “Hundreds. How is this possible?”

Was he pretending, or was he afraid, too? Sometimes, it was hard to tell with him. I knew that part of him was excited for the reveal, as if he had been playing a game of chess with Carousel and finally figured out what it was up to.

That part of him scared me, but it was also the part we needed to win.

The werewolves charged.

“Shots only!” Riley called as he directed me back down the ladder.