The Blood War

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Again and again.

Every step she took forward, it seemed something was always dragging Outlander back. Left and right, pieces of her life were being stolen from her; first her mother's fateful encounter with a mountain lion, then Scavenger, then the coyote pack ran her out, and now her wolf pack.

Again and again, bits of her happiness, ripped away by cold claws of dread.

Again and again.

Snowblind's claws sank into her neck, sending Outlander's nerves in a panicked state, colliding with one another in excruciating explosions. She bit her tongue, willing her quivering body to hold still and prevent the alpha's claws from reaching too far under her skin to be fatal. Her face was pressed in the ground, but she could make out Bone ahead of her. His face had the same look as earlier. Fear. But it was different. This time he was afraid FOR her.

Outlander had found herself wavering between completely trusting the Bone Beast and continuing to hold on to her hatred, but here, like she had been so often recently, she was struck by her utter helplessness without him, and it made her furious.

Snowblind was speaking, saying something smug, pridefully. Outlander wasn't listening. There was too much commotion in her own head to hear clearly. The situation WAS clear, however. Snowblind had chosen his moment wisely. Bone wouldn't be able to save her, not in time. Snowblind would slash through her neck, no matter the circumstance.

Through her own deliberation, that one fact silenced all of the noise and made one unanimous decision. When Snowblind did strike, she would still have time to make him pay for it.

If she had to die, by every ounce of rage in her body, she would take him with her.

And she would do it on HER terms.

While Snowblind continued his gloating over Bone, Outlander took in a deep, slow breath, steeling herself for the pain to come. Without warning, she kicked off of the ground, twisting under Snowblind's paws until she was belly-up. His claws ripped through her neck as she rotated and tears stung at her eyes as blood rushed down her coat, but the move had left Snowblind shocked and unbalanced, giving Outlander a chance to land a kick in his belly that shoved him off of her.

The alpha staggered back, shock slowing his thinking. Outlander didn't have time to waste; while taking command and inflicting the wound on herself rather than allowing Snowblind to put full power behind the strike had lessened the damage, the wound was still large enough to send a flood of blood down the sides of her neck and forlegs.

Her rate of bloodloss was the clock, and she didn't have a lot of time.

Without giving him time to recover, she lunged at Snowblind, going for his neck. Her small size didn't give the bite the immense power she had intended for it to have, but it also made it a bit harder for the white wolf to shake her off. She sank her fangs in as tightly as she could, refusing to budge as he kicked her in the sides and clawed at her face.

Too long the coywolf had been abused and trodden on. Too long she had suffered at the hands of the cruel and wicked. Not it was her turn to shed blood, to take command. She could feel her strength begin to ebb away and the world began to sway around her as the lack of blood started to have serious consequences.

Her eyes shifted to two blurry, frozen shapes in the background. Winks, watching from a fairly safe distance away, and Bone, still frozen in front of the alpha den. So far, he seemed to have been too shocked or confused to move.

"Now," she thought, growing weary as Snowblind's fighting became more frantic, "Now is the time to be a monster."

Snowblind gave one violent kick and the immistakeable crack of ribs breaking filled her ears, sending a new wave of unspeakable pain through Outlander's side. She screamed, releasing her grip on his neck before crumpling to the ground. Through the hazy blurs around her, she could see the alpha loom over her, a look of cold fury on his face as he determined a fittingly painful punishment for her. Outlander smiled weakly. Maybe he wouldn't die, but the river of blood staining his body a grim shade of pink showed that she gave him a fight, and a scar, he would never forget.

Her eyelids slid closer together against her will but before they shut, she caught the flicker of a monsterish shadow cast over the wounded alpha, and the immistakable fleck of pale blue that held the flame of the fearsome death-wolf.

She chuckled, feeling light, like she was slowly being lifted up above the clouds. "There's my monster," she murmured wearily, shutting her eyes.

~CL1