William was looking backwards over the shoulder of someone. There was nothing but whiteness. It resembled the shadow that had attacked him in a way, billowing moving texture without form or contrast. This place really was beautiful. He felt himself rip and claw with his legs. His body was still amazingly strong after the exertion that it had been put through. He found himself admiring his own strength.
The journey was short, a lot shorter than he would have imagined. His vision was locked behind him. He couldn’t smell anything, he could see only the white of the Whyte Plain behind them, but he could hear.
The sounds were interesting to him. He felt like he was an observer in every sense of the word. His other had control of his body and he had no say in anything that was going on. The small fraction of his mind that was still open to him was that of a prison cell’s window. He could do nothing but sit back and see what happened next.
“Where are we, Aceso?” It was Katherine’s voice.
“Close to where we came in. We have to go a little farther. We have to get as close to the Mountain as we can. We can’t risk traveling out in the open with three rabid werewolves.”
Three rabid werewolves? Of course he was one of those three. It would have been nice to hear more but in his field of vision the Whyte Plain split open like a cloud of smoke and darkness rushed at them.
It made sense that the shadows wouldn’t have been too far behind. His body began pumping and kicking trying to get at the approaching shadows. They surged forward in a collected mass. They seemed to coalesce into one single organism then flow apart into separate forms then back into one again. It was like the shadows were made of water, easily flowing apart and reattaching themselves at will. The effect was intimidating, fluid, seamless, and beautiful in its own way.
“Nicolas, get out of here!” It was Aceso. “Let him go, Katherine!”
He was free. He saw the shadows surge forward to meet him and his body was once again moving with blinding speed. He got a little dizzy trying to make sense of his movements and keep track of anything that was going on. His arms and legs flashed while the world spun around him as his body did aerial stunts, flips and turns. His legs would flash outward in vicious kicks at the most awkward angles. He was glad that he had no control of his body, if he had, he would have ended up on his face more than once. Feeling his body do these things while his mind could barely grasp how it was done was something that should have scared the crap out of him, but it didn’t. The maneuvers that he was accomplishing were flawless in their execution and devastating in their result. At least they would have been if any of his attacks had met any kind of solid surface.
The shadows were moving and flowing around him. He was reminded of a Japanese anime he had seen a little while ago, something about ninjas and their jujitsu. One of the characters had the ability to fight like these shadows were fighting, flowing effortlessly around his attacks, blocking and absorbing everything, regardless of his incredible speed or acrobatics.
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
He caught glimpses of Aceso and Katherine fighting too. They weren’t exactly fighting alongside him but he couldn’t blame them for not wanting to get too close. They were fighting as best as they could. Katherine did seem to be healed. She wasn’t noticeably bleeding anymore, although she wasn’t moving nearly as fast as she should’ve been. As she was, injured or healed, right now she was moving too slowly making herself almost a liability and he wished that she had gone with Nicolas.
Aceso was moving at a good pace. She was moving faster than he had ever seen her move. The thought occurred to him that maybe the bond was giving her this added speed and stamina. The thought was comforting. Having his other take control wasn’t entirely a bad thing, if it gave his alpha a chance to survive.
His body fought with every shred of strength it had. His other was pushing their reserves of stamina to the limit even of their werewolf tolerance. His other was going to keep pushing their shared body till it collapsed out of exhaustion. His face snapped forward and grabbed something solid. He refocused his sight on what his face was looking at. He had a shadow by the leg and his body was pulling it underneath itself. For some reason the shadow tasted stale to his mouth, not putrid or rotten, just stale like air from a stuffy enclosed room. The shadow was flipped under him, and his jaw and claws ripped at it until there was nothing left but a stain on the floor of the Whyte Plain. His other had managed to kill one. He thought with a bit of irony that it hadn’t taken Aceso nearly so long to kill one of these things the last time he was here.
He could have been fighting this battle for minutes or hours. He found it difficult to concentrate on anything for too long. He wasn’t sure he wanted control of his body at this point. His other was fighting better and harder than anything he could have expected from himself. His body was twisting and flinging out attacks he didn’t even know were possible. He seemed to be cut loose from gravity. His legs and claws would slice outward as his body twirled and darted around the endlessly flowing mass of shadows. The shadows hadn’t been able to encircle the three of them but even with all the effort his body was going through he could only spot the remains of one shadow. Eventually, his body would exhaust itself. Not even his other could fight forever.
Concentrating on a small corner of his vision his thought he saw more than two werewolves fighting. He tried to get a better look but his body turned around and his vision was obscured by shadows again. When the shadow moved away, he counted four werewolves then six, then eight. His body continued to fight at its fever pitch. He heard a thin wail of dismay. The voice that had tormented them since they had entered this god forsaken place was not happy. The shadows came together one more time then suddenly, the black mass was swallowed by the mist of the Whyte Plain.
There was whiteness all around him. He couldn’t smell or hear anything. He felt his arms being locked behind him. His legs kicked out and thrashed as his body twisted and pulled against this new force that held him. He knew he was being dragged forcibly somewhere. His head swung back and forth in a sickening way, and he wondered how he hadn’t thrown up yet. He tried to ignore the way the world rocked crazily on its axis.