Rejected Mate and Following Fate novel Chapter 31

It comes crashing at me, pulling my full attention back to its enormous face, eyes raging, yellow teeth, baring in all their massive, pointy, terrifying glory, and I know there's no way out of this. It's four times the size of me, easily, three times as wide, as black as the sky on a moonless night, and completely deranged. I yank the pant legs off, discarding them with my other off casts, leaving me in my underwear as I run out of time. It lurches at me, and I instinctively turn to counteract the attack, shredding the only good lingerie I ever owned in my life. Black lace Meadow gave me, and it pisses me off on a whole other level.

It happens so fast, like something inside of me snaps and takes over, and I move in a flash, somehow ending up wrapped around the upper front of that smelly, panting beast, rolling across the basin floor and crashing into fallen logs and rocks. It's claws, and paws, bashing down on me, except it doesn't feel of anything much because of my surge of adrenaline and I latch onto its neck with my teeth, biting hard until I taste salty, metallic blood running into the back of my throat. Digging my claws in where I can get them. My mind is on one thing only, and that's to maim, and hold my own until I come out of the other side of this, no matter how long it takes. Strangely focused, completely in control, and yet fighting back with a fierce I never knew I had in me.

It hollers, manages to dislodge me with a well-placed swipe across my head and side with its massive paw, claws digging into my skin and ripping as blood sprays across the landscape, sending me rolling across the debris. The pain is like a distant dream and heals almost instantly, soothing into nothing, like a mild far away throbbing while blood rushes through my head and my own pulse bashes inside my thundering thoughts, pushing me on. I'm quick to my feet, finding energy I've been lacking for eleven days, running straight back at it, and flying hard into its mid-section, with front paws and claws extended fully, ready to psychotically start ripping as I collide. Determined to leave my mark on it more permanently than the way it just did to me.

There's an inner fire in me that knows no bounds, as fear dries up and shrivels away and this need to fight for my own things, my own safety, becomes all consuming. Nothing else passes through my train of thought and all I can smell, and taste, is this sudden need for blood. Like a hunger coming from deep within that tells me I won' relent until I take it down. It fills me with a complete disregard for anything else. I feel it surge through me like a force I can't explain. A shot from an energy drink or being zapped with a power outlet that springs you across a room. 

The bear counteracts my aggressive maneuver, and even though I gash it's front ruthlessly with one paw, ripping flesh once more and almost blinding myself with a face full of splatter, it body slams me with the other, crunching my internal bones, and sends my flying through the air like a limp rag. That winds me and renders me temporarily dazed.

I'm still not anywhere near its size, which is its biggest advantage in this, but I won't let it beat me. I have speed, strength, and ability to heal, as long as it doesn't kill me with an instant puncture to my heart, or brain, or rip my god damn head off. As long as I have a few seconds of not imminent death, then my body will bounce back quickly. Although each time is beginning to throb more than the last, and I guess my initial adrenaline surge is waning as bones readjust, and crackle under my skin to be reformed. It hurts like a bitch, and this time I elicit a howl and yelp as it does so.

My anger grows with this new pain, disabled only momentarily as I scramble to right myself, finding my balance and quick reflexes. An inner rage building up so intensely that I can taste it, becoming almost like a solid mass that I can feel and touch around me.

The bear lunges at me again, and this time I'm swift, see it coming and sidestep, jump out of reach, and pounce from ground to an overhanging rock that levers me up enough to take a jump right onto the bears head and side. I jump high and get it at an angle, right at the side of its face, clinging on devilishly by puncturing its shoulder and neck with gripping talons, and sink my teeth in the top of its skull in an attempt to crush it with sheer will power. I realise too late, my jaw doesn't have the ability to stretch that far, and without a good amount in my teeth, I just rip off a clump of scalp and dirty foul-tasting fur which makes me gag.

The bear is as furious as I am, yowling in agony at the removal of a sizable chunk of its own skin, reaches up, catching my hind leg with its claws, digging in brutally, and throws me clean across the forest floor so I body slap a fallen log side on with the force and velocity of a cannon ball. Ribs cracking under the assault of collision, spiking, and stabbing into my lung, crushing, crunching, and holy hell balls, I gasp out with a moment of agony that renders me unable to make an actual sound. Air leaking out and failing me, because that time it hurt worse than turning for the first time, stunned with the brutality, and I'm going to rip that mother fucker's god damn throat out.

Somehow, I manage to inhale a breath so my lungs inflate, and push my shattered fractured bones back together enough to heal again, but that internal energy I could feel building, suddenly encases me fully with every step it takes towards me. My anger knows no bounds anymore, and I focus a rage comparable to the fiery depths of hell right at that monstrous asshat. It's around me, shrouding me, like a veil I can almost see, translucent, yet it's tingling my skin, urging me to wrap it up and haul it in. Feed on it and use it. I can't explain it, but it's like the air becomes a thin fabric of real touchable something that I want to grab and take in my hands.

The bear moves in at me, growling, and wailing high into the sky with a blood curling anger that probably translates to 'die bitch', and I struggle to get up, still recovering , still dazed, with this milky, not quite clear, air invading my space. Without understanding the why, not questioning where the idea comes from, but really having a second of panic action as he makes a final death lunge at me, I grab it from midair, surprised to get a physical handful, like a hard hot bowling ball in my palm, and throw it at the bear impulsively.

I don't know what I thought I would achieve and honestly, I didn't have time to ponder either the science or the stupidity, but I throw air at a bear in a bid to save my own hide. Then groan as logic slaps me in the head for being an idiot.

Like something out of a Hollywood movie though, I watch in wide eyed disbelief, as the bear is hit with an almost invisible force that ripples the air around it, sending the milky veil into shimmering, flowing movement, like mesmerizing water after a rock is thrown in. It makes its body indent crazily, like I just rammed it with a truck at crazy speed, and for a milli-second, time slows down as I take this all in. It's thrown back more than three times the distance it threw me, flying high in an arc through the clearing and lands with a shuddering thud on the floor below the tree line spectacularly. I swear, the ground quakes with the force and reverberates through my healing body dully, bringing a calm to the forest that was not there before. Complete silence as everything stops, and all of nature pauses to say, 'what in the hell was that?'.

The air pulsates around it silently, the veil moving over and away like I blew a candle and the smoke disperses in the waves of breath into nothingness. Disappearing like it never was, and I'm as shocked as the damn bear at what I just did, sitting stupefied, watching in complete disbelief. Panting, with an erratic heartbeat, hunched up in my poised pose but dumbstruck and blinking at it.

It seems stunned for a moment, rolls, and crawls to its trembling legs, blinking my way, and then turns and takes off at a ridiculously slow speed, no longer willing to combat whatever I just did. It's not recovered though, it's clumsy, and swaying, and crashing into the undergrowth.

It doesn't get very far, as I watch from my perched semi kneeling position. It's staggering sideways, then slowing to a bumbling uncoordinated mess of a stop, falls over its own feet and slumps face down on the ground. It's like it's drunk and as it lets out a long noisy groaning exhale, I pull myself to my feet, and watch as it falls completely silent.

I can hear a heartbeat in the air around us, so suddenly it makes me jump; slow, labored, one, two more, and stop. I'm shocked that it was so pitch clear while so far away. It couldn't have been its heartbeat, surely? It had to be mine, but I can't hear it anymore, and I check my pulse to be sure I'm not actually dead and already crossed over to the other side. Nope, still beating as I press my clawed paw to my breast and snort out a thankful half growl.

I blow out my lungful of air and give myself a few seconds to fully heal every single tiny injury it inflicted, stretching out my ribs to be sure. I stay in wolf form and slowly edge forward to see if it's still alive, trying to recover my wits, and focus for a second attack. Surprised to see my fire, and food, was free from our thrashing around and still smoking away gently, untouched. It smells pretty good too, and my mouth waters with how hungry this has suddenly made me. Weird.

My bag is kicked to one side, but nothing looks ripped, and I catch sight of the t-shirt still sticking out, bringing a sense of calm to my internal rage, which had still been simmering away all on its own. I pass it and come up at the bear from the side, veering left cautiously, and keeping my distance in case this is a ploy to get me close.

The bear has its eyes wide open, glassy, its tongue hanging from an open mouth, framed with teeth, eliciting no breath, and blood streams from both nostrils. It's vacant, staring at nothing, and I realise whatever I did, it messed the bear up inside, and it's dead. I can tell without touching it that it's life force and aura is completely gone. My senses tuning in and finding nothing.

I did that. With whatever I threw that I couldn't see, I killed the bear.