Clayton's Jade (Runes Stone Series) (12 page)

Scanning the area for the shifters that were on their side he could not see Kaylee and that worried him.  He knew that it was a distraction to worry about someone during a fight, but that was just the way he rolled.  Between not feeling good and Kaylee not being in his sight, he started to change into his berserker.  He felt something different happening during the change.  He didn’t know how to describe it, except when it had finished he felt a little lightheaded. 

Looking at the other men he knew something was wrong, they were all staring at him.   As he glanced down at his hands he realized why, fur covered his hands.  Her bite had changed him.  His body was covered in fur not hair and he had claws that could still grip a sword.  Now that he had changed he didn’t feel sick anymore either.  Taking a deep breath he realized that his sense of smell had increased and he knew exactly where Kaylee was.  Then he smelled something else over in the same direction as Kaylee.  “This way men.” 

He took off towards the scents.  He ran faster than he had before and it was easier to jump over things now.  When he got to the open area where he had smelled the enemy he saw them fighting his people and Kaylee.  He didn’t have much time to watch her as they were surrounded immediately by the hostile party. 

Ducking, he felt the hairs on the back of his head move as the blade passed over him.  That was too close for comfort.  Taking a step forward he thrust his sword towards the belly of the gaborchend, which had the bodies of humans and the head of a goat.  At least they were easy to kill.  They only problem was that there were a lot of them.  With the gaborchend hitting them on the head did no good.  Stomach and necks were the best place to strike. 

Clayton went to work slicing through them as he tried to get to Kaylee. He could hear her fighting but not see who it was.  He had got into a pattern slice, duck, stand when a blade hit his arm.  He had to change his fighting technique.  Pissed at himself he swung his sword and severed through the things legs.  Looking up and out he stood back up and blocked a hit coming at him.  Then with his dagger he swiped it across the beast’s neck, now he could tell his blood from the enemy’s blood.  The clanging of the blades was a chant making him move to the rhythm.

Using his dagger he blocked a sword from hitting him from a different direction. As his blade went through the belly of the enemy in front of him he continued the swing to get the opponent on the left side of him.  When he pulled out his dagger the creatures intestines came out with it.  It was a good thing that both of his arms were equally strong.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw a blade coming at his neck and there was no way he was going to be able to block it or duck.  Luckily for him the person behind him did and blocked the sword and separated enemy from the neck down. “Thanks.” He said as he breathlessly moved on.

The Gaborchend just kept coming like a never ending tidal wave that just got in the way of their destination. Where the hell were they coming from?  “Let’s clean house guys. That’s enough playing around.  It’s time to finish this and get to the rest of the group.”

The group agreed and started to cut through the Gaborchend like butter by the time it was done there were heads, intestines and blood covering the ground.  He could smell the Tasmanian devil and it was very close to Kaylee.  However, in front of them they had a bigger problem, a bear shifter.  It wasn’t a cute cuddly one either.  Then something happened that he had never seen before it replicated right there in front of them.  Shit this was going to hurt there was no way around that fact.

“I will take the main one everyone else take the replicas.  I hope if I kill the main one the rest of them will disappear, but we can’t count on it.”  The bear didn’t have weapons just teeth and claws which were more dangerous.  It was going to be a whole new way of fighting.  He wondered what the part cat transformation could do to help him.   The bear came at him. He ran to the back side of the tree beside him and watched the bear come towards him.  He needed to buy a few seconds to come up with a plan.

His claws and teeth were dangerous.  How can I get around them?   I am not climbing any of these trees the bear could take down a tree without thinking about it.   I can only run for so long so that is out.  I can jump higher and farther now that I have changed.  Then he could see what he had to do.  With a deep breath he grasped his sword and ran at the bear and jumped onto its back before it could see what he had planned.  With all of his strength he drove his sword into the vertebrae of the bear’s neck and twisted until he heard a popping sucking type of noise.

Then like he hoped would happen the rest of the bears disappeared.  Now he could see Kaylee, and that didn’t make it any better.   The Tasmanian devil was vicious kept going after Kaylee.  It was snapping at her and had drool coming down the sides of his mouth.  He could see that Kaylee had taken a few hits on her back and front legs.  How she was still fighting he didn’t know.

This thing had hurt his mate and was still trying to do so.  He couldn’t just strike it with his sword he might hit Kaylee.  “Vie grab Kaylee and take her to the house.”  Then in a blink of an eye Kaylee was gone.  He strode over to the Tasmanian devil and brought the sword down severing the head from the body. Even though he was muscle bound in human form he was tiny in animal form but mean in both. 

Most of the animals had scattered when he had killed the bear.  He would decide what to do with the ones that were caught in the net tomorrow. There would be a lot to discuss tomorrow.  Right now though it was time to get back to the house and see to the wounded.

Brad looked out over the assembled group of people and was impressed by the amount of shifters that had shown up from his group.  He headed out to the water knowing that it was time for them to change.  They were not really expecting any trouble here but it was better to error on the side of caution.  After the shift he looked out over the small part of his ocean and saw some strange animals for this area.  In fact this water was warm for some of them and freezing for others.  He saw Bridget and again was amazed in her shifter form.  It was too bad that they could not communicate with different species while in their shifted forms.  He began to wonder if that was something that Odin or Dagda could help with.  It would be nice to able to talk to other while in this form.  Even mind to mind would be nice. 

Then he saw something that didn’t belong in these waters and were not part of his group.  It was a good thing that he had shifted with everyone last night so that he would know the difference but how did he get the others attention to the problem.  All of the smaller shifters could go to shallow water, the bigger animals were the concern. 

There were two different types of sharks out there and neither one of them looked nice.  Of course in his seal form the only good shark was a dead shark that might be because he was a source of food for sharks.  From what he could tell there were eight sharks in the area.  This was not going to be a good fight.  Bridget along with three others could not come in closer to shore where it was safe.  He got up on one of the rocks and started barking to get their attention then, using his flipper he pointed toward the sharks circling in the water.  He knew this area well looking around he tried to find an advantage point. 

If he could get them in the area with the tall rocks, then use the same power that he had used when he tried to help Clayton to push the rocks together and trap them in that pool of water.  Just as he was trying to figure out how to get them in that area one of the sharks bit Tim.  Barking to get his attention then pointed him I the direction that he wanted to go in.   When Tim saw him he took off in the direction that was being pointed out. Brad saw all but one shark go in after Tim.  He decided that seven sharks were better than none.  Looking at the gap between the rocks he summoned the power to move the rocks. 

As pushed the power at the rocks to make them move he felt the ocean moving also.  This was not exactly what he wanted but if it worked for the end result that’s all that mattered.  He saw the rocks start to come together.  The way the ocean was moving in that area kept the sharks from getting out.  His main concern was the other animals in the area and he wanted Tim to be ok.  As he was moving the rocks he saw Vie pop up and grab Tim and then pop back out.  At least he was one of the sea creatures that could be out of the water for long periods of time. 

Knowing Tim was out of Danger he slapped the rock together with too much force.  The wave that resulted from the force slammed into Bridget.  He watched as she was tossed around by the water and finally crash into a different rock.  The impact was hard enough to knock her out.  The next thing he saw was the other big shifter gather around her to protect her from the one remaining shark.

This shark seemed to be very aggressive.  The shark head butted one of the shifters, not realizing it was a killer whale.  The killer whale turned and went after it.  The shark was not afraid of it and turned then charged back at the whale.  The shark was at the top of the water and the killer whale took air then flopped down on top of the shark, knocking it out for the count.  Now they just had to keep an eye on Bridget until she could shift back.  He went out with rest of the shifters protecting her.  He hated that he was not a fighting animal but he now had some special talents. 

When they were able to shift back they got her back to shore.  She still had not woken up since she had been hit. The water was at about his waist when he had to lift her to get over some of the rocks.  Once they were standing on the beach he saw Dagda and walked over to him.  Can you get Vie we need a lift to Kaylee’s house.  Vie showed up and took them and some of the others that were injured back to the house.

When they got back to the house the wounded were laying all over the house.  The animals were harder to deal with at least until they shifted back to their human form.  They were applying pressure on the cuts until they shifted back. He found Kaylee by the door to her lab.  He picked her up and held her close.  “I was so afraid something was going to happen to you before I could get to you.”

He didn’t want to let go of her afraid she would disappear if he did.  Her whole body started to vibrate and she turned her head and licked his nose then cuddled into his chest.  He sat on the floor just holding her like that until they both shifted back.  “You know this was more comfortable when I was in cat form.  I am sorry I bit you.  It shouldn’t have had any effect on you though.  I wonder why I did that.  My cat liked you in that form.”

“I know that it shouldn’t have.  I think it has something to do with the stone we found.”  He pulled out the stone from his pocket and held it out to her. “I have a confession to make those markings on the stone, they are yours and mine.”  He didn’t know if she was going to be angry at him for keeping that from her, but he couldn’t tell her until she had made her choice.

“I could tell you knew something about it and that’s ok.  Vie said I would have to choose.  I have made a choice and it’s you” Her hands reached up and pulled his head towards hers and kissed him.

  As much as he wanted to take her to the bedroom he couldn’t.  The house was full of people that were injured.  Thinking about it now, he reached down and grabbed her hand there were 3 deep gashes where the claws of the Tasmanian got her.  Then he lifted up her shirt and saw the really bad ones on her back.  Two separate rows going from her shoulder blades to her hips.  It didn’t look that bad in her cat form.  “You need to have these looked at.  They are too deep.”

As he went to get up Dagda and Vie showed up with several of the sea shifters in tow.  Some of them were injured.  Brad was holding a lovely girl.  She looked to be of Indian heritage.  She had long black hair with a light brown complexion.  The girl hung limply in Brads arms.

We headed to the front room with Vie and saw that she had people that were ok helping the ones that had been hurt bad trying to get them get past the danger point.   Vie looked at the girl and touched her trying to figure out what was wrong with her.  “She is fine physically, the problem is she is fighting something mentally.  This she has to do on her own.  You can’t help her but you can be there when she wakes up.  There is a major problem with the change tomorrow if she doesn’t wake up.  I do believe that Dagda will be able to help you with that.  I know that she has to be in water before she can shift.  Dagda may have to construct a safe tank for her to be in and you can be with her if it makes you feel better.  That is of course if Dagda will help.”  With that said Brad sat down on the floor holding the girl in his arms and waited for his response.

“I believe that I can make a temporary one that will work for the night.  Give me the day to figure it out.  You will have a tank tonight.”  Dagda said as he placed a hand on Brads shoulder.

“Thank you.” He said softly to Dagda as he pulled Bridget in closer to his body.  He then noticed Kaylee had some injuries.  “How bad are you hurt?”

“It’s not as bad as it looks.  I will heal.” It hurt like hell though.  Every time she took a step pain shot up from the wounds and almost knocked her to her knees.  She just wanted a shower as much as that was going to hurt she needed it and then go to bed with Clayton holding her as she fell asleep.

Vie looked like she was on her last leg.  She was maybe going to be able to help one or two more people.  She had gashes, laceration’s, and bites covering her skin in different areas.  Every person she helped added to the array of wounds that she was displaying on her body.  For someone so little she could withstand a lot of damage to her body.  “You are going to have to catch her when she is done with the last person.  You better get over by her to be there when she goes down.”