The Beast Within (24 page)

Heat coursed from Cerberus’ mouth, slowing the flow of blood. Cerberus began to drag him toward the portal. Aaron thrashed against the mouths’ iron grip, but with his foreleg cranked at an awkward angle and his side sliding along the floor, his back feet could only futilely twitch against the slick tiles. As they neared the inter-dimensional doorway, Aaron wrenched his body so his back pressed against the floor. The flesh at his neck tore under the demon’s fangs as he pulled it free of the demon’s grip. Cerberus growled, but continued dragging him by the leg, the other two heads fixed on the burgeoning portal they faced. With no time left, Aaron pushed his hind legs against the demon’s abdomen. His paws sank into the oozing heat. His footpads scorched. Still, they found leverage in the pudding-like mass of liquid flesh. He kicked out against Cerberus with massive force. His foreleg grated along the obsidian canines. With a howl of pain he yanked it free before the heat of the demon’s mouth could cauterize the severe damage. He tried to force the pain to the back of his mind as he sprinted away from the portal, but the agony was too much. He made it a dozen steps before his foot gave out. He curled the injured leg up toward his chest and hobbled around to face Cerberus.

He must have been a laughable sight—a shifter no larger than an average werewolf with a profusely bleeding, maimed paw staring down the three-headed creator of all weres. But Cerberus, for once, wasn’t laughing. Menacing rage coursed from him with an intensity that matched the fire flowing beneath his skin. It seemed his patience with his wayward child was spent. This time Aaron was the one to let out an amused chuff. Cerberus bristled, reared back and launched. Aaron did the same.

They met in the air, a riot of gnashing teeth and tearing claws. For every one searing mouthful of crusty skin Aaron clamped upon, Cerberus’ three separate maws sank in, rending skin and sealing them shut in the same bite. They shook at one another, paws interlocking, mouths searching for the most fragile skin at the base of the throat. The whole time they struggled, the blood flowed from Aaron’s wound, drenching his fur and draining his life. Even as he weakened, Cerberus grew no more difficult to oppose. Ellison had been right. Their lives were intertwined, and what was weakening the offspring was having a direct effect on the progenitor. The only question was, how long could he withstand the loss of blood? If he attempted to slay the demon too soon, Cerberus would heal. If he waited too long, he would die before the deed was done. It would be a tricky thing to judge. Aaron tried not to think of that latter part, of how it would end with him lying bloodless on the floor next to Cerberus’ corpse. Fortunately, the gargantuan fangs tearing at his flesh were distracting enough for him to deflect the brunt of it.

The inferno raging beneath Cerberus’ flesh began to dim. Even though it burned Aaron’s lips and gums as he clamped down on it and tore away chunks of gelatinous fire, it did not sear with the same intensity. Aaron, slipping in his own blood, struggling for purchase against the slick tiles, took heart. He drove Cerberus away from the portal, nipping, gnashing and snarling. The tide was turning. Cerberus backed away. The dominant light faded from its remaining eyes. The heads swiveled this way and that, looking for an escape. Aaron smelled the defeat on the flagging demon. Cerberus stumbled. The three necks wavered. The heads toppled like kites bereft of wind. They crashed into one another and melded into one humanoid head. His body stretched on its hind legs, elongating and transforming. The magma faded, the patches of blackened hide sloughed off, imitating Aaron’s new half-shifted appearance of black skin and wolfish mouth. Cerberus looked more battered in this form, more pathetic. He stretched out gouged hands.

“See? We’re the same,”
the gesture conveyed. “
Have pity
.”

Aaron flattened his ears and snarled. There was nothing in the demon other than selfishness and deception. He leaped.

The object struck him in the back of the head, hard enough to topple him to the ground. Aaron whined and rolled onto his side. Pain coursed through his skull. His stomach twisted with nausea. Through tearing eyes he watched Ellison drop the rifle he had used as a baseball bat against his head and approach Cerberus. The room spun, pinning him to the floor. Between the head wound and the almost total loss of blood, he was pretty well useless. He could only watch as Ellison prostrated himself before the demon and begged forgiveness. Aaron whined again, the closest thing he could come to a warning. Ellison continued to grovel at the feet of the demon he had betrayed. Cerberus placed a hand on Ellison’s head.

Aaron struggled to bring his paws under him. He managed to get his shaking legs to steady long enough to push upright. Cerberus watched his struggle, his expression curious. No doubt he wondered why Aaron was trying to save the man who had brought him such misery, because Aaron was wondering it himself. But, asshole or not, murderer or not, Ellison didn’t deserve to die the way he was about to. Or maybe other people, like Tony, deserved to have a shot at watching him die. He didn’t know. All he knew was Cerberus shouldn’t have that particular satisfaction.

He launched into the air. This time no one stopped him. He crashed into Cerberus, who clamped down on Ellison’s scalp. The man screamed as he was pulled along between the struggling demon and wolf, caught in a riot of fists, teeth, fangs and claws. Aaron bit down on Cerberus’ arm and the demon loosened his grip on Ellison. He kicked out with his powerful hind legs, catching Ellison in the gut and sending him sprawling across the floor. He landed near the portal in a heap, sobbing.

Aaron let his own transformation take him. In an instant the fur and paws receded, replaced by his lupine human form. Cerberus had him by the shoulders in an instant. The large skull crashed into his. Heat broke across his forehead. The pain in his skull was relentless. It seemed as if his brain banged against its bone cage with a persistent metallic beat.

“They’re busting through the doors, hoss,” Robert’s voice came over the intercom. “You gonna do something? Do it now.”

Aaron nodded. It felt like shards of glass grinding inside his head.

Cerberus tried to fling him aside, but he clung to the arms holding him. The hellhound had renewed his bid for the portal. Aaron clamped his legs around the demon’s waist. It gave Cerberus freedom to stride to the mystical door, but also gave Aaron leverage. He inched his way up the massive boiler of a torso. He clamped into Cerberus’ shoulders with his talons, opened his wolf-like mouth and sealed around the demon-man’s throat. Cerberus staggered in a languid circle, weakly trying to shake him off. The hellhound beat at his back, plunged razored claws into his shoulder blades. But Aaron, the last vestiges of blood trickling lazily out of his many wounds, clung on. As each drop hit the floor he tightened his grip. As each drop hit, Cerberus’ attempts to loosen him grew weaker. Aaron pulled together his strength, knowing it to be his last, then closed his mouth until his teeth met one another. Cerberus screamed. It soon turned to a high-pitched gurgle. With all of the force he could muster, Aaron locked his jaws and flung back his head.

The doors behind them exploded. Aaron’s hearing turned to a mosquito whine. Hot shrapnel struck his bare back and buttocks. He leveled his vision with Cerberus, his mouth still full of his progenitor’s resected throat. Cerberus stared at him for a moment with a baffled expression, then crashed backwards. Aaron rode him to the ground. He tried to roll away, but only managed to slide partially off the body. The impact had taken away his own breath, or maybe it was simply death finally arrived. Either way, he lay with his feet sprawled on the demon’s massive torso, his arms splayed and face pressed against the wet tiles as he gasped for air. The sunset-hued gateway danced in his vision. As the portal faded, a pair of feet scuttled by and disappeared into the void. Even three-quarters dead, Aaron recognized the hideous, over-priced loafers Ellison favored.

Boots crashed around him, encircled the empty space where the portal used to sit.

“We missed him, ma’am. He’s gone.”

Aaron felt his legs gently lifted and the demon was dragged a few feet away. He watched the body twitch as bullets from five guns riddled the corpse. He understood the agents’ need to be thorough, but turning him into Swiss cheese was unnecessary. Cerberus was dead. Aaron felt it inside him, a loss greater than his upcoming demise. A hole. A void just like the one Ellison had just passed into. The dark thing had finally receded.

Does that make me human again?
He could have laughed. He looked at his hands, no longer clawed or black. He ran his blood-caked tongue over his teeth. Normal. Was that it how it was going to play out, human again, finally, just in time to lose any supernatural ability to heal? Cerberus was right. Gifts were never appreciated. This time he did chuckle, but it came out of his throat as a groan.

“
Mi hombre
.” The voice beside his ear was soothing in its familiarity. “Hang on. The medical team is here.”

He shook his head, or thought he did, at least. Carlos didn’t notice.

“They’ll patch you up and send you to the care ward to be watched for a few days. That’s all.”

He heard the strain in Carlos’ voice. The alpha was near tears. He smelled Matthew close by, but the beta did not venture close enough for Aaron to see.

He was glad. He didn’t enjoy Carlos’ platitudes and didn’t need Matthew’s added to them. He didn’t care that his entire blood supply lay pooled across the floor. All he cared about was one thing.

“Tony?” He voice didn’t rise above a whisper. When no answer came he struggled to be louder. “Tony?”

“He’s going to be fine,
mi hombre
,” Carlos said.

Aaron caught the hesitancy in the shifter’s voice, smelled the fear and grief on his body.

Aaron pushed off the ground. Half a dozen hands reached in to press him back down. They could not fight him. Even half dead, even with the dark thing gone, he was still stronger than all of them, at least when it came to Tony. He surged to his feet and lurched toward the door. Another pair of hands caught him, but only to keep him from falling. It was Matthew. The beta reached around Aaron’s bloodied back and held him tight. When Carlos tried to intervene, Matthew shot him a withering look.

“And if it were me?” he snapped.

Carlos backed down.

Aaron ignored their shifting pack dynamic and pressed ahead. His body fought his every movement. He felt light and leaden at the same time. His thoughts were like a cobweb in the wind, trying desperately to fight the breeze that would at any moment permanently unhinge them and send them drifting off into the sky. The only anchor to his soul was Tony. Tony who rested somewhere beyond the rubble that used to be the security doors. He stepped over metal and concrete shards, unheeding. They sliced into his skin, but he had little blood left to offer their honed edges. Matthew guided him around the worst of the devastation. There, in front of him, on a stretcher, pallid and sweating and moaning in his deep unconsciousness, was Tony. He knew without asking the transformation was not happening. The shifter gene was not in his partner. The bite was killing him.

“It was a werewolf bite, we think,” Matthew said. “The odds were never…” he trailed off and gave Aaron’s side a gentle squeeze.

Aaron shook off Matthew’s hands and stepped closer. His chest ached as if he had clawed out his heart with his own hands. An anguished howl worked its way up into his throat and lodged there, choking him. There was no way to get air in, or out.

The room behind him burst into blinding brilliance. He heard Matthew’s cry of concern, but his focus remained fixed on the beautiful face locked in a rictus of agony. The heat slammed into his back. He jumped forward and shoved Tony’s gurney over. His partner toppled to the ground. The medics let out shocked shouts. The fiery ball struck him square in the shoulders. It burned through his skin, his muscles and his bone. It burrowed straight through until it found the hole left by the dark thing, and filled it.

The medics looked at him and screamed. He screamed back. The sound that came from his throat was deep, gravelly, lupine and otherworldly. He heard Matthew’s shouts to be calm, heard the chaos of boot falls and raised guns, and Director Braven’s booming command to stand down, but all he saw was Tony. Tony growing larger, closer. His face was all that filled Aaron’s vision as he landed directly on top of him.

The new thing inside him was familiar, but bigger. Stronger. Terrifying. But it whispered things that Aaron needed to hear. And while Matthew and the medics seized his arms to lift him off his moaning partner, Aaron dipped down his head, took Tony’s arm in his massive fangs, and bit until blood filled his mouth.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Lost Hours

The lights were too bright. They burnt behind his eyelids, but he could not move to assuage the discomfort. His body cried for a pair of soothing arms and the soft glow of the moon. Somewhere a cub whined. A warm hand brushed his forehead. He fell back into dreams of sorrow.

The next time he came to he was aware of a crazed commotion. Metal crashed to the floor. Wetness splashed against the tiles. People shouted for sedation and extra bindings. A wolf snarled and growled, threatening. Horrible light drenched his vision. A woman screamed.

“For God’s sake, just bring his bed in here!” a familiar voice said. Exhaustion suffused the words. “He’s not going to hurt him, of all people.”

“We have our orders,” another person said.

The wolf howled in rage. More crashing.

“Then have your orders changed,” snapped the one whose voice he knew. “Or do you wish these to pop up all over your ward?”

The wolf in the room barked and howled. Just as Aaron realized the sound might be coming from his own mouth he felt a new presence beside his bed. A moment later the drugs flooded his system and he drifted off.

* * * *

Tony came to him in his dreams.
He smiled—that same charming, cocky smile—but did not speak. He simply stood there and grinned like everything was fine. But everything inside Aaron was shredded. He was being eaten from the inside out by something he couldn’t name. Not the new thing, but something else. It hurt worse than any claw or fang tearing through flesh could. It doubled him over at Tony’s feet where he curled in a ball and sobbed until he was empty of tears.