Free Waiting for Darkness (Blood Martyr) by Fionn Jameson Page B

one of the most painful things in the world. How could it not hurt when you’ve got bones shifting and melding...right under your skin?
    Phoenix was changing—changing a lot faster than anyone else. While everyone else in his pack still remained on their hands and knees, their backbones elongating into painfully straight lines, fur already started to glisten on his body.
    But so was Kieran, maybe even j ust a bit faster than Phoenix. After all, they were both Alphas, so were bound to change before anyone else. However, Kieran was the disputed Were King. He was supposed to hold court over the other Weres, and that meant he was, technically, Phoenix’s liege lord.
    Apparently, Phoenix didn ’t think so.
    He snarled at me, teeth long enough to go through my arm.
    "I'm gonna tear you to pieces, bitch."
    Shit, I didn ’t have a weapon. I didn’t even have anything in my hands. Did I really want to fight an eight-foot werewolf with my bare hands?
    The answer came only a split second later before I sprinted for the bar counter on the other side of the dance floor.
    Fuck no.
    Someone howled, a long, low sound that set my hair on end. Damned if I knew who it was and damned again if I was going to turn around to see. I hurled myself over the bar counter, knocking over drinks in the process. My pants started to smell strongly of Jaegermeister, and a tiny part of me was glad I chose to wear casual that night.
    I groped around for the aluminum baseball bat one of my human bartenders, Kel, kept underneath the counter and cautiously poked out my head to survey the dance floor.
    Everyone had changed. I couldn ’t see a single man, but a mass of gigantic wolves, thick beads of saliva dripping from their muzzles.
    Kieran was completely silver, a rarity in its own right, but even from where I crouched, I saw his eyes shifted hues as well, from a cerulean blue to a silver so light they were almost white. He stuck out like a bent nail on a plank among those dark bodies, and I noticed Phoenix was a very common brown. Hah.
    Why weren ’t they moving? By this time, I thought to see blood flashing in the air, fur flying in tufts, to hear yelps and other general wolf noises.
    But nothing.
    The ranks were cleanly delineated, and it was obvious that while Kieran’s boys clearly outnumbered Phoenix’s by at least a good dozen, Phoenix’s pack members looked a bit...bigger. In fact, a few in Kieran’s pack looked downright runty. Kind of like a pack of Davids versus of pack of Goliaths. But David had won, hadn’t he?
    Then again, David wasn ’t a wolf. At least, I didn’t think he was.
    Phoenix growled and started to move, his feet silent on the floor except the clicking of massive claws the length of my hand. Wo w. One hit from those suckers and you’d be picking up your intestines from the floor. I fought him before but he was in human form then and now, I couldn’t help but get a little impressed.
    Still, Kieran didn ’t move.
    While Phoenix and his pack took one ste p after another, closer and closer to Kieran and his men, Kieran just stood there. Was he waiting? I had to admit, for runty werewolves, his men were very well disciplined. Having seen them as a rather motley crew, I didn’t know they could do self-control as well as any great army.
    My hand tightened around the bat. Aluminum wasn ’t very good; the bat would bend right in half as soon as I hit someone, but that split second of impact was all I needed. I regretted cutting my nails the night before. Didn’t quite seem fair I had nails no longer than one and a half centimeters while Phoenix could literally cut his way through bars of steel. Ah well. Better luck next time?
    “ Come on...move. Move it, before he bites you in half, you idiot,” I muttered.
    Closer and cl oser...Phoenix padded towards Kieran, lips curled back, showing off frighteningly sharp teeth.
    Why wasn ’t Kieran moving?
    Phoenix took a running leap, and I jumped over the bar counter, the bat