Free Rakshasa by Alica Knight

Prologue

    Nineteen Is An Odd Age To Die

    The shotgun slug entered my right hip, blowing a hole the size of a penny through my body. I fell over backwards and I bled, and I bled, and I bled.
    Rakshasa, the mythical were-tigers of India, are more powerful than humans. We can run as fast as a car, lift about two hundred kilos, take hits that would fell a man. We can appear as women and men, or as the great tigers, the hunting cats. We can heal grievous wounds.
    Not these kind of wounds, though. We have limits. We aren’t immortal.
    Blood gushed from the hole in a way I’d never seen blood do before. I could smell it; thick, coppery, pungent. That’s one thing you notice after you shift, your sense of smell, even in your human form, becomes much more powerful. I could smell the grass beneath me, the harsh acrid smell of gunpowder from the thin smoky trail rising from the wound, the faint smell of rain in the distance carried by a cool wind. It was going to rain soon but I’d be dead before the storm arrived.
    Nineteen is an odd age to die. You’re over eighteen so you’re legally an adult, but really, you’re still just a kid. I hung out at the local mall, went drinking with my friends and otherwise did everything I did at age fifteen.
    I was never going to be a wife. Never going to be a mother. I’d never watch another game of cricket. I’d never eat or drink anything again. I’d never walk or sing or laugh. Every single thing I was ever going to do with my life, my entire influence on this planet and the billions of people in it, was complete.
    But it was okay. I was going to die to save the life of the man I loved.
    I’d found someone whom I cared for with everything I had. Not just a boyfriend, an accessory, interchangeable and faceless. A soul-mate. Someone whose life was bound to mine.
    My death would save him. My blood, the same blood pouring onto the grass beneath me, would be his salvation. A piece of myself, given freely.
    That’s why I didn’t struggle, I didn’t resist. My wound, my torn and perforated flesh, burned with deep pain, but I didn’t press my hand to the entry point, I didn’t try to hold on to life.
    I heard voices. The crack of shotguns, sharp and staccato, drowned out by the thunderous roar of my fellows. The Rakshasa, my coven, leapt upon the huntsmen and tore them to shreds with their powerful claws, ripping out throats with their teeth, clawing and biting and maiming and destroying the humans. Hurting those who hurt us.
    Avenging me.
    I let go. I let it all go, and I lay on my back in a growing pool of my blood, staring up at the sky as my vision drained away, and I saw the sun darken as the moon moved across it.

Chapter I

    Libby the Loser

    Two months earlier…

    I don’t know why I let my friends dress me like this.
    The music thumped around me, the bass deafening, so loud and so forceful I could feel it deep in my chest. I stood by the bar in the crowded, packed club, just like I did every Friday, waiting for my friends to all hook up with guys so I could slip away unnoticed through the back exit.
    I had another sip of my glass of water and tried not to think about what damage this overly loud music was doing to my hearing or how much the dress I was wearing cost me. It was slick, red and on the shop model it looked totally divine. On me, though, it was just ludicrous. I felt like a rodeo clown.
    A man, dressed in a button up shirt and jeans, stepped out of the crowd to the bar. He was tall, with a shadow of stubble over his chin, with tan skin and an outdoors-y complexion. Indian, like me. As he moved right beside me I could smell a faint, but pleasant, scent from him: pine leaves, crisp and clean. He had the brightest, most clear blue eyes I had ever seen.
    You’re here to meet guys. The words of Katelyn, my best friend forever, echoed in my mind. The key is just to talk to them! Talking. I could do that. I inhaled, trying to adopt the most casual pose I could, holding my