Eileen Wilks - Blood Lines

And the demon let go of Rule.

Pain roared from his shoulders down to his fingers in a white-hot sheet. But he didn't move his arms, though his abused muscles trembled and twitched with the strain of holding them back. He prayed desperately he was right—

"Did it work?" Cordoba demanded. "Wake her up. Make her… oh, make her kill the one Melli has pinned. Not the sorcerer. The other one."

The demon stepped out from behind Rule, but he moved clumsily, as if he'd forgotten how his muscles worked. A fierce joy seized Rule. He'd been right. He just had to hold on a moment longer, see which target—

Cordoba's back was to them, but one of the Az£ saw. "Sir," a gravelly voice said, "The big demon—"

"What?" Cordoba snapped—but he glanced over his shoulder.

The demon lumbered into an awkward run. Straight for Cordoba.

Change.

Yes., Rule reached for the moonsong and threw himself into it. The pain in his shoulders vanished, subsumed by the familiar, rippling agony of the Change.

Cordoba's eyes widened. "Shoot her!" he cried, then slapped the barrel of the rifle pointed at Lily. "Not her, fool! Jiri! Shoot her!"

Jiri stepped away from Cynna. She was smiling, her eyes alight with triumph as one, two, all three rifles went off.

And the Change went on. And on. Wrong, shouted some yet-human pocket of him. Something was wrong. It was taking too long. The pain was huge, and the mantles—the mantles were—

Jiri was on the ground. Lily was moving, rolling into the legs of the man closest to her.

Lily! He tried to wrest back control from the mantles, but the Change had never been his to order. He could only—

Surrender.

He let go and blinked out, and then he wasn't.

And then he was. He stood and panted with his head hanging, remembered pain shuddering through him, though this body no longer hurt. But his front legs were weak, the joints throbbing. The scents of blood and demons were strong in his nostrils, but he couldn't think. He shook his head to clear it, but something was wrong. Different.

Never mind. He had to get to Lily.

But the demon already had. It tossed aside one of the Aza, then another—still clumsy, but moving faster, as if its rider was getting the hang of the massive body. Cordoba screeched and ran toward the house.

And the winged creature stirred.

Cordoba, Rule thought. He had to stop Cordoba, who controlled the creature.

But the wolf didn't want Cordoba. The wolf wanted the monster that spread its wings—not for flight, but for balance as it ran toward the two women and the demon defending them.

The demon was big, compared to a man. Not compared to the winged nightmare. And the demon's rider wasn't familiar with the body.

Rule snarled and threw himself at the beast. He wouldn't fail her this time.

It was fast. He was faster. It checked its charge when it saw him, stretching out one great wing, trying to sweep him away with it. He avoided it easily, so it tried to club him with the knobby bone at the hinge. He flattened, rolled, coming to his feet near the body. It tried stepping on him, but it was ungainly on the ground. He dashed around the taloned foot and darted beneath the belly to its other side.

The belly didn't tempt him. He needed the throat. He readied himself, haunches bunching, and leaped.

The head darted at him, jaws gaping. Rule twisted in midair so that his side smashed into the teeth rather than being seized by them. The impact stunned him, though, and he fell badly when he dropped. Pain shot up his left front leg when he stood, making him stumble. Those jaws descended on him, the breath rank and hot.

He'd learned how to run on three legs in hell. He did that now, racing beneath the belly, and spun the second he was shielded by the beast's body, darting between the legs to stand in front of it. And once more launched himself up—almost straight up, at its throat.

The man was screaming that this was wrong, he couldn't hang on to that leathery skin long enough to do any damage. But the wolf knew. If he could sink his teeth in that throat—

He struck, mouth gaping, and clamped his jaws shut through hide and flesh, holding on with every ounce of his strength. And hung there, fifteen feet from the ground. The creature snapped at him but couldn't reach him. It flung itself sideways, trying to throw him off. His body slapped to one side, then the other, but he hung on, his teeth meeting in sour flesh. And convulsed.

Huge, wrenching contractions seized him, spasms that pumped acid through his body—acid forced by the spasm up into his throat. He went blind with pain, blackness swarming over his vision, but he hung on as muscles he'd never felt before squeezed tight in his upper throat and jaw, pumping the acid out. Out of him and into the beast.

It howled. Then it, too, convulsed.

The contractions of those enormous muscles were too much for him. He lost his grip and fell, hitting the ground hard. He tried to scramble to his feet, but he was weak, so weak. When he accidentally put weight on the damaged leg, it buckled. Darkness flickered around the edges of his vision.

One of the taloned feet smashed into him, sending him skidding across dirt and grass. The blow knocked out his air. Consciousness wisped to a thin thread… He blinked. The creature was collapsing. The foot that had struck him had saved him from being buried beneath that great body as it crashed down, wings akimbo, head stretched out flat and motionless on the ground.

Eyes open and staring. Dead.

For several moments he just lay there and breathed. He was alive. He hurt everywhere, but he was alive. That seemed so starkly incredible he couldn't take it in. And Lily… Lily was coming to him.

He managed to turn his head so he could see her running awkwardly toward him, her hands still bound behind her. For a second—just a second—he saw two of her. Both Lilys were running to him: the one who'd known him mostly as a man, and the one who'd known him only as a wolf.

A joy so keen it blanked out all the pains of his body filled him. His head went light with it.

Then he simply passed out.

He came to with her kneeling beside him, crying and cursing the handcuffs and ordering him to wake up. He couldn't smile well in this form, but he tried.

"Rule! Damn these handcuffs," she muttered. "I can't touch you, can't check to see what… but you're alive. You'll stay that way," she told him. "Hang on a little longer, and we'll be able to get help. Cynna's back from wherever she was. I guess she was riding, but she's parked the demon now. He's just sitting there, not moving. Cordoba's dead."

How—?

She knew what he meant to ask. "The others got him. Hen-nings or Alex, I don't know which. They'd hidden inside the house, waiting for a chance to help. I think Jiri knew. She steered Cordoba's attention to the field, didn't she? To the cliff we came up and away from the house. She…" Her breath hitched. "She's dying."

He'd thought her already dead.

Alex limped up. Blood covered one side of his body, but Rule's nose told him it wasn't all his. "Three of the Aza are dead," he said. "The other's got a cracked skull, I think, but he might live. The other two demons, the overgrown hyenas, winked out when Cordoba died. I don't know how to tell if they're still around, though. How…" His voice caught. "How in the bloody hell did you kill that thing?"

Rule was in charge. He needed a voice and words for that. Drawing on the last of his power, he called up the Change.

And, seconds later, he lay gasping for breath in the cold night air. Normally cold didn't bother him, but he was too damned weak. He forced himself to sit. His left arm hung limp; the bone was broken just above the elbow. He hurt in places he didn't remember injuring. "Get the keys for the handcuffs," he told Alex. "The Aza who unlocked Cynna's cuffs probably has them. Where's Hennings? Robbins?"