Cullen tackled the were-bear-lion that was Rafe and the pair toppled over leaving Aislinn cowering on the ground, watching the fight. Her head was spinning and she couldn’t quite make out what was happening yet. She felt as though she was trapped in one of Rafe’s nightmares. Cullen was greatly outmatched in strength. But Rafe had never been in a hand to hand fight, was slower than the lycan, and was new to his form. The two men grappled and rolled. Cullen weaved, avoiding Rafe’s gigantic paws and swiped at him in return. Cullen was tearing chunk after chunk of flesh from Rafe’s hide. Rafe tilted his head like a bear and roared a lion’s rage at Cullen, drool dripping from his jowls and Cullen growled back.
Kara watched the insanity break out around her. When Jenna called the Tairneach it was clear that the bitch had been planning this. Kara charged Jenna, intent on destroying the woman. Jenna watched unimpressed as Kara charged her. Just before Kara reached Jenna a large lycan appeared out of nowhere, taking her in the side and pinning her down. Kara grappled with the lycan roaring her rage at the loss of her target. Jenna disappeared into the fray.
Brinah worked her way around the circle of stones. As she managed to spill blood into the fourth reagent mixture on the ground Rafe started to falter. At first he wasn’t sure what was happening. Something didn’t feel right. Cullen charged him again, taking him to the ground. The were wolf-bear wrapped his arms around the lycan and tried to crush him. Cullen growled in pain as Rafe nearly broke his back. Brinah was feeling light headed as she reached the sixth stone. She pushed herself to complete her task. She sliced open her other hand and spilled blood onto the ground in the mixture that was still seeping into the ground. Rafe suddenly dropped Cullen. He stood disoriented and looked around with a fog over his eyes. When he saw Brinah he roared in anger and charged toward her.
Brinah ducked behind the seventh stone as Rafe ran at her. In his rage Rafe ran into the stone. The stone wobbled on its base and began to fall over. Brinah scrambled out of the way just as Cullen hit Rafe in the back and knocked him over the stone rolling into the clearing beyond the stones. Brinah watch in dismay as the pair rolled out of the circle and toward the woods. She was feeling the effects of the blood loss and she wasn’t sure that contaminating the rest of the stones would affect Rafe’s transformation if he wasn’t inside the circle.
Aislinn was watching the battle rage around her as if she wasn’t really there. She felt as though she was in one of her dreams and was staring down at everything. Her body burned as though she was on fire and her head swam. When she moved the world spun. Somewhere in her mind she registered that her grandmother was standing nearby. She watched her pick up a broken piece of glass and slice into her wrist. Aislinn cried out but it came out more like the screeching growl of a jungle cat. She ran to her grandmother with a drunken step.
Brinah was near passing out. When Aislinn reached her she thought she was being attacked at first. Brinah fell back onto the ground as Aislinn butted her head against her grandmother in lieu of arms to hug her with. Aislinn wasn’t sure what to do. She tried to calm down and force herself to become human again. She never realized how much it would hurt. Aislinn felt like she had been in pain forever. Her body twisted and contorted. She shifted a little and then the fear of the pain seemed to cause her to shift back a little. Aislinn looked around at all the others. There had to be a way to do this. She concentrated on being herself again. She needed to help her grandmother. Her body began it’s awkward shift once more. It was no where near as smooth and graceful as the others all made it look. Aislinn didn’t manage to get all the way back to human. She ended up in her hybrid form as she stabilized. The pain was more than she was able to deal with though and she lay on the ground looking up at her grandmother with pleading amber eyes.
When Brinah realized that the animal in front of her was Aislinn she grabbed her granddaughter up into her arms. It was all she could do to remain calm. Seeing all the cuts and bruises on Aislinn’s body, Brinah pulled the bag she was carrying open. Her hands were shaking and her head was spinning but she managed to find the small bottle she was looking for. She pulled the cork out of the top of the bottle and poured the solution into Aislinn’s mouth and then sat back against the fallen stone.
Rafe was still holding his own despite the fuzzing of his senses. But he didn’t think it could last much longer. He managed to get a hard swipe in and knocked Cullen back several feet. Cullen was starting to tire and was fighting the pain of several broken bones from being repeated hit by the were-bear-lion. He rolled to a stop dazed momentarily. Rafe headed back to the stone circle intent on killing Brinah before she could cause any further damage. But Brinah saw him coming and crawled for the ninth stone.
Aislinn felt a cooling sensation through her body and suddenly her senses cleared. She realized that she hadn’t quite managed to shift all the way to her human form. She sat on her knees staring down at herself in her hybrid form. Most of her fur was gone from her stomach, but there was still quite a bit across the backs of her arms and over her legs. She has spots that bled into her hairline, down her neck and collarbone and turned into stripes that flowed down her back and trailed off, becoming spots again across her hips and down her thighs. Her hands were still claws and she could feel fangs in her mouth. But she realized with a measure of gratitude that she had no tail in this form. When she saw Rafe charging in her directions she assumed that he was after her until she followed his gaze beyond her to where Brinah was sitting near the next stone.
Rafe singled in on Brinah as she added her blood to the base of the ninth stone. Aislinn lunged at Rafe just in time to throw him off balance enough to miss Brinah as she crawled away and lay down just beyond the circle amidst the melee. Rafe grabbed hold of her, growling his rage as they rolled into the center of the circle and came to a stop with Aislinn beneath him, pinned to the stone slab. He growled into her face as she struggled to push him off of her. “Rach-air-muin,” Aislinn spat at him. Rafe grinned and leaned down. His tongue snaked out of his mouth and he licked Aislinn’s chin and up to her lips trying to force his way in between.
Brinah passed out as she lay watching her blood seeping into the damp ground at the base of the ninth stone. Rafe felt the first of the pain shooting through his arms and legs as Cullen plowed into his side for the last time. As the men grappled Rafe roared in pain. For all his strength he wasn’t able to combat the twisting of his body as well as Cullen Arnauk at the same time.