He would take no pleasure from this killing, not as he had taken from the others. He was merely better equipped to deal with the problem than Dara was. It cost him nothing to take the she-wolf’s life, he would lose no sleep over the mercy kill, though his fellow Vârcolac would.
A shrill scream from behind them blasted the air, and then a ringing blow hit the back of Agony’s head. It took a faction of a second for him to realise that he’d just been hit with a piece of wood, and then his anger sparked that someone would dare do this and he spun around to find himself face to face with the human girl who was clutching at her arms as if they hurt.
Seriously? A pathetic human girl thought she could strike him and live to tell the tale? He would make her writhe in agony… he would detach her limbs with surgical precision and cauterise her wounds so she remained alive as long as possible. She would regret ever hitting him with a baseball bat by the time he was finished with her.
A memory tugged at the back of his mind, something so nebulous he couldn’t grasp what it was. He pushed it aside as inconsequential, taloned hands reaching for the girl.
“Kothi, no!” Dara screamed, throwing her arms around him and barrelling him to the ground.
He roared in fury, head-butting Dara to disorientate her enough to break free. He didn’t want to mortally wound his pack mate, but he would do what was necessary to reach his target.
“Kothari!” Dara groaned, rising as quickly as she could, as Agony reached once more for the girl. “Kothari… remember! Please… remember! I need you!”
Dara did the only thing she could think of, she shifted to wolf form and ran between the girl and the Vârcolac. “Remember, Kothari… remember that day in the forest.” She pressed her large wolf’s body against his legs, using the touch of her wolf to try to reach him.
“Dara… Dara,” Kothari chanted deep within his mind, savouring the feel and sound of her name. He could smell her scent; feel the softness of her fur brushing against his legs. She was here, his beautiful angel, the very reason for his sanity and he wanted to be with her, wanted to talk with her.
“No! ” Agony hissed inside their mind, pushing down the boy as he tried to rise. “This is my time, not yours. You had your chance and you let out parents be kidnapped. Get out of my way, Kothari, before I remove your very existence forever. Do not test me on this, boy. You know I have that power!”
“Kothi, remember… you have to remember…” Dara’s words echoed in counterbalance to Agony’s, stressing the word remember as if it had some special connotation. What did he need to remember? What was so important that Dara repeated the word? He cast his mind back to that day in the forest… that day when he had placed his hands on his angel… when she had shifted to wolf form to reach him and he had…
“NO!” Agony screamed, his talons swiping wildly, catching Dara in the neck in his fury. She howled and shifted back to human form, wrapping a hand around the wound to try to stem the blood flow.
“You lose, Agony… you lose,” Kothari whispered, and then he did what he hadn’t done since that day. The air shimmered around him, and he called forth the being that his monster hadn’t paid any attention to, the one he hadn’t locked down as securely as he had his human side.
Kothari shifted into animal form, the beautiful black panther sailing over the head of the human girl to land behind her before spinning around to face his friend on the forest floor.
She was bleeding! He had hurt her! The panther stared at his angel in misery, self-loathing flooding through him. He had hurt her… he had… another had laid hands on her. The odd thought that crept into his mind confused him and he shook his head to clear his thoughts. That didn’t make sense, no one had touched Dara apart from himself, and yet, a memory was fighting to be heard, and he was afraid of what that memory might do to him.
“Dara… I’m so sorry. Please… forgive me.”
“Kothi? You’re back? He’s gone?” Dara was pulling herself back to her feet, moving to place herself between the panther and the girl, clearly unsure of just who was in control. She deliberately spoke out aloud, to help the others know what was happening, but also because she didn’t want to be inside Agony’s head should he return.
As she saw the reason within his eyes, her posture relaxed and she knelt before the animal. “Everything is okay, Kothi. I’m fine. Look, I’m completely healed. Kallum would kick my ass for allowing myself to be caught off guard so easily anyway. So, I won’t tell if you don’t?”
Dara was safe, the words kept resounding in Kothari’s mind, his relief rising as they slowly sank in. Agony was also gone for now, but he didn’t know how long that would last, or if he had the strength to keep him at bay. What had he done? What had he allowed to happen by his weakness, his pathological need for his parents to be safe and well? The human girl had her arms wrapped around the she-wolf, calling to her mother… to the woman he had been a hairsbreadth away from terminating.
The strange memory returned in a flash of pain, the coven leader striking the girl as she fought to protect her mother. Rage… fury so deep it burned his soul blossomed in the pit of his stomach and he hissed out that rage, his eyes whirling dangerously. He had laid hands on her! He had hurt the girl… this strange, brave human girl who fought for those she loved. The coven leader had laid hands on the girl and Agony had lost all reason from that point onwards.
No! Oh, dear God, no! He had almost killed her mother. He had almost killed her in his madness. If Dara hadn’t intervened…
“Kothari… Kothi!” Dara cried out as he hissed again and spun away.
“Protect her, please protect her, Dara. Do what I cannot do. Guard my heart for me.”
Kothari took off into the trees, running as fast and as far as he could from the human girl cradling her mother’s anguished form. He had almost killed her and he didn’t deserve to be anywhere near her. He truly was a monster, the very worst kind of monster in the world, because only a true monster would have come so treacherously close to murdering the one woman put on this planet for him. He had almost killed his mate… he had almost killed his mate.