Elara's POV
The storm that broke the next evening was mighty. Rain fell in solid heavy sheets, turning the gutters into raging torrents and streets into rivers.
The wind howled, a wild counterpart to the sirens that began just as Lucian and I left my apartment.
The Hunter's Moon turned to be a very blurred, malevolent eye behind the graceful thick, racing clouds, its pull a tangible, mighty force that made the air itself feel expectant and tense.
We ran. We had no time for farewells, for drafting plans. Lucian's hand was tight around mine, his grip firm, an anchor in the chaos. He dragged me through deserted backstreets and a maze of slick alleys, his movements swift and sure.
Even as the element of his creature raged against us, he was a creature in it. He never let go of me even as I stumbled, my shoes slipping on the wet pavement. His strength was the only thing keeping me upright.
He pulled me into the cavernous, echoing space of an old abandoned warehouse by the roaring river. The sound of the water was such a deafening boom, swallowing the wailing symphony of pursuit.
His breath was ragged, but his body was trembling from something else. An internal struggle...the moon's pull. I could feel it, a vibration coming off him in waves, like a plucked string about to snap.
"They found us," he gasped, leaning against a rusted steel beam for support. "I was careless. I led them right to you. They must have had the apartment staked out." The guilt in his voice cut into my heart deeply.
"Drax! You can't get away with the hiding!"
Marek's voice came through the dark space, vast, bouncing off high ceilings and rusted metals. It was followed by the definitive, chilling click of a gun being cocked.
"Come out now, and the girl doesn't get hurt. This is your last grace." He yelled.
Lucian pushed me behind a towering stack of rotting wooden crates. The smell of damp rust and rot was overwhelming and choking at the same time.
"If they see you by my side, you're dead," he hissed, his eyes wild, the gold flickering in their depths like lightning.
"They'll put a silver bullet through your head just for being close to me. You have to run out the back, follow the river, don't look back. Please, Elara. I want you safe"
"I'm not leaving you all alone," I said, my voice surprisingly steady but a bit crackly as I clutched his arm.
I was terrified, my body shook with it, but the fear was a cold, sharp thing that cleared my head. Leaving him was no option. It never had been.
"We are in this together. You and me."
A gunshot rang out, deafening in the enclosed space. Wood splintered inches from my head, spraying splinters into my hair. They weren't warning shots. They were shooting to kill.
"Now!" Lucian yelled, and we burst out of the back door into the tempest.
The river was a churning, white-frothed beast looking at us, its roar swallowing the sirens. There was nowhere left to run. The warehouse backed directly onto the concrete embankment.
Marek and his men fanned out, surrounding us, obstructing any way of escape. Their silver weapons gleamed with a cold, sickly light in the stormy dark, a metallic promise of death.
Lucian turned facing me, the wildness finally taking its place. His features began to blur at the edges, his form shimmering like a mirage. A low, continuous growl kept coming from his chest, a sound that was both and a confession of his losing battle and a warning.
"You don't understand what happens when I can't control it!" he snarled, his voice distorting. "I won't recognize you! I'll see you as prey! As meat!"
"Then don't lose it Lucian!" I plead, grabbing his face, forcing him to look at me.
I poured out every ounce of my will, my belief, my stupid, human love into my gaze. I tried to pour my very soul into his.
"Hold on to me! Listen to my voice! Lucian, look at me! Look at my face. It's Elara! Hold on!"
He looked at me, his eyes full of a possessive, desperate love and a terrifying, feral hunger. The war within him was visible, a physical struggle that made his muscles twitch and jump.
"You shouldn't love something of my creature." The words were a pained whisper, his last coherent thought.
"Too late," I said, the two words a vow, a declaration of war against his nature, a prayer.
Another shot. A shout from Marek. "Take the shot! Now!"
Lucian's eyes burned with a final, surrendering, brilliant gold as he turned to face the hunters. But it wasn't the man that was standing before them.
The transformation was not the bone-snapping horror of movies; it was calmer, more profound, and infinitely more terrifying. A blurring of reality, a shift in the air, a sigh from the world itself. The line between beast and man dissolved, and in his place stood the wolf.
He was enormous, a creature of shadow and myth, his eyes the same molten gold that had stared back at me in the alley, his fur the color of a starless night.
He was a force of nature made flesh, power incarnate, beautiful and terrible. Yet, when those ancient, intelligent eyes found mine, they held the same tormented man I knew. The man was still in there, watching me from behind the beast's gaze.
The hunters stood still, their bravado wavering in the face of the real thing. Their guns, which had seemed so confident, now looked like toys and useless.
"Lucian," I whispered, my voice steady despite the violent tremor down my soul. I took a step forward, into the space between him and the hunters, my hand outstretched. "It's still you."
I reached out, my palm resting against the warm, coarse fur of his jaw. He stilled at my touch, the growl ceasing abruptly. He lowered his great, powerful head, and pressed his muzzle against my shoulder in a gesture of unbearable pain, trust, and love.
A rough sound escaped him, single, not a growl, but a sob that shook his entire massive frame. I was holding a storm in my hands, and it was weeping.
"I can't stay like this," his voice was a rough, strained echo in my mind, the last vestige of his humanity clinging on by a thread. "The rage… it's too loud. It wants to hunt."
"Then return back to me," I whispered, my tears mixing with the rain on my face. "My voice is louder. My love is louder. Come back to me, Lucian."
And he did. The predatory, fierce glow in his eyes turned soft. The immense, wolfish form seemed to fold in on itself, the air shimmering once more until the man stood before me, bare and broken on the wet stones, shivering harshly from the cold and the effort.
I didn't hesitate. I shrugged off my soaked coat and wrapped it around his shaking shoulders, pulling him close, shielding his naked body from the hunters' stares with my own.
"I saw you," I said, my voice fierce through my tears. I said it for him, and I said it for the men with guns. "All of you. The man and the wolf. And I'm still here. I'm not afraid."
For a moment, as he looked at me, there was a flicker of pure, unadulterated hope in his eyes. A light I had never seen there before. "Then maybe… maybe there's still a way to save us."
But the moment was shattered by the sound of boots on gravel, closing in. The sirens were right behind them. The hunters had seen everything, and there was no explaining this away.