A Wolf's Heart: Love & Vengeance

“I want to hide the truth,

I want to shelter you,

but with the beast inside,

there’s nowhere we can hide,

no matter what we breed,

we still are made of greed,

this is my kingdom come,

this is my kingdom come.”

–Imagine Dragons

Debris from concrete walls, crumbling drywall, and splintered oak columns in flames rained down from the earth-shaking two blasts five seconds apart. Zev Xalvadora’s keen ears rang from the points of impact he and so many others had been caught in without warning. His mind wished to protest, but he knew better. He had survived one explosion before… barely, so many years ago. He had been near death then as he was at present.

“Zev! Zev! Zev!” came the muffled shouts between the piercing, ear-splitting whine bouncing around his already aching head.

Some chunky body, female markers of baby powder and jasmine by the scent, leaned over his prostrated body and flipped him over with two strong hands by the shoulder in a grunt. Zev stiffened in the swing of a mangled left arm and leg, twisted at unwieldy, complex angles. Bones snapped like twigs in their hateful penetration through his tanned skin. White hot pain forced his eyes open at the insistent hand shaking his bruised chest.

In alarm, Zev groaned and blinked with doubled vision of the soot weighty in the air. He sucked the same nasty stuff into his lungs, coating them just as black as his surroundings. Phlegmy coughs issued from his chest, burning his runny nose and throat.

Fuck, that hurts. It all fucking hurts.

The teeth of agony skittered and sank viciously into Zev when he tried to move. He froze in the arresting power of the latest injury that exceeded every other. Over his right side, just under his ribcage, was where it originated, making him bear his fangs and his inner beast snivel. A shattered two-by-four jutted out of him. Warm blood gushed down his stomach as Zev breathed heavily, the silica dusting his face and billowing smoke that thickened above from the roar of a spreading fire.

Zev stiffened, immobile, as his brain and body warred at odds with the commands he sent.

Heal.

No… move, goddamn it!

Shift. Heal or bleed out and die.

Move or suffocate and die!

Gotta get out! Now!

Every limb, stretch of skin, and nerve launched stab after stab of tiny razors assaulting him. His head, though, was the worst. It swam in currents of pain, biting and rendering him a whimpering dog instead of the infamous beast he was known to be: the Bloody Butcher of Hanover Bay.

I’m fucked.

Bawls of agony and moans of confusion filtered to him. Just a few minutes ago, Zev and the wolves of Shadow Moon Clan enjoyed a peaceful evening of competitive banter over their friendly gathering of poker without the high stakes of coin. They paid their losses in actual roasted peanuts and, for reward, coveted bragging rights until their next tournament. The weekly activity was for the sake of companionship that accompanied being wolves while trying to survive under the claw of other clans vying for territory and power.

“Zev! I’ve got you.” The she-wolf who shook him stopped and administered a vial of putrid liquid to his slack open mouth.

He coughed at the taste of cold alchemical magics at work, accelerating his already natural werewolf healing abilities. His arm and leg righted themselves with a snap in the correct direction while repairing the break and fractures in multiple areas. Zev grimaced as his body rejected the foreign object lodged deep through his side and began restoring his internal organs to their original state.

“Zev! We gotta go, buddy! We’ve gotta—” the older female over him, a good friend from the old days when he was just a young pup surviving on the mean streets of Hanover Bay, cut off anything more, she would say. Her skull burst like a honeydew melon. All the contents bespattered Zev with brain matter and bone shards at the slug tearing through her steady head. The rest of her chunky body collapsed on him, twitching from the disconnected signals of a nonexistent cranium. It oozed warm, copious amounts of her blood from the remaining neck stub, soaking him.

Sniped, she had been, in the silent, merely imperceptible kill. Cool and efficient. Fifty caliber rounds to deliver such a devastating punch to one of the fiercest werewolf enforcers Zev had ever known. The one who taught him the same skill while also aiding him in trusting again because Edy and her clan cared for him when no one else would.

Definitely fucked.

Seconds later, as his body still restitched itself, Zev saw the red lines of laser scopes bouncing in the gloom of the hole in the wall he could almost make out with his preternatural sight. He also noted the headgear of their night vision or heat detection goggles. Dammit, they weren’t playing nice. The bastards came prepared, knowing well what they were up against, even with their element of surprise.

Zev’s vision sharpened singularly as his glowing amber eyes narrowed and his fangs gnashed. He smelled them first. Six, perhaps seven, assailants advanced fast—not wolves this time, but humans.

What the fuck?! How the hell did the sneaky bastards mask their scents?

The flash of muzzles went off on their semi-automatic weapons. All shots aimed at the downed wolves disseminated around what was left of the rec room of the Shadow Moon Clan Packhouse Zev called home since losing his original pack as a child. Double taps echoed throughout the space. Zev would need to move soon, or he would be snuffed out. The problem reigned in him not fully being healed yet. The arm and leg wounds still held painful fractures, but the gut wound was severe. Regardless, he no longer dealt with a gaping hole through him. Wounded or not, Zev would not die like a dog today.

Oh, hell, NO.

The human swung his weapon Zev’s way in slow-mo. The controlled shift occurred in an eyeblink of shredding his shirt down the middle of his back and over his enlarged arms and torso. The pain of such rapid growth in the first-level transformation was ignored, where he mostly retained the appearance of a human male. Zev welcomed the sharp ache distressing him in the rage that bled over him, stained by the viscera of his friend Edy plopping off him to the floor.

The enhanced agility steadied the beast man on his feet that busted out of his sneakers as the human black ops agent sought to pull the trigger of his long-barreled weapon. One elongated claw slashed up the operative’s groin to his ribcage, rending his midsection and allowing his intestines to ooze out to the floor in his screaming disbelief. The human who stood nearest to him reacted faster to shoot, but Zev was no longer there. The beast-man jumped in a run off the wall and somersaulted behind the second target. Deadly claws carved through the air again, swiping the enemy off his feet below the knees. The human blubbered where his two calves and feet stood severed from the rest of his body. The assailant fired his submachine gun up in the air, shrieking in horror on his back just as the wolf finished his enemy by piercing through his chest to the heart with his claws. Zev dove to the next human behind him, landing hard on his chest, pinning him to the floor, and tore his throat out in a snarl.

In their fright, the other humans shouted as they fired their guns in uncontrolled bursts, causing friendly fire for a couple in a headshot and a shot to the throat, respectively. They were the lucky ones. The flames burning hotter than ever compromised the ceiling. It caved in on those assailants who still breathed, crushing them to death under the wreckage. Zev dashed and leaped along the walls and over the humans who dared stand against him to escape through the hole made by the explosion in the nick of time, hearing the ceiling about to give way.

Outside, on the overcast night, the beast-man rolled to his feet to find a dozen more humans in assault gear. The black ops team patiently waited for him as the second wave. “Fire! Fire!”

They didn’t hesitate in discharging a volley of ammo where Zev landed, startled as a spotlight shined on him. He roared with the feral wrath of his heart as he made the complete shift into a werewolf twice the size of the man he was at six feet two inches tall and weighing around 250 pounds. Human legs and arms had been shed like snake’s skin, and emerging from that skin was the shake of bushy, mahogany fur, a long snout full of sharp teeth, and paws and hind quarters of a giant wolf the size of a Mini Cooper. Zev knew he had little choice. His inner beast clamored for more blood, and Zev would not deny him.

What remained of his shirt and pants fell in tatters at his paws. In his weakened state because of the injuries sustained thus far, he would not be able to last long in that final but most powerful form, yet there was no other means to survive. Zev dashed in vaults and sprinted on all fours to the waiting wood several meters away, tagged more than once as he protected his head in ducking the worst of the silver rounds. He ground his teeth at the smaller caliber weapons, drilling his legs and back. The sniper he avoided at all costs and nearly lost his head by centimeters to the evergreen snapped in half the second he reached the shield of the forest.

“Get the fucker! Don’t let him escape!” the humans shouted as they hunted Zev with precision.

They were relentless, having been prepared and determined he would die that night. Zev bounded up and down trees as he ripped out throats by fang and claw in his bloodlust, allowing none to stand in his path to freedom. Fight or flight mode had been engaged. Far too many of the elite soldiers had been dispatched, and he could not elude them all. Zev slew them with cold efficiency until none barred him.

In his human visage, Zev limped naked by the edge of the forest, riddled with silver bullet wound holes that would not heal. Peering at the horizon of crimson and pink skies, he subsisted, as he always seemed to do, in the wake of loss that crippled his resolve. One step at a time, Zev breathed laboriously, his body wrecked from the harm inflicted on it and by it during the night. He pushed onward, driven by a deep-seated and persistent hate.

Hate that he outlasted his welcome.

Hate that he outlived so many who did not.

Hate that kindled the fire of vengeance anew.

I’ll have satisfaction for all I’ve lost or die trying.