Rivals and Retribution by Shannon Delany

Marlaena. “Huh. That felt pretty good, getting that out. It’s like therapy in the wilderness,” he said through a grin. “Some people pay a helluva lotta money for that, I guess.”
    Marlaena was unimpressed.
    Max’s grin snapped shut and his brow lowered, his forehead heavy and shadowing his eyes. The boy was designed for drama. And he was exactly what Amy needed. “Maybe that could be your career path—kidnapping girls and getting their boyfriends’ family to fess up.” He clapped his hands together in front of him and cocked his head. “Of course it won’t be much of a career if you die here today.”
    Marlaena’s boots scraped in the gravel and snow as she widened her stance, adopting a fighter’s pose. But she clapped, slowly and loudly, at the spectacle before her. “Now, Jessica, tell Pietr the rest,” she urged. “Tell him what breaks the cure.”
    Silent, I continued working the ropes.
    “Tell him,” she demanded, nudging my hip with her boot. A few pebbles fell off the edge of the mountain and tumbled down into the ravine. She froze, seeing the same thing.
    My throat tightened, watching the stones fall and bounce their way to the bottom. How would what I said or did at this moment really matter?
    I could tell him the truth, warn him about the unreliable burst of adrenaline it took for the wolf to jump back out of his skin and take over once more. I could agree there was no cure that was permanent at this point and there was no way to know when a werewolf’s life would end.
    Chances were good that Pietr wouldn’t die immediately after changing back.
    Chances were good he would still have years before his werewolf nature drove him to an early grave.
    And chances were also good that no matter what I did or said, Marlaena was going to shove me down the mountainside.
    But chances were still only chances.
    “It’s a burst of energy,” I said. “It’s a dumping of so much adrenaline into your system—so much fear or passion or angst or pain—that it pushes you past your limits. Your body breaks through the mask of the cure.”
    “Thank you, Ms. Science. Now. Shall we have a demonstration?” Marlaena asked, leaning over my shoulder and gently rocking my entire body so that more pebbles and a small puff of crystallized snow fell free and disappeared into the gap in the mountain’s teeth.
    “Nyet!” Pietr shouted, sprinting as he pushed his body. “Marlaena—tell me what you want—I’ll do it— Anything! ” The knot was finally coming loose under the pressure of my prodding fingers, the coarse strands of it biting into my skin. But it was working. In a minute I’d be free.…
    They were still yelling at each other, and then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gareth.
    “Don’t” was all he said to Marlaena. Just one simple and soft word as he reached out a hand for her—or for me. I had no idea which of us he was trying to save at that moment or if he wanted to somehow save us both.…
    The way she looked at him … something in my heart faltered seeing that expression—even on her face.
    “You don’t understand,” she whispered. “You never do. You never will.”
    Pietr was nearly to me, the look of terror plain across his face as he realized he was too slow.…
    Wolf again, Max raced in ground-swallowing strides, overtaking Pietr.…
    The crack of a gunshot reverberated across the mountaintop and Max rolled, his head tucked, tail like a flag suddenly loose in the wind.
    I screamed for them both.
    Max tumbled into the trees, leaving nothing but an awkward and bloodstained path in the snow and an explosion of white when he landed with a thud against a tree trunk.
    Leaning suspended from a harness high in a tree across the clearing was Dmitri, the barrel of his gun still smoking.
    “Help me understand,” Gareth urged Marlaena, approaching slowly and steadily.
    “I don’t even understand.…” And then her hand took a rough grip on me, squeezing my shoulder so tightly I