Tempest (BWP100.00)
A captivating read by Mpho LM Mangole
$8.75$7.00
Tempest, a shifter, had the odds stacked against her when her family was torn apart by unknown assailants. For decades, she thought her family had been killed, but when she discovered the truth, she realised that there was so much more to their disappearance than she had ever imagined.
A war was coming, and she had no choice but to fight against forces that she had never thought she would ever come across. But with new friends and alliances, maybe there was hope that they would have a fighting chance.
The supernatural world was heading for a major face-off, and she would be caught in the middle of it.
The only question was, what lengths would she go to make sure she got her family back and got rid of a threat that could end the world as she knew it?
1963
She was running.
The heat around her singed her skin like the tongues of fire demons, leaving trails of pain on every exposed part of her body. The acrid smell of burning flesh assaulted her nostrils, inflaming the tender skin and making her feel as though acid had been poured into the two openings. Her eyes teared up, and she blinked furiously to clear them, the smoke seeming to permeate every pore of her body. As she ran, screams resounded all around her, stabbing her ears and her heart, making her chest hurt as though multiple arrows had pierced her there, leaving their sharp ends embedded in her flesh like barbed wire on sensitive skin, never to be removed.
She wanted to stop and help those whose cries pierced the gloomy darkness that was lit only by the moon and the fires that had been lit by their pursuers, but she could not. Bodies fell around her, either being impaled or skewered by silver spears, silver arrows or silver bullets. Cries for help reached her from all sides, the heart-wrenching wails being implanted in her memories like a blazing brand into soft flesh, leaving it raw, painful and permanently etched.
She knew, however, that if she stopped, even for a moment, she would easily succumb to the weapons that flew around her and would undoubtedly become one of the pitiful victims that fell. As she sped past the severed limbs, the unmoving bodies, the unseeing eyes, she felt the sob rising in her throat, making it difficult for her to breathe. Every breath that she sucked into her lungs was torturous, the thick smoke making her cough at unexpected intervals, forcing her to fight for each breath.
It was a dark night, the moon halfway through its cycle, not offering enough light for normal eyes to see well in the darkness, but with her heightened senses, she could see everything, hear everything, smell everything. She looked around and saw the carnage that surrounded her, the decimation that was witnessed by the single silver orb that was in the cloudy, dark sky. The twinkling stars seemed to look down in disapproval, but if there was a celestial being looking down on them, it had no plan to intervene that night.
So she ran.
She ran so fast that people around her seemed to be moving in slow motion.
Then, her heart overrode her brain as she saw a mother who was being attacked by a werewolf. The massive beast was fully transformed, easily standing more than a metre and a half at the shoulders. His black fur was darker than the deepest level of hell, his glowing eyes causing the woman before him to cower over her son, seeking to protect him with her own life. Her small form was akin to that of a little hamster hiding from a ferocious lion, one intent on tearing her apart. The razor-sharp teeth of his large wolfen head raced towards the woman’s throat, clearly intent on ripping it out. The muscles rippled beneath his fur as he pushed forward, his hind legs coiling, ready to spring forward. The boy was screaming, his small body curled into a tight ball as his mother covered his body with hers, his shrill cries yanking viciously at every fibre in her being to help them.
She stopped running.
With a vicious growl that started in her chest and escaped her mouth, she raced over to him and jumped onto his back, twisting his head and breaking his neck efficiently, the way she had been taught by her father. She quickly jumped off him before he fell to the ground and rushed over to help the young lady and her child up off the ground. Blood oozed from various wounds on their bodies, and despite having saved them, she wondered if they would survive this attack. She could not see her parents nor any of the warriors assigned to protect her. All around her, werewolves who were either fully or partially transformed and men in black outfits attacked her people. They carried weapons she had never seen before, and the fear within her was so palpable that it felt like it was sinking into every part of her.
She needed to save herself, though, because no one else was going to be there for her.
Not now.
Possibly not ever again.
“Run, Tempest!” her mother screamed at her through their mind-link. It wasn’t the words themselves that made her heart beat a more intense staccato of fear in her chest, it was the way they were said. In all her years, she had never heard her mother speak loudly, never mind scream.
Her head whipped around as she searched for the source of the voice. “No matter what you hear or see, don’t stop running until you are out of danger. Don’t look back. Don’t ever look back.”