Disclaimer: This bonus scene appears at the end of Myth Hunter (Book 1 of the Mythical Menagerie series) and contains some slight spoilers for the events of that book. If you haven’t read it yet, you may want to do so first.
The werewolf lifted his head as a new scent drifted through the stench that permeated the cells beneath the Colosseum. A man stood in the corridor, lithe and sandy-haired. Someone new. Someone the werewolf hadn’t smelled before.
Another one of Mazzoni’s men?
Or perhaps a buyer.
A growl rose in the werewolf’s throat. He would not be taken or sold off to the highest bidder. Cage fighting? Only on his own terms. This man wouldn’t line his pockets with the werewolf’s sweat.
Already the full moon’s energy swirled through his veins. The werewolf was always formidable, but on a night like this, he was unstoppable. If this man was fool enough to open his cage, he’d pay for it in blood.
The man took a step back, shying away from the harlots’ cell. The glint of something shiny dangling from around his neck caught the light.
The werewolf snarled.
The memory of pain flashed through his mind – the sting of silver and the reek of singed fur forever seared into his mind. Worse than the water dunking he’d survived in Iraq. Or the shrapnel they’d torn out of his skin, long before he’d been cursed with fur.
The man turned around and went rigid. For a heartbeat, their eyes met. The man swallowed as the werewolf bared his teeth.
Good. Let him be afraid.
Another smell pricked the werewolf’s nose. Earthy, like a morning’s run through the forest.
This smell he knew.
The two-tailed fox strolled up behind the man, its tongue lolling out in a grin as the man startled at its words. The werewolf didn’t listen to their conversation. Whatever game the fox was playing didn’t concern him.
All he wanted was out of this cell.
And revenge.
Mazzoni would pay. And he would rue the night the werewolf came for him.
***
The werewolf paced its cell, glancing up at the ceiling.
The noise of a roaring crowd filtered in from above through the air shafts. Grit and dust, knocked loose from the ancient arched ceiling, settled over the werewolf’s fur. The big white elephant – the impossible one with five heads – was up in the arena, hopefully trampling those rich buggers who had more cash than conscience.
A familiar scent hit his nostrils. A small white songbird fluttered into the room.
The werewolf wasn’t fooled. It was the wily fox again.
The bird shimmered into a man’s shape.
The werewolf’s hackles rose. The fox had chosen the shape of one of Mazzoni’s henchmen. The one with the cattle prod. Saliva filled his maw as he watched the masquerading fox open the locks on the other cells, one by one, setting the other creatures free.
The chimaera was the first to bound out of its cage. The lion shook its mane, its claws scraping across the dirt floor. Next came enormous serpents, slithering past the werewolf’s cage with a sibilant rasp. The horned antelope, the white bird, the harlots with renewed anger in their eyes.
Finally, the fox stepped in front of the werewolf’s cage. The lock clicked open of its own accord, and the gate swung open with a creak.
“Go,” the fox said. “Put an end to this.”
The werewolf lifted his jaw and howled, the echo reverberating through the ancient structure.
***
The power of the full moon coursed through his veins as the werewolf tore through the arena, the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth. A path of mutilated bodies trailed behind him, but he only had one thought driving him on.
Find Mazzoni. Kill Mazzoni.
He sniffed the air. There! The scent he was looking for, mingled with that of the man he’d seen earlier, leading past the great stone arches and outside the arena.
The werewolf bounded along the trail and screeched to a halt in a patch of shadows. A snarl curled his lips, and a growl built in his chest. Mazzoni stood underneath Constantine’s Arch, gripping a small cage, a sneer on his smug face as he confronted the sandy-haired man.
His jaws ached to close around Mazzoni’s throat. Nothing would satisfy him more than ripping his tormentor apart.
He bunched his leg muscles, ready to leap at the man who had made his life a living hell for months now – and then hesitated as another smell reached his nostrils.
A smell that sent a shiver down his spine.
The ground rumbled beneath his feet. Something large was moving towards the Arch – and towards Mazzoni.
Then the earth shook – and the manhole cover underneath the Arch flew into the air. A creature erupted from the bowels of the earth – long and sinuous with needle-sharp teeth that glinted in the moonlight.
Mazzoni shrieked and dropped the cage.
And then he was gone. Engulfed in the monster’s enormous maw. Dead in the blink of an eye.
The werewolf stilled.
Mazzoni was gone.
He would never have his revenge.
His gaze swept from the monstrous serpent towards the sandy-haired man standing before it, unflinching. Unafraid. As if he had summoned the creature to do his bidding.
To thwart the werewolf’s right to Mazzoni’s blood.
Something like simmering fire settled in the werewolf’s chest as he watched the man turn and stride back to the Colosseum, his arm pressed to his chest as if he were cradling something underneath his jacket.
He could kill him now.
He sniffed the air. The scent of horse and human wafted from the arena.
Too many hostiles. He couldn’t risk being captured again.
But the man – he’d seen the werewolf. He knew about him. He might come looking for him, put him back in a cage again.
The werewolf couldn’t let that happen.
He snarled as pain rippled through his body. Bones shifted, sinew twisted, fur receded.
When the pain had subsided, the man crouched in the shadows, his gaze fixed on the arena.
He had the sandy-haired man’s scent now.
He would find him first, before the hunter could come looking for him.
And he would have his revenge.
