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Fear thrilled through me and danced up and down my spine as I stepped backward and almost staggered over Broderic's bloodied, headless corpse. I shuddered as I watched something move between the thick smoke that had spilled free from the collossal crate. I touched a hand to the tree trunk as my balance rocked with dizziness and panic. The wolf inside me whimpered and dived beneath the shadows, it hid, it fucking hid! This thing, this beast was so old and so powerful that it frightened my inner beast and made it hide. The wolf forgot about honour and being dominant when faced with this thing! That made me pale more than usual as I cowered.

I glimpsed Linus in the distance as he smiled wider at my reaction. The sound of something heavy hitting the ground broke the silence that had stretched between us. I stopped dead and listened hard. I looked into the smoke and tried to see through the smog. It clouded the ground like some kind of dense ocean. I couldn't see a damned thing!

"Do you feel it, Jack? Does your wolf cower at the beast's presence?" Linus taunted as he strode through the smog after me at his casual leisure, "It should, Jack. It should bow its head and plead, beg for the honour of being this beast's next meal! It should want to be devoured!"

"What in God's name is this thing, Linus!" I snapped, trying to push down the fear with anger. It didn't work.

The sound of claws scraping into wood screamed through the quiet. I whirled and glimpsed a slender, pale-green arm disappearing beneath this expanse of smoke.

"They had a name for this beautiful, ancient creature, you know?" Linus continued, "Do you know what it was?"

He walked around the crate and came to stand beside Broderic's corpse. His laughter hissed as he said the word, "Naga."

"N-Naga? What's a Naga?" I stammered back.

In a blur of scales and fangs I was airborne, being lifted at an incredible speed, five, ten, fifteen, I was suspended twenty feet above the ground. I looked up and whimpered as I gazed into the eyes of a beautiful, slender woman. Her eyes were the same yellow-green as Linus', the pupil had become a slender, black slit. Long, black hair spilled around her slender, pale green face. Her upper body and arms were human female, her small, round breasts rose as she breathed slow and steady, her slender arms corded with small muscles, her nails were elongated into slender dark-purple knives.

Her lips were full and kissable, she was beautiful even, but between the fangs and dangerous, murderous intent that haunted her body made me want to be as far away from her as possible. Her stomach and naval were smooth and slender, her upper body had scales dancing across her shoulders and arms, her lower body fed into a great, thick tail that spilled down throughout midair and coiled around beneath us, wound around tree trunks and stretching for a couple dozen feet at least.

She never spoke. She never made any kind of indication that she even had a human mind. All I saw when looking into her snake-eyes were the eyes of a wild, malicious beast, an animal and nothing more.

She opened her fanged, dainty mouth as a high-pitched scream spilled from her. It sent chills up and down my spine, as she reared back, fangs bared and murderous intent hanging off of her like some stale perfume.

I panicked! She was going to devour me and I couldn't move!

"Eliza!" Linus' voice came dominant and commanding. The snake-woman stopped dead. "Do not devour our foolish puppy. He doesn't know his place all that well, yet," he added casually as he strode up beneath me. He buried his hands into his pockets and grinned up at me maliciously.

The Naga named Eliza released me. I plummetted and hit the ground hard, I collapsed to my butt and slumped to one side. I scrambled and tried to get away from Eliza. Linus crouched in the tall grass and blocked my path. I was caught between two hungry-looking serpents and the beast inside me howled with panic.

_ RUN! ESCAPE!_

"Linus, what are you doing with something like that?" I whispered.

"I needed a little extra-muscle so you and yours would understand who is in charge. What more do you need to know?"

"We're entitled to freedom, Linus, not imprisonment!" I hissed back.

Eliza leaned down and snapped her fangs at me, spittle pattered my face as she loomed around me and Linus, her body trailed around us, blocking me off on all sides.

"Eliza doesn't understand the new world all that well, Jack. I'm her guide to the new world. You'd do best not to anger her by upsetting me. I might not be in one-hundred-percent control of her just yet," he grinned down at me.

"Eckhardt! Where did she come from?"

"Your friend Isaiah got me thinking. I've known about ancient werecrocodiles for some time now, but thought nothing of them until Isaiah revealed his little transformation abilities, passed down through the generations. It made me think, what skills did the serpents possess? I hunted them down and discovered rumours of one dwelling in the Russian wastelands."

"That's why you travelled out there?"

"In truth, she found me. She hunted me down and recognised one of her own," Linus smiled up at the hissing Naga.

"What do you want from me, Eckhardt? You have her, so why keep me, and Lian, and Isaiah alive? Why?" I demanded in a low, cautious voice.

"For now, I want obediance, Jack. In time, who knows, maybe we can put that murderous streak inside you to good use."

"I won't be your weapon, I wouldn't be Broderics! Why would I be yours!"

Linus grinned, "Do you remember your sister? Do you remember Lian's child? Miles' brothers?"

Rage bubbled inside me. "Miles is dead."

Linus smiled a little wider, "The fox that nearly killed me is dead and gone? Who did the honours? You?"

"No!" I snarled.

Eliza tensed, but Linus raised a hand to calm her. "Who?" he pressed.

"Broderic...Broderic killed Miles to upset me."

Linus glanced over his shoulder at Broderic's ruined corpse. "It worked wonders," he grinned.

"You think that was good? I killed Zeke too!" I spat at him.

"The Rat King is dead? You are making tremendous amounts of progress today, Jack. I must go on business trips more often," Linus sneered at me. "You will have to be punished though."

I couldn't help but panic at his words. It was pathetic, but true. "What...kind of punishment?" I stammered.

"Well, I don't think you have the stomach to be an Elite yet, and killing you would ruin the plans I have for you. Hmmm, how about Isolation?"

"I-Isolation?"

"Six months should be enough for you and yours to learn your lessons," he grinned as he stood.

I couldn't help but glance at the Naga as it continued to wind its large, long body around me and Linus. Her slender, clawed talons touched tree trunks, digging into the bark, a malicious, wild look in her narrow yellow-green eyes.

"You'll be locked up for six months...the lion and crocodile too."

"Your...insane..." I whimpered. I felt a cold spreading through me all over again.

"I'm glad your finally understanding that," Linus smirked. He tussled my hair and then gripped me by the scalp. He stood and made me stand with him. "Let us go and see what has become of your last remaining friends?" he added.

I should have fought back. I should have retaliated, resisted. I couldn't. I couldn't disobey him. It wasn't my own family being threatened now, it was Lian's daughter and Miles' brothers. I couldn't protect the werefox. I had no right to risk their lives, I owed that much to Miles. He had everyone hanging over a knife's edge. Whether he pulled back the knife or released them and let them drop onto the blade, depended on whether or not I did what Linus wanted.

Tears spilled from my eyes as Linus started walking, his Naga followed at his side like some obediant dog, while I stumbled at his other side, bent over, while Linus maintained his hold on my scalp. I felt bruised and battered, without the wolf or the adrenaline, my body weakened. Linus stopped suddenly and turned me so that I was stood before him. He leaned in close and brushed his lips against mine as my eyes watered with bittersweet hatred of this man.

"I love you."

"I fucking hate you," I growled back.

Linus smirked and started walking again, he dragged me behind him, still by the scalp as we passed through the brush and trees. Eliza followed behind us as we abandoned the woodlands and returned to the Haven Institution's sloped lawns where I had abandoned Isaiah and Lian.

In a matter of minutes we spilled from the woods and hit the lawns. I could Broderic's wolves clustered around two slumped, human forms. I could see the still-breathing, unconscious pale form of Lian's half-naked, human form. Isaiah was on his knees, breathing heavily, exhausted and wounded, but alive. I thanked God that they were both alive. Isaiah watched me, one of his eyes welded shut with dried blood. Deep cuts and gashes decorated both their bodies.

A second later a second cluster of wolves manifested from the building. I couldn't see any other students, no doubt the wolves were keeping them at bay. Held between two of the larger werewolves was the unconscious, muscular form that was Luis. Sophie was nowhere to be seen. Linus glanced at the still-breathing wolf and then launched me absent-mindedly in front of him.

I saw Isaiah and the other wolves stare up at the Naga looming over her master, her guide, Linus had called himself.

Linus called out to the wolves, "Take them all. All four of them. Bind them and seal them in Isolation. Six months. Not a day before, not a day more. Understand?"

"Yessir!" the wolves chorused back to the serpentine headmaster.

Two wolves stepped up to me to help me stand and escort me away.

"Oh, and Jack? Your Initiation is postponed. This doesn't change a damn thing. Enjoy your little respite in Isolation. It'll be Hell when your freed, understand?" Linus grinned maliciously.

I looked Linus in the yellow-green of his serpent eyes and nodded.

Linus had me trapped, what more could I do at this moment in time? I glimpsed Lian's unconscious form, broken and bruised. I looked in Isaiah's half-conscious eye and saw true sadness, true defeat. Miles was dead because of me. I realised that this was as bad as things could get. In a little under a week Linus had turned my world upside down and brought me into what I knew now was a living, breathing Hell.

The only solice that flickered inside me, like a dying flame, was the thought, the desire to someday break these chains and kill Linus, to break free from the hold of the Benefactors, to somehow rescue all those whose lives were being threatened because of me. Huddled around that dying flame, coaxing it to breathe and live on was my inner wolf. He may have been panicked and cowered before the Naga, but he needed, he hungered for freedom.

Wolves were not creatures or pets of imprisonment. They were free, sometimes as part of a pack, sometimes as loners. Either way they lived and breathed freedom and the happiness that that brought. I would not be ensnared by the weresnake forever. I would see him dead and see all those I cared about free and happy. I vowed it and the wolf looked up and acknowledged me for that vow.

Time would tell, I suppose.