by May Dawson
He crested the ridge to look, then turned and snarled a warning to us from the top of the ridge. Danger. Then he charged down the other side of the ridge, disappearing from view.
The three of us sprinted after him.
When I crested the ridge, the other shifters were charging up toward us. They must have realized we’d slipped out of their ambush.
The ground fell away under my feet as I galloped toward them. A dozen of them, snarling viciously, ran up toward us.
We had the high ground, and that would help, but there were so many of them. Three to one. Fear tightened my chest, but I would never turn and run when Lex and Jensen ran alongside me, depending on me.
Rafe met them first. He was a flash of furious teeth and claws as he threw himself at one enemy and then another. Blood flew, splattering white fur. He was at the center of the action as wolves threw themselves around him.
I slammed into one of those wolves, knocking it away from Rafe.
This other wolf was bigger than me, older, full-grown; I was quick, but he was thick with muscle. If he pinned me, I was done for. I darted around him, snapping and snarling, trying to find an entry point to his throat or his soft underbelly.
Someone slammed into me from behind. I rolled over and over, my concentration broken. The world was a blur. When I came to a stop, the second wolf that had attacked me lunged at my throat.
I launched myself up, snapping my jaws into his throat. The two of us locked onto each other as his teeth sank into my throat. He shook his head back and forth, drawing blood. I wrenched down harder, clamping frantically into his throat, then tore.
He let out a strangled sound as I ripped away the flesh at his throat. He released my throat in his desperation to get away.
I scrambled to my feet, the sweet iron tang of his blood in my mouth. He lowered his head to cover his neck, which dripped blood steadily across the dead leaves scattering the ground, and snarled.
His lips curled back from his bloody teeth. That was my blood. He wasn’t done with me.
He and his friend, the first wolf who had attacked me, prowled around me in a circle. I focused on the first shifter, keeping an eye on the wounded wolf out of my peripheral vision.
All around us, the battle raged. None of us could help each other; we were fighting three-to-one.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jensen’s golden-eyed wolf pin another wolf and tear his throat out, only to have a second wolf jump on top of him. The two of them struggled for supremacy on top of the corpse.
Beyond them, Rafe and Lex had closed up together, watching each other’s backs as they fought a whirlwind; the rest of the shifters were focused on them.
I had to kill these guys and help my friends. Instead of waiting for them to attack first, I bounded toward the hurt wolf. He was already weak. I’d to finish him before his friend attacked me from behind.
He was so surprised I attacked that he was slow to respond. By the time he lunged forward to meet me, my jaws were already snapping closed on him. He slammed into me, trying to use his superior weight to throw me off balance. My teeth glanced off his hard skull as he lowered his head, so my jaws snapped shut on his face instead of the side of his throat.
My teeth slammed painfully into the hard bone, but one sank into something soft. His eye. He let out a bark of pain as I latched tight. My momentum meeting his bulk caused me to roll over his back, but I clung to him.
His friend jumped to pin me, but I was already over draped the hurt shifter’s shoulder. The three of us slammed into the ground, hard enough to jar my bones painfully, and I forced myself to bite down harder no matter how it made my teeth ache.
With their weight on top of me, I could barely breathe. But the hurt shifter’s body was protecting me, covering me, while I wrenched away at his face. The second wolf shifted, trying to find a good angle of attack.
The hurt wolf made a high pitched keening of agony. Blood flowed steadily from his damaged eye and it splattered across us both. Done. He wasn’t coming after me again. I released him, my teeth sticking for a second before I managed to pull away from him. I tried to wiggle free, but I was still trapped beneath their combined weight.
Growling, the wolf on top leapt off his friend and stalked toward me. I was still trapped. Frantically, I tried to heave off the wolf that pinned me with his weight.
His eyes narrowed cruelly, his lips curling back from his teeth. I was still helpless, and I wriggled back and forth frantically, trying to escape the weight that pinned me.
Lex slammed into him, knocking that wolf head over ass.
Three other wolves streaked after Lex. But he’d given me enough time to get loose. With a final heave and a wiggle, I slid from under the wolf that was weeping blood and ran to help Lex.
There were so many of them. There was no way to run. We were going to fight to the death. I could feel it, and I hoped I wouldn’t be the last one left alive. I didn’t want to watch them die.
For now, I dove into the fray.
Until the end.
I’d fight with them until the end.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Just before jaws could snap shut on Lex’s shoulder from behind, I drove that wolf to the ground and snapped my jaws shut around his neck.
Another wolf streaked into the fray around Lex, slamming into one of the wolves attacking him. My nostrils flared as I breathed in a familiar musky scent. Penn. It was Penn.
The wolf I’d just attacked leapt at me. He was big and mean and scarred, and he charged into me, going for my throat relentlessly.
The most enormous wolf I’d ever seen tackled him. Chase.
Lex fought just two wolves now, and I leapt onto one of them. The two of us rolled together.
He almost managed to pin me, but Tyson was there, knocking him down just long enough to give me an opening.
Tyson streaked on to another opponent, but he’d given me enough time to pin the wolf who attacked me. I tore out his throat.
Then the world was quiet. I raised my head to glimpse my friends through the trees. Our enemies’ scattered bodies were on the ground.
One by one, I picked them out: Lex, Rafe, Tyson, Penn, Chase, Jensen. We were all splattered with blood—our own and theirs—but we were alive. My heart rose in my chest with relief.
I peered through the trees, seeking someone I hadn’t seen yet. Silas. Where was Silas?
At the edge of the woods, Silas stood in his human form. He held his hands in front of him, cupped as if he held a pool of water, but magic rippled in his hands. And then it died, and he dropped his hands to his side.
His eerie eyes met mine, and he nodded, as if we shared a secret.
Jensen butted his head against my shoulder, and I turned into him, nuzzling him back. Okay. I’m okay.
When I turned back, I didn’t see Silas anymore. I frowned. Had I just imagined that?
Wait. Hadn’t I seen him as a wolf?
Rafe growled an order, and the others began to shift back. Already, the corpses were shriveling, their muscles shrinking as they turned back to their human form. Gratitude washed through me. I could choose the agony of turning. They had no choice.
Not dead. Not dead. It was like a song in my head.
Then I dropped to my hands and knees on the rough ground. Rocks in the hard earth pressed up against my knees. My mouth ached from the changes in my jaw, but I swallowed and the last of the pain faded away.
I climbed slowly to my feet, suddenly self-conscious. We were all naked in the woods together. Lex and I exchanged a long look, as if he felt the same gratitude I did to be alive.
Penn strode toward me just a little quicker than normal—still Penn, still cool—then his arms wrapped around me. His hug lifted me off my feet. I smiled into his shoulder as I closed my arms around him. That hug gave him away, no matter how cool he was. It carried all his protectiveness and his affection.
“You’re okay,” he said, his voice filled with relief.
“You came.” I wrapped my hands around his shoulders so I could lean back and look into his face. Somehow, I’d summoned him.
“Always, Mads.” He winked as if it was nothing.
Behind him, I caught a glimpse of Tyson, who folded me into his arms in a big hug a second later. “Glad you’re okay, kiddo.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“That’s what I was about to ask you.”
Silas and Chase approached behind them. Chase looked around at all of us, his eyes wild. At least the rest of us had known about magic and the wars between packs as we grew up. He’d only had a few months to get used to the idea—as well as becoming a supernatural creature himself.
How had Chase and Silas and Penn and Tyson found us? Had I somehow summoned them too? I stared at them, and they stared back at me.
Rafe gazed around us with his jaw clenched. He didn’t know what the hell was going on either, but he clearly didn’t like it.
Well, one of us didn’t seem confused. Silas looked relaxed, even naked and surrounded by bodies and blood-splattered forest. He leaned against a tree as if waiting for the rest of us to catch up.
“What the hell are you all doing here?” Rafe demanded. “Wait, is anyone hurt?”
“Not terribly,” Jensen drawled. The change back hurt our bodies, then healed them. We were all still battered and exhausted, but our wounds had healed when we transformed.
“She summoned them,” Lex said wearily, answering Rafe’s first question. His tone sounded as if it exhausted him no one else understood.
Silas nodded, as if the two of them were on the same page.
“Silas called and said what we felt was real…” Tyson frowned, still trying to make sense of it.
“Real magic,” Silas supplied helpfully.
“This never goes beyond our team,” Lex warned. “We don’t need the council hearing anything about—”
“About Northsea using magic to compel us all?” Just like that, Rafe was pissed all over again.
“I didn’t do anything to you on purpose,” I shot back. The accusation I’d tricked him burned in my chest. “I don’t know why you’re here. It should have been my family who came. My sister and her mates.”
The word family hung in the air, making me self-conscious. I crossed my arms over my breasts, reminded once again I was naked with them.
It had been nothing that we were all naked—except for fur—just a few minutes ago, but now that we stood human and naked in a circle, a rush of embarrassment flooded my belly.
I was surrounded by powerful, chiseled male bodies. No matter how cool the fall air or how bloody the scene, lust suddenly pooled between my thighs. I crossed my arms over my chest, hoping they wouldn’t scent my desire.
I was turned on in the middle of a battlefield. Totally normal.
“What’s the spell you used?” Lex asked. Apparently, he could still think straight, even though when he crossed his muscled arms over his chest, the movement made his cock bob in front of the hard ridges of his abs. Well, maybe he wasn’t entirely immune.
I forced my gaze to stay on his face. “It was the et asperis evocat. Piper and I did it with them. So I don’t know why it would have summoned you.”
“Does it bind magic between you and certain people?” Silas asked. His eyes were wide and innocent, but I still frowned at him, certain he knew what I was talking about better than anyone.
“No,” I said. “It calls up the people that you…” I caught myself on the verge of saying love and substituted, “trust. The enchantment activates when I clutch the pendant and say familia. That’s my word…”
“It seems obvious what’s happened here,” Lex said. “Maddie’s spell used to alert her sister and her sister’s mates that she was in trouble, because those were the people she was closest to.”
“Is it obvious?” Rafe demanded. “Because it’s been a month. We’ve known each other for a month.”
“That doesn’t mean we haven’t made deep connections,” Penn said. He didn’t seem bothered, and I felt a rush of relief. Neither he nor Lex seemed to be particularly perturbed by this situation. “We’re wolves. Our pack, our mates. We know.”
“Even before we admit it,” Lex added.
Rafe’s lips tightened.
“We can sort out why we’re all here later,” Lex went on. “For now, what the hell’s going on, Maddie? Why are you here?”
“It’s my fault,” Jensen said. He stepped by my side, tall and protective beside me as we faced Rafe, and Lex, and the others. “I left the academy and Maddie tagged along with me to watch my back.”
Jensen’s handsome face was stoic. He’d decided to keep our truce and take responsibility. I wanted to reach out and take his hand that dangled at his side, but doing so seemed like a big step in front of everyone.
“Why?” Lex asked in a far more level tone than I would have expected from him.
When Jensen hesitated, I said, “For Eliza.”
Both Rafe and Lex’s gazes snapped to me.
“What?” Lex demanded.
Quickly, Jensen sketched in the details about what we had discovered in his father’s office—Lex raked his hands through his hair but stayed silent through the story of our break-in—and about what had happened since.
“Eliza and the rest of her patrol were betrayed and murdered. I have to find the truth,” Jensen finished.
“I never believed that story,” Rafe said.
“Oh really?” Jensen’s voice was sour.
Rafe frowned, sudden color rising in his cheeks, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him so self-conscious before. “I didn’t have any reason to doubt the official story. But it never squared with…Eliza.”
“Yeah, it didn’t fit with what I knew of my sister either,” Jensen muttered. “But I didn’t need anything official to tell me it was bullshit.”
Rafe’s jaw tightened, but he let it pass.
Lex moved to the side of one of the corpses, then to another, then to another. He gripped the man’s shoulder and rolled him over to look at his face. “I thought so. They’re all from my pack.”
“There was another one,” Rafe said suddenly. “The one we scented was chasing us into the ambush. These wolves were using magic to hide their scent.”
He gave me a dour look, as if the fact that our attempted killers used magic was a reason not to.
“If the bad guys use magic, I think we should probably do the same,” I shot back. “So we aren’t defenseless.”
“I can’t talk about this with you now,” Rafe said tightly. “I need to chase down that wolf—”
“Already done,” Silas said. “That’s why I wasn’t around during the fight—sorry, guys—I scented him and went after him. He won’t be able to give away any information about what happened here.”
I frowned, but my head hurt when I tried to remember if I’d even seen Silas during the fight. Maybe I’d been hurt worse than I realized, and even after the change, I was still fuzzy-headed.
“Good,” Rafe said. “We need to get out to the road, get our vehicles and move to someplace safe to plan our next move. Where are you all parked?”
We had a quick discussion of logistics, then the eight of us loped through the woods toward the road. We automatically fanned out into a wedge, ready to fight and defend ourselves if we ran into another threat.
I found myself near Rafe in that formation. He stalked along, intense and angry. No one spoke—we were all exhausted and eager to get to safety—and it was a long, silent, painful hike back to the road.
When we neared the edge of the forest, I was glad to see the concrete shimmering gray through the trees ahead. We’d hiked through the forest, survived being stalked by the shifters, and made it out the other side—together, unexpectedly.
Rafe seemed to simmer with tension, and as we neared the cars, I fell back, to walk by his side.
Penn slowed, and I begged him with my eyes to understand. He squeezed my hand, a quick comforting
touch, before he moved forward.
“Can I talk to you a second?” I asked Rafe, following him to his car.
He turned to face me, knitting his arms over his chest. “What is it, Northsea?”
I tucked my hair back behind my ear absent-mindedly before I realized I was fidgeting under his dark, angry gaze.
“You came with Lex?” I asked carefully—because I had a funny feeling he was so angry because he’d felt the same tug the other guys said they had. I wondered what that felt like.
He nodded as if it was a stupid question.
“So you didn’t feel anything…”
He raised his hand to stop me. “I’ve got a question for you, actually. Did you choose us on purpose?”
“What? No. I told you I didn’t expect you—”
“I don’t believe you,” he cut me off. “You and Lex already have all that history. You, Penn, Chase, Tyson and Silas are good friends, and anyone can tell you all might…”
When it was obvious he wasn’t going to continue, I said, “I don’t know why you’re here, Rafe. Why you felt something, if you did…”
He stared at me, his eyes stormy, his jaw tense. He wouldn’t tell me if he had felt something or not when I used my pendant.
“I’m not trying to trick you into wanting me, Rafe,” I said.
Those words did anything but placate him. His gaze met mine furiously, but his voice dropped low as he told me, “Don’t call me Rafe. You’re a cadet. And—”
“You’re not Lex. I know. We had this conversation already.”
“You’re on thin ice.” His voice was very soft.
“I figured I would be after leaving campus,” I said, purposefully pretending to misunderstand him.
I headed toward Jensen’s car, leaving Rafe behind, even though I could feel his irritation ratchet up another notch because I’d walked away from him.
“These rules all exist for a reason, you know,” he called. “No magic. No—”
“No leaving academy grounds to solve a murder?” I said over my shoulder, not bothering to turn around. “You know what, I lied in my essay. You were right. I was just checking boxes. Because this is what I’m here for. To protect people, find the truth, save lives.”
