by Moira Byrne
Rhonda looked as amused as she was perplexed. "And where is this?"
Sam pulled her aside and quietly filled her in on what was going on. As I unashamedly listened in, Sophie's fingers flew on her phone. I figured she was busy texting Alex. I glanced at my phone, thinking I should text Ben again. He still hadn't replied to my earlier message.
I glared at my phone. Yeah, I'd told him to get lost, but I hadn't really expected him to do it. Not really. It bothered me he was ignoring the text about Ana. It didn't just bother me, it nagged even worse than Sophie would when I wouldn't get out of bed in my early teens. Had something happened? I didn't have long to consider it before Rhonda's voice caught my attention once more.
"Chesterfield, hm?" Rhonda examined her long red nails for a moment, then nodded. "I could use a bit of excitement."
I wondered if she had any idea of what she was in for.
It wasn't much later that we had all convened, filed out, and piled into our respective cars. Just before I started to drive, I thought about Izzy. I had to make sure she was safe. I knew all five feet of her was as tough as they come. I was sure she could survive anything, but I didn't want to test that out. I pulled out my phone and dialed Jack.
"Speak to me," my Alpha barked out, his usual playfulness gone from his voice.
"It's Aly. Me, Sophie, Alex, Maddox, and Sam are all on our way. Want me to pick up Izzy and drop her off at the Greenhaven Orchard? I'm taking my kid there."
"Yeah. I was going to send a couple guys over to keep an eye on her, but that'd be better."
"Okay. You guys going to be alright without me for a minute?"
"We'll try." Jack managed a light chuckle. "Tell Izzy that, err—tell her to be careful."
I resisted the urge to snort. Those two were ridiculous.
"Will do, Alpha J. Want me to call in Charlie, too?"
"I won't turn down an ogre's help. Also, you really can just call me Jack."
"Nah, I like mine better."
I ended the call with that, fired off a quick text to Charlie, then set off toward Izzy's place. I drove as quickly as road laws would allow, quietly seething at each and every slow-moving driver in the left lane.
When I got to Izzy's, she surprised me by immediately running out of her apartment building and into my car. I gave her a funny look as she settled into the passenger seat and belted herself in.
"How did you know I was coming?" I asked.
"I got the pack alert."
I stared out the window in front of me in horror. Izzy knew I would be here because I had become the overbearing motherly type.
Oh my God. I was becoming my sister.
When we reached the orchard, I quickly got Izzy and Ana situated in the Greenhavens' home. Izzy kept shooting wary glances at Petunia, but I knew she would keep them safe. Although, Petunia did politely request that we 'stop with all this nonsense soon.'
I loved her.
With Ana settled, I headed out the back door to join the others. I was the last one to arrive. I hadn't been surprised to see Alex's truck in the parking lot. He wasn't really part of our pack, but I'd known there was no way he would let his mate go fight alone.
I stepped outside and glanced around. Maddox was talking with Sophie and Alex. Charlie seemed to be telling a story to Sam while Rhonda looked on with amusement. We had all agreed to meet here when I dropped off Ana so I wouldn't head over to the fight alone.
This is my family. The only one missing was Ben. I grimaced and pushed that thought aside. I didn't have time for that right now. We had an invasion to repel.
Before we all started stripping to shift, I heard a car drive down the road. I knew it wasn't anyone else from the pack. They were all meeting up off Ancient Aspen Road, near Chesterfield.
"Everyone wait a moment," I said.
I walked around to the front of the house and saw a car pulling up into the orchard's parking lot. I didn't recognize the nondescript silver vehicle. We weren't open today on account of the holiday, so I found the arrival a little odd. I sniffed lightly at the air, but the car was too far away for me to catch a scent.
I glanced behind me and saw they'd all followed me around to the side of the house. Their eyes soon fell on the car, too. A moment later, I watched as two men stepped out from the car. Their scent was carried over on the breeze, not that I need any more confirmation. What were Ben's cousins doing here?
"Let me go talk to these two."
I jogged down toward the parking lot. I knew Charlie was slowly inching along behind me, quiet as an elephant, as usual. I wanted to laugh at him trying to keep his distance so I wouldn't notice him hovering. He was failing. Hard.
That was the way to handle Alysse Addison, though. Help her without letting her know you're doing it. She can't bite your head off that way. My urge to laugh became a sigh as I thought of Ben. Again.
His cousins met me halfway. The more talkative one, David, approached me with that easy smile of his. "Hey, sorry to drop in, but we're running out of places to look. Figured we'd try here as a last resort."
I furrowed my brow. "What're you looking for, exactly?"
David exchanged a look with the quiet one, Eric. "Ben."
I felt all emotion crumple from my face as it turned into a blank slate. I had pissed him off so badly that he just left without a word, not even to his cousins. Regret was a heavy lump in my throat. I had done a lot of stupid things in my nearly twenty years, but I really needed to stop trying to one-up myself.
"He hasn't talked to you guys at all?" I asked with a cautious edge to my voice.
"He did," the one named Eric suddenly spoke up. His voice was much softer, yet somehow more commanding than his twin's. The type of voice that demands you pay attention. "He told us yesterday afternoon that he wanted to check out an odd scent in that field. He sent us a text when he got there, but we haven't heard from him since."
"Did you try to call him?"
"Yeah," David said after sharing a look with his brother. "He said he was going to try to talk to you when he finished at the field, so we didn't try to call 'til this morning. Nothing."
"His phone is dead," Eric added.
Rhonda approached us with a concerned look. "He went alone?"
Both wolves gave us a grave nod. Damnit, Ben. My heart clenched unbearably tight. Why would he do something like that? Was it because I told him to go? Did he think I thought he couldn't protect me?
He didn't need to go around trying to prove it. I knew he was perfectly capable. That wasn't my point. I just wanted him to understand that I needed to have my say, too. And now . . . only God knows what happened to him.
I turned my head toward the Greenhavens' sprawling house and my heart tore itself in half as I thought of Ana. One side ached for Ben, desperately hoping he was okay. The other hurt for Ana because I drove her father away. I'm sorry, baby girl. I'll make this better.
I shifted in an instant, my clothes ripping to shreds. I didn't care. I shook off the remnants of my clothes and darted for the field, ignoring the shouts from the others behind me. I sprinted through the trees, letting my cat guide me.
I scented Jack and the others before I saw them. The yellow eyes of his two best trackers, both lions, greeted me from the shadows of the sunlight-dappled forest. They were Jack's sisters and they were terrifying. I slipped in next to them and they nudged me with their snouts, urging me to hurry and join the group.
They were uncharacteristically shaken up. That told me more clearly than anything that something worse than I imagined awaited us in that field. What had my old pack done?
From behind me, I heard the rest of the group arrive. Based on the noise, I could tell some had shifted, some not. I wanted to scream at them to quiet down, but that would sort of defeat the purpose. My scream would be louder than any sounds they were making.
Jack, still in human form, motioned toward the approaching cacophony and the two lion scouts darted off through the trees to get them.
"I'll wait until the others are here to fill you in."
I flicked my ears and nodded. I slid to the side and dared to try to look through the trees. We were too far away to see much, but I could tell my old pack had brought nearly all the men they had. All for me, Sophie, and Izzy? That seemed like a little much.
They were milling around. Standing in small groups, talking. I wasn't surprised to see they only brought the guys. Apparently, that group of Neanderthals only had one use for women. I was still mad at myself for not seeing it sooner, even a year later. My heart hurt like hell for the women still trapped there.
The two lions quietly slid through the trees, followed by Maddox in his panther form, two wolves, and my sister in the form of her cougar. Not far behind was Sam in his lumbering bear shape, trying to follow the same narrow path the smaller animals used. A few snapped tree branches later, he was hunched down, looking guilty. Rhonda made her way over and patted him gently on the back.
"You're just big-boned, hon," she said with a quiet laugh. I huffed out my weird little cat laugh along with her and Sam playfully swiped at me with his big paw. I mimed a fatal blow and collapsed in a furry heap. Guilt hit me in an instant. I shouldn't be playing around when I didn't know where Ben was, or if he was okay.
"Alright, alright, playtime's over," Jack said in a low voice. "We're outnumbered, but Charlie is coming up through the trees. And we have Sam and Rhonda. That gives us a hell of an advantage."
I shot a curious look in Rhonda's direction. Was she really one of the heavyweights? Her powers as a witch never really seemed to come up. In fact, she seemed so bored and over it that I figured her abilities must be pretty lame.
"Keep an eye out for each other. Fight like the pack we are. They're not going to hold back, and you shouldn't either. Let's show them what happens when you threaten our territory."
In the forest around me, I heard clothes hit the ground. Low growls and soft hisses filled the air around me.
My pack was desperate to get out there and show those cougars they weren't welcome. If there was one thing you didn't threaten, it was a shifter's territory. We got pretty feisty about that. It made my old pack's invasion even more mind-boggling. They were basically asking for a war.
Jack stripped and, a second later, stood on all fours as a lion. He let out a low snarl. The two lion scouts silently slipped into the forest ahead of us and disappeared in an instant.
I let my consciousness sink into my cat's we stalked closer to the tree line of the field that held my old pack. As I got closer, I realized they weren't just standing around. They looked like they were waiting for something. My alarm bells were ring-ding-dinging at that.
Had they expected us? From the way Jack tensed at the head of our motley crew, I would say that he thought the same.
Undoubtedly, they had smelled us by now. Yet, they were still standing there, in their human shapes. All of them looked in our direction. What were they waiting for? Why hadn't they shifted yet?
Warning snarls rang out as Jack's sisters suddenly appeared, one from our left and one from our right. They never stopped their fierce calls as they met our group. Right behind them both, I saw the glow of cougar eyes in the mottled sunlight between the trees.
Damnit.
Those tricky fucking cats had snared us in a trap. I mean, of course it was a damn trap. Why else would they be loitering around in a field in Fayoak? The unshifted ones must have been bait. And we chomped it right up.
A growl rumbled out of me as I lowered myself to the ground, scanning the area to assess the threat. Up ahead in the field, my old pack members began to strip and shift one after another to join the fight.
I didn't know whether we could fend them off from three sides, but we would sure as hell try. As cats began to leap from the trees on either side of us, we all surged into action. The ranks of the Fayoak pack were mostly filled with panthers and my old pack were all cougars. It was a collision of tan versus black.
I rushed forward and leapt into the air. Satisfaction rushed through me as I sank my claws into one of the attacking cougars, bringing him down to the ground with me. As I clawed and snarled at the cougar beneath me, I heard the sounds of battle all around me.
Sam's thunderous roar rang out as he rose his mighty bear form into the air. I heard cougars cry out in agony as he slammed down, shaking the ground as he took several cats with him. Somewhere nearby, I heard Charlie's thunderous battle cry followed by loud thuds and shrieks of pain from his opponents.
Wolf snarls announced Ben's cousins were in the thick of the action too, despite having no real stake in our sudden war. I would have to thank them later. I caught flashes of them in action as they worked together like a perfect team, seamlessly cycling through a routine of distracting and leaping on the cougars.
My cougar took over as the battle raged, operating more on instinct than logic as I took on my opponent. We were fighting with the law of the wild. It was kill or be killed. I heard cries of pain all around and worry tore at me. I had no idea who was being injured. Were we taking them out, or were they killing us?
The fight narrowed down to clawing and biting, dodging and twisting. The enemies were never-ending. As soon as I won one battle, another cougar appeared. The trees around me moved in sweeping gestures and suddenly I saw several cougars fly through the air, flung from beastly branches. Thank you, Alex.
The battle slowly moved out into the center of the field. I was still clawing and biting for my life when I was suddenly filled with revulsion. My hackles went up, but I couldn't figure out why. It wasn't the fight, but something else. Something that set every primal instinct afire. Several of my pack members paused next to me. They must have felt it, too.
Whatever it was didn't stop us. We plowed forward through the revulsion. My pack kept close together throughout the battle, protecting each other. But our numbers were dwindling. They were taking us out. We fought harder, but they had sheer numbers. I saw a streak of black slink through the grass, then a cougar disappeared with a startled yelp. Maddox rose victorious from the grass, his green eyes glinting in the sun, a smear of blood glistening on his dark fur.
A sharp bark cut through the air and I looked over to see a cougar swipe at one of Ben's cousins. The wolf went down, but another streak of silver plowed into the attacker. A cougar off to the side slunk down, preparing to pounce. With all the noise on the battlefield, there was no way I could warn the wolves that they were in danger.
Time seemed to slow as the cougar leapt into the air. I could tell it was perfectly positioned to break the spine of its prey—the injured wolf. He stood there with his head hanging down, dazed by the cougar his brother was fighting.
A futile cry of warning escaped me as I watched, certain another one of my defenders was about to die. A loud crack rang through the air as a large branch swung out and plowed into the leaping cougar. It flew backward like a baseball. Charlie pulled back his weapon and held it aloft in triumph, letting out a challenging roar.
The flying cougar crashed into the trees. The branches snaked inward and down to curl around the cougar, then yanked it deep into the forest. I had no doubt Alex would make sure we never saw that cougar again.
The dazed wolf finally seemed to come out of his stupor. He jumped into the battle with his brother. Charlie waded forward, hitting cougars with his club. An enemy charged me, and I turned my attention to the fight at hand.
I had just knocked out my third opponent when a fourth suddenly appeared, tackling me from behind. I growled and twisted onto my back, my claws digging into the cougar. I struggled to get free but I was pinned. Was I going to be the next casualty? The cougar above me bared his yellowed fangs, ready to sink them into my throat.
I desperately clawed at his belly, twisting my head wildly from side to side.
I knew it was hopeless.
My heart thundered wildly, my breath coming in short pants.
Not like this.
The weight suddenly lifted, my cl
aws raking the cat's underbelly as he was pulled away. The cougar was still above me, thrashing and trying to bite at my neck. It was hovering in the air. I scrambled to my feet and looked around in bewilderment. My eyes found Rhonda nearby, casually standing with a hand on her hip, the other held aloft and pointed at the cougar.
She gave me a sly look. "It's called telekinesis, doll, don't look so surprised."
The cougar gave a loud shriek as it suddenly went hurtling through the air with a flick of Rhonda's manicured hand. To say I was stunned would be totally and completely accurate. I couldn't even move for a moment.
I suddenly heard the mighty roar of Jack's lion. It was the threatening roar reserved for someone encroaching where they didn't belong. Each reverberation carried a clear threat that would shake a person to the core.
I swung my head around to where the sound originated. Anger coursed through me. It wasn't Jack that my eyes landed on. It was someone else who I had hoped to never lay eyes on again.
The old pack must have been more than a little miffed if my old Alpha was leading them. That meant they were looking to claim new territory. Were they really trying to take over Fayoak because of me? Even if they actually stood a chance, it seemed like a stupid thing to do because they're pissed over losing two shifters and a human.
Seeing him, however—his smug, dumb cougar face specifically—made my rage burn unchecked. I let out a roar rivaling Jack's and charged toward them. I knew this was a fight between Alphas, but that didn't stop me.
I shouldn't interfere, but he was the reason my old pack went to hell. He encouraged Edward to be the sick psychopath he really was and terrify my sister. That hulking cougar facing off with Jack had hurt my sweet Izzy. And I wanted to make him pay.
The two Alphas hadn't attacked each other yet. Right now they were facing off, snarling and hissing at each other. I still had a chance to take a chunk of hide out of that piece of shit.
As if he knew what I planned, the moment I neared them, Jack turned to roar at me. The sound was so deep and menacing that the earth trembled beneath my paws. I growled back, even though I sounded like a pitiful kitten in comparison.
