Everything started to happen too quickly, but I heard the growl of another wolf, and at the same time, I looked over to see the wolf that shifted in front of me, licking the bleeding wound on Sera’s arm.
“Watch out,” I yelled when the third wolf lunged for Sera’s protector. The wolf tore into the abdomen of the protector wolf. I spotted one of Sera’s loose arrows on the floor, and before I could think, I ran to pick it up and raised it above my head with both hands, plunging the deadly silver into the wolf’s back as hard as I could.
I slumped against the wall and watched as the wolf fell away in another plume of black smoke, leaving behind a dead man with another arrow in its skull.
The protector wolf looked toward me with deep-blue eyes. A chill ran through me.
“He’s hurt,” I blurted out, looking toward Sera, realizing she too was hurt. “Oh, god.”
I peered around the basement at the dead bodies, but Pines and the other man were gone.
“W-we have to get out of here,” I told them. I didn’t know how or where we were, but I knew we couldn’t wait there like sitting ducks for the other two to come back.
I grabbed Sera’s bow and remaining arrows and helped her to stand. The protector wolf limped as blood poured from the wound in his belly, but he took the lead, sweeping his gaze left and right.
Pines and the other man weren’t around. I surmised that in the commotion of the fight, they managed to escape. We went up the wooden stairs to find the door locked. The injured wolf clawed and scratched at it before hurling his body through the door, forcing it open.
I expected another pack of wolves to come from out of the shadows at any moment. But as we made our way through Pines’s sparsely furnished home, nothing approached.
A sense of relief, unlike any other, hit me hard when we broke through the front door to be confronted by the glare of the midday sun—such a contrast from that darkened basement.
The injured wolf yelped and groaned, seemingly from the pain, but I wasn’t sure.
“We have to find…” I trailed off as I saw the familiar dark trucks bulldozing their way up the rocky driveway at the front of the house. I stumbled back as my knees wobbled in relief at the sight of Chael, Chance, and a group of their packmates pulling up in front of us.
Chael hopped out of the truck and barked instructions. Chance immediately shifted with two other men and sprinted out of sight.
He looked at me and then at my side. His lips curled, showing his sharpened incisors. He was on the verge of shifting. I stared down at what he glared at to find the protector wolf at my side, in front of Sera.
“No, Chael,” I yelled. “He helped us.”
Chael’s face relaxed, but his eyes remained narrowed.
“He saved us,” I repeated. “But he’s hurt.”
Just as I said that, the injured wolf let out a groan and collapsed to the ground. He shifted back into the man I’d seen laid out on the table.
Chael approached, his face contorted in confusion as he kneeled by the unconscious man.
“Montgomery?”
CHAPTER21
Chael
Livid didn’t even begin to explain the emotion that beat through my veins. Even after hours of driving, I still hadn’t calmed down enough to look across the passenger seat at Reese.
She’d nearly gotten herself killed. If I hadn’t placed a tracker on her cell phone, who knew what the hell would’ve happened.
“Chael,” Reese tried again.
“Don’t,” I said through clenched teeth.
She huffed and glanced over her shoulder toward the back seat. “He’s going to need more medical treatment.” The worry in her voice tugged at my insides.
I glanced up at the rearview mirror to see Montgomery, still unconscious, his head cradled in Sera’s lap as she stared down at him. Pain shot through my jaw at how harshly I gritted my teeth.
After Montgomery passed out, Chance and the others had come back and told me that Pines and the shifter he was working with were gone. My brother could only identify that the wolves he scented had come from the north. They weren’t local wolves.
