“Gerty, do something!” Kyle said.
Gerty raised her wand but paused as if she were caught in an invisible tractor beam.
“Don’t you dare,” said a woman’s voice from behind them.
Kyle whirled. “What are you doing here?”
The amulet around Nickie’s neck pulsed faintly against her pale skin, framed by the red-and-black-sequined dress she wore. Designed to represent a twisting dragon with a ruby eye, the metal the amulet was constructed from resembled pewter, but Kyle sensed it was something else. Something magical. The energy radiating from it hit him in the face like the warmth of a small sun.
“You should go,” Nickie said. “I don’t want to hurt any of you, but I will if you get in our way.”
“So, let Gerty go,” Kyle demanded. His stomach cramped, and his spine popped with the return of the pain he’d felt moments ago. Fuck, he needed to get to Laina.
“I can’t. She’ll interfere. It’s imperative that Alex succeeds in overpowering Silas on his own. If Gerty ends the duel, the pack will not recognize his authority. He is the one true ruler of all wolves. You must understand this.” Her voice had taken on a slight foreign accent.
“What does any of this have to do with you?” Kyle asked. “Why do you care about Alex?”
“Why do you care about Laina?”
“Because I love—” Kyle froze, thinking back to the conversation between Alex and Laina in Nate’s basement. “You’re the dragon fae princess.”
“My name is Nickelova Rallinth, heir to the Siberian dragon fae dynasty.”
“But I thought you were scorned. I thought you hated Alex!”
“A lie my parents told to save face. They couldn’t admit that their oh-so-perfect daughter freely gave the amulet to a wolf. They never understood our love. Never understood that Alex was born to rule, and I was born to be by his side. He’s stronger than you, any of you.”
“Let her go, Nickie.” Kyle buckled under another wave of pain.
Nickie shook her head. “No.”
A small tree, four inches in diameter, barreled out of nowhere and connected with the side of Nickelova’s head, knocking her to the grass. Nate tossed the branch aside. “Stupid broad. Nobody hurts our Gert and gets away with it.”
“Nate! Thank God,” Kyle said.
Nate grabbed Kyle by the shoulders and shook. “Did Tanaka slip something in our drinks, or did we fall down the rabbit hole?”
“Unfortunately, this is all real.”
“For the record, I never meant to hurt you. I thought Alex was going to offer her a job, lure her away. I had no idea he wanted to kill her. Fuck, who woulda thought he was some kind of supernatural creature?”
Beside them, Nickelova groaned and rubbed the back of her head. “You want to make it up to me, brother? Help Gerty kick this chick’s ass.”
“Leave it to me,” Nate said.
Kyle turned his attention back to the wolves, brawling in the nearby field. Fuck, Alex had the upper hand once again. As another wave of pain rolled through him, Kyle assessed the scene. Jason lay on his side, incapacitated. Silas limped, front leg tucked close to his sternum. Laina and Alex were entangled in a brawl that seemed destined to end in the larger red wolf’s favor.
Kyle’s entire body trembled with rage. Sweat broke out across his skin. He had to get to Laina, had to protect her, had to…he had to. “Ahh!” His legs buckled under him, and he pitched forward, claws sprouting from his knuckles, the hair on his arms transforming to gray fur. He tried to scream, but all that came out was a howl.
“Kyle, oh my God. Oh my God!” Nate cried.
Kyle charged toward the wolves with his fiercest growl, his thoughts suddenly simple as black-and-white. He must kill. He must save his mate.
ChapterThirty-Three
As the first rays of sunlight broke the horizon, Laina’s human brain became aware of a few things. Kyle was naked in the grass beside her, gray fur erupting and receding over his spine, and his limbs twisted in a half-shifted state. Shit. Slowly, the memories came back to her. Alex had been about to kill her when Kyle had shifted into a glorious gray wolf and tore into Alex’s side. Kyle was a werewolf, and he’d saved her life. All of their lives. Jason was injured, his leg hanging at a grotesque angle as his skeleton began its slow shift back to human. And Silas… He was still trying to fight, inserting himself between Kyle and Alex where he could, but the grass was stained red from their blood. Kyle’s blood. Most of it was his.
Without guidance or practice, Kyle couldn’t hold on to his wolf. His upper body had already transformed, and goddess, he was injured—shredded was a better word—with so many scratches and bites, he looked like a bloody piece of meat. Using bare human fists, he punched the half-shifted Alex in the face, powered by will alone. Silas, as the eldest, was the last to start his shift, but finally, he could not deny the sun. His black wolf’s bones started to bend and break. The distraction allowed Alex to gain the advantage.
