A brave pledge darts in. He leaves with his face sliced open.
I bare my teeth. “I’m not going to warn you again.”
They tighten the circle around me. I look over my shoulder. Cadel and the monster that is Walker are getting further away.
“Go away!” I shriek.
One of them lets out a deep and sinister laugh. He raises his sword, which is quickly mirrored by the group he’s gathered around him. I lift my sword, but there are too many.
He topples forward and drops dead at my feet. The silence is thick as we all stare at the arrow shaft that is sticking out of his back. I look up first, seeing the movement in the dark as they surge towards us.
The Resistance cuts them to pieces, and, in seconds, the group of betas are dead or dying. A tall, confident silhouette steps towards me, and the shadows peel away, revealing a face I didn’t think I would see again.
Kendric grabs my wrist with a tight smile. “Come on. We need to catch up to them.”
“What?” I ask dumbly.
He smiles at me. “We all came to help you, but now we have to save your wolf.”
“What do you mean you came to help me?” I gasp out, trying to keep up with him.
“Insane, isn’t it? This plan has so many moving pieces. So many gods came down to make sure you made it to this very moment. You’re going to save us, Keres.”
“Gods?” I yelp. “What do you mean, gods? And how can I possibly save them?” I protest.
Kendric just smiles serenely. “It’s all part of the plan, I just said that.”
“I don’t know how!” I almost wail, but it drops off when I catch sight of Cadel viciously slamming the Ravage Wolf into a wall.
“It doesn’t matter; you’ll know when you need to know,” Kendric says grimly, his eyes on the two wolves.
He laughs suddenly.
“What’s so funny?” I pant, still jogging beside him.
I see the body of a beta staring up at the sky, a smile stretching across his lips. What paradise is he waiting for? I don’t know that I would be that happy to greet the goddess who cannibalizes people.
“We’re here. Hundreds of years of living our lives on repeat, of coming back and digging tunnels, of maneuvering everything one little piece at a time. Marshall assembled the Resistance, over and over. He was Bear’s father until he died.”
I trip over, but he just pulls me up. I stare at the side of his head, feeling it all.
“My mother?” I clarify.
The Ravage Wolf snarls loud enough to make my eardrums ache.
“The All-Seer who brought you here. Who brought us all here. She came down and made sure she was your mother, giving you the best education, the best protection.” Kendric says this all like I’m supposed to know, to understand, but my head is racing, and I can barely think past the constant ache of the broken bonds.
“My neighbours?” I ask in a whisper.
“Not all of them, but a lot of them. Mia was human, Bear’s human. We fight for them, and they fight with us. They inspire us. The love theyare capable of, the hope they continue to feel even in the darkest of days is…something else. This world is special, and we all fight to keep it.”
Kendric frowns when he sees Cadel surge towards us, only to dart back and snap his teeth at the Ravage Wolf’s face.
“Jarek and Mordecai are dead,” I whisper.
He slows but doesn’t stop. “We know.”
“I guess that was part of the plan,” I ask bitterly.
