Sinthy stood and gave me a grim nod, pointing at the sky. In the air, another missile rushed toward the forcefield. The bizarre whistling sound filled my ears.
I turned back to the packs. “Meet them at the gate. That’s where they’ll enter. Go.”
Following my orders, hundreds of shifters bolted toward the gates. The nearly inhuman screams of rage and war swiftly turned into howls and yelps of wolves as they rushed the gates. I shifted and ran with them. A small pack of massive black bears was right in the middle of the group—we’d brought them in a few days before we left for Donatello’s island.
Donatello himself raced alongside me. His wolf was a gorgeous sleek black, like nothing I’d ever seen before. Ashe passed, rushing to the gate, the missile made impact. The explosion was louder than the one before. I could actually feel the magic give way, feel the power collapsing. It was an implosion of force that swept over us with a gust of wind. With each step, we drew closer to the gates. That was when the gunshots started.
The zealots were pushing forward, rushing the gates. I watched as one of my own—a man named Davis who had been manning the guard shack—was pulled down under the surge. He never even had time to fire his weapon or shift. Gunshots blasted through the air, and I knew they’d killed him. Killed a member of my pack.
I bared my teeth and ran faster, my paws tearing at the dirt, a constant growl in my throat as I darted past everyone, taking the lead. The crowd ahead of me loomed ever larger as they rushed into the pack lands. They fired on us, but I didn’t flinch, I didn’t slow, I didn’t think. I wanted blood, and I would die for my pack, my mate, and my family.
Ten feet from the front of the group, I leaped toward the man in the lead. He was wearing a faded and torn American flag shirt, with a greasy trucker hat stuffed low on his head. He held a machete in his left hand. We locked eyes as I flew through the air. The fear in his eyes as he realized his life was over sent a burst of sadistic satisfaction through my wolf. I sank my teeth into his throat, and we tumbled into the crowd. The war had begun.
Chaos. It was the only way to describe it. Bodies were everywhere, screams, shouts, howls, and the sound of gunfire all morphed into one long and continuous hum.
I couldn’t spare a moment to look around and see how the others were doing. The fight in front of me took precedence. My shifter strength and speed pushed me deeper into the battle. I ripped hunks of flesh from thighs and calves and dragged myclaws over faces and across necks. In minutes, I was covered in blood and panting. The fight pushed us back up the hill toward the center of the pack lands. The anti-shifters outnumbered us by several hundred, but we fought harder than they did and held our own. The sheer force of will and strength that came from being shifters more than made up for their numbers.
Above me, awop-wop-wopsound filled the air. Worried some new weapon was descending on us, I risked glancing up. A news chopper hovered overhead, probably hoping to up their ratings by recording the battle. Any anger I felt toward the reporters vanished with a searing bolt of pain down my side. I yelped and spun away as a woman tried to hack me in two with an ax. Before I could attack her in response, the silvery fur of my cousin Francisca flashed by me as she tackled the woman. Francisca’s jaws clamped onto the woman’s arm. As blood sprayed from Francisca’s maw, I turned to rejoin the battle.
The anti-shifters were pushing closer to my house, and I started to fear that they’d get there. I didn’t even know what I’d do if any of these people broke in and tried to hurt Maddy.
The group of attackers faltered as a heavy gust of wind blew across their advancing force. Sinthy stood at the top of the road. Her hands held high overhead. The wind was nearly hurricane-strength but only affected the attackers, not the shifters. Her spell gave us the opening we needed. We surged forward, pressing the attackers back.
Between the strength of the shifters and the power of Sinthy’s spells, we might have a chance. The fight started to turn as Sinthy sent more magic toward the crowd—fireballs, then electric bolts, and then a shimmering flash of ice shards that miraculously missed all of us but crashed into the attackers. Sinthy was pressing her attack, doing more magic in a few minutes than I’d seen her use the whole time I’d known her. Notonly was she attacking the anti-shifters, but she was also casting protection wards around as many shifters as she could see.
An instant later, a bullet pinged away from my face. Sinthy had obviously put a ward around me, and I hadn’t even noticed. She’d just saved me from having my brains blown out for the third time in one day. If I survived the rest of this, I’d have to find a way to thank her properly.
The fighting became more chaotic. The humans spread out, and the battle wasn’t as easy as a straight face-to-face fight. Instead of waning as I grew tired, my rage only flared brighter as the fight wore on. It also made it more difficult for Sinthy’s spells to work as the fighting spread like cancer across the pack lands.
Sebastian and my brother Rafael galloped up beside me, snapping and biting at the attackers around us. Rafael jumped up and tore a shotgun out of one man’s hands, taking one of the guy’s fingers along for the ride. The pop of a gunshot behind me was almost insignificant—so simple and pointless compared to all the other noise that I barely spared a moment to give it a look. What I saw when I turned nearly stopped my heart.
Sebastian, in wolf form, lay on the grass, blood oozing from a bullet wound near his ribs. His yellow canine eyes rolled in their sockets, then locked on mine, and I knew he was hurt badly. I could smell the fear and pain pheromones pulsing off him, and terror tore through me. My gaze swept up to see the person who’d shot my friend. An older man in a button-down shirt and jeans stood there, his hands shaking as he desperately attempted to reload his revolver.
I didn’t hesitate. This man had possibly killed my best friend. It was time for him to meet his maker. I lunged, and the man’s terrified screams were a balm on my soul.
I fell upon him and allowed my hate and rage to take over. I pulled back all my humanity and let my wolf have free rein. If anyone had told me I was capable of such savagery a day before,I’d have called them crazy, but when I was done with the man, what remained could barely be called human. It sickened me, but he’d made his choice by coming here, and these were the consequences.
Spinning back, I found Sebastian had shifted back to his human form, the pain keeping him from keeping the connection with his wolf. The bullet wound was right below his left nipple. Dark arterial blood spilled from it, soaking into his clothes.
I shifted and cradled Sebastian’s head in my lap. The battle vanished from my mind as I held my dying friend. Glancing up, I saw Tiago had rallied his pack and helped my own press the humans back nearly to the gates. Sinthy was directly in front of me, fingers dug deep into the ground, and I could practically see the energy radiating off her. It was unlike any power she’d shown before. It was actually scary. I had a strange feeling of immeasurable power being summoned, built, and formed out of nothing.
Her body quaked and shook, and I watched the skin on her arms and face go pale as she murmured words under her breath. Her skin took on a corpse-like quality as she seemed to pump every ounce of magical energy she had into whatever spell she was attempting. From the look of her, she was putting more than just magical power into it. I had a flutter of fear that she was going too far. Was she pushing herself over the edge to try and save us?
Moments later, the last humans were shoved back out the gate. Sinthy raised her face to the sky and screamed. Her voice was unimaginably loud, amplified by magic. I flinched as it thundered out of her throat.
“By the names of Morrigan and Dagda, Lugh and Brigid, Ceridwen and Herne, I command the powers of the four corners. Protect this land. We are the wolves of Hecate, and by her power, I close this gate.”
Sinthy lifted her hands and slammed the palms together in a clap. The sound that came from her hands was like the voice of God. The pulse of energy swept over me, causing Sebastian and me to slide backward across the grass several feet. All over the pack lands, windows erupted and shattered. The ground reverberated, and through it all, I could still hear Sinthy’s words echoing around me.
An instant later, Sinthy collapsed in a heap as an earth-shakingcrackreverberated across the pack lands. The humans were blasted away from the gate, and the shifters were knocked back into the pack lands as a new forcefield burst into existence all along the fences. This time I could see it—it shimmered like water and rose twenty feet in the air. The humans sprang to their feet and ran from the pack lands, terrified by Sinthy’s magic.
I didn’t revel in the victory. Sebastian was deathly pale. His eyes were half open, and his labored breathing had an audible wet hiss with each inhalation.
He raised a hand and tried to grab my shoulder but only managed to slap ineffectually at my chest.
“Nico? Nico?” he whispered, his voice a gurgle as if he were underwater.
I squeezed his hand. “I’m here, Sebastian. I’m here. You’re okay.”
