Crossing it would be a death sentence.
They’ve cut my pack in two and stranded a bulk of my fighters out here, and I don’t yet know what they’re doing inside the ward, only that I can’t get through to stop it.
Breath ripping in and out of me, from exertion but also frenzied terror, I pace right alongside it, my wolf’s sharp eyes tracing the green lines as if there’s a seam to be found in them. There’s not. Every instinct demands I charge through anyway. Break it. Get to Noa.
But instinct isn’t enough, and I listen to the part of me that knows when brute force will only result in me getting killed.
Howls rise across the territory. One, then many. Some are mine, voices familiar enough for me to pick out even through the chaos as they rally to answer the threat. Others are foreign and eager. Intruders announcing their arrival without fear.
I draw in a breath and lift my head to answer, to call my pack to?—
Movement detonates at my side.
Mercer turns on Danny without warning.
There’s no time or space to cut him off. Mercer lunges, fast and final, and Danny’s throat disappears in his powerful jaw. Blood sprays hot across the snow, steam lifting as Danny drops, his body empty of his soul before he hits the ground.
The sound that tears out of my throat transcends language.
Mercer lifts his head slowly, gore dripping from his dark muzzle, eyes locked on mine with a cold calculation that forcesthe truth into place. The unease that never quite faded. The way his loyalty always felt measured. All things that only became evident when I brought home the people from Ashvale. I’d offered him the chance to leave here with the others—like Darran—and go with McNamara.
He stayed because he was exactly where his true allegiances needed him to be. On the inside.
A double agent.
We crash.
The impact rattles bone, bodies slamming hard enough to drive us into the snow as we tear at each other with vicious familiarity. We learned to fight on the same mats, under the same unforgiving expectations, our skills honed by the same years of training. We’d sparred as recently as last month, relearning each other’s faults. There’s no room for hesitation now. Only force traded back and forth as the air fills with the stench of dark magic and unfamiliar wolves.
He catches me off guard with a cheap shot. The strike sends me staggering, the blow cracking into my side and stealing my balance long enough for him to take advantage of the opening?—
A snarl cuts through the battle-bent tension.
Reddish-brown fur barrels in from my flank, hitting Mercer hard and tearing him off before he has the chance to do any real damage.
Canaan.
My second stands between us, shoulders squared, canines bared, stance locked as he issues the challenge to the traitor himself.
Any instinctive balking at the idea of giving over my kill to another wolf dies when the far tree line splits open.
Unfamiliar wolves and witches spill out as if the forest itself has birthed them. The McNamara Pack first, their movement as arrogant and sure as their Alpha’s, the members from the darkcoven—their spell work already wisping from their fingers into the green-tinged dusk.
The forest across from them stirs and then parts again.
Members of my pack, the dozens who were on patrol and didn’t get trapped by the flames, step forward.
They emerge in one measured line, Cerys at their head leading in her wolf form. The she-wolf’s stride is unhurried and absolute. There’s something about the way the she-wolf carries herself, the way my pack aligns at her back without sound. It’s a mirror of the Alpha she once followed, as if Lowri’s presence lingers like a ghost at Cerys’s shoulder now.
When she advances, they move with her. They hit the enemy like a tide, claws and teeth meeting fur and flesh, even as magic lashes out at them too.
Beasts crash together. Shoulders slam. Jaws lock. Their movements too quick to track, turning them into snarling shadows as blood is spilled and streaks bright across the white snow.
The mix of copper and the inky wrongness of Tanith’s coven’s magic fills the air, thick enough to choke on it. The witches whose magic is unable to keep pace with the speed of shifters are torn apart. But some of my wolves—their names I don’t yet know, names I will mourn and remember for their bravery when this is over—fall to the dark magic that shows no sign of slowing or strain.
Even as some fall, my pack stays strong. They continue to meet them step for step, forcing them back through the red churned snow.
Off to my right, Canaan has Mercer now, the two of them locked together just yards from the eerie green wall of flame. I’m about to step in, to help rip the throat out of the traitor quicker, when the pressure in the air shifts.
