He met my charge with casual brutality, claws raking across my ribs as he twisted away from my attack. Pain flared hot and bright, but I used the momentum to spin and snap at his hind leg, teeth finding fur but not the flesh beneath.
“Too slow,” he taunted, and then the shift took him.
The transformation was nothing like mine—no careful control, no balance between human and beast. Calder's change was violent and wrong, bones snapping with wet sounds that echoed off the stone walls, muscle and sinew reshaping themselves into something that belonged in nightmares rather than nature.
When it was finished, the thing that had been Calder Voss stood before me like a monument to corrupted power. Easily twice the size of any normal wolf, scarred hide stretched over a frame that defied biology, eyes that held no trace of the man who'd spoken moments before. This wasn't an Alpha who'd found balance with his wolf. This was something that had devoured its human half entirely.
He threw back his massive head and howled, the sound scraping against my eardrums like claws on stone. No words now, no taunts or threats. Just pure animal fury given voice and form.
We came together in a clash of fur and fangs, rolling across ground that had been sacred until we painted it with violence. For a few minutes, we were evenly matched despite the size difference. My smaller frame meant speed where he had strength, agility where he had mass. I managed to open a line across his shoulder while he returned the favor by nearly taking my ear off with claws that could have split tree trunks.
But gradually, inevitably, his advantages began to tell. Each impact from his massive body wore me down, made my responses slower, my attacks less coordinated. He drove me backward with relentless pressure, backing me toward the cliff face that bordered the clearing's eastern edge.
A snarl that might have been laughter rumbled from his chest as he landed a blow that sent me stumbling dangerously close to the drop. The edge loomed behind me, promising a fall that would mean broken bones at best.
But I couldn't retreat any further. Wouldn't retreat, because retreating meant accepting that I wasn't strong enough to protect the people I loved.
Calder's final charge came with all the force of a freight train, massive body slamming into mine with enough impact to lift me off my feet. His teeth sank into my shoulder, finding the joint where claw and fang could do maximum damage, and then he hurled me backward.
I clawed at the cliff's edge as gravity tried to claim me, paws scrambling for purchase on stone that crumbled under my weight. The abyss yawned below, promising an end to everything before I'd had a chance to prove I was worthy of the authority I'd inherited.
Calder loomed above me, satisfaction radiating from every line of his corrupted form. He pressed a massive paw down on my bloodied claws, applying pressure until bones ground together and my grip began to slip.
My hold on the cliff face failed.
For one terrifying moment, I was falling, wind rushing past my ears as the ground rushed up to meet me. My wolf howled in desperation, not for myself but for everyone I was leaving behind. Nate would blame himself. Dad would carry this failure forever. The pack would fracture without leadership.
But the impact never came.
Instead, a sharp whistle cut through the night air, followed immediately by the thud of an arrow embedding itself in stone inches from Calder's paw. He snarled, massive head snapping up toward the treeline with fury that made the very air recoil.
At the edge of the clearing, silhouetted against moonlight that made him look like something out of legend, stood Nate. His bow was drawn, another arrow nocked and ready, hands steady despite the fear I could smell on him from fifty yards away.
Behind him, golden eyes blazed in the darkness as the Evernight Pack emerged from the forest like avenging angels made of fur and righteous fury. Jonah's wolf paced like liquid moonlight, while Alaric's massive form bristled with barely contained violence.
Calder's howl of rage shattered the night, but for the first time since this fight began, it carried a note that sounded suspiciously like fear.
“You don't get to take him,” Nate said, voice carrying across the clearing with surprising steadiness. “Not tonight. Not ever.”
Pride swelled in my chest alongside terror, because this was what love looked like when it put on armor. This was what choosing family meant when family came with claws and fangs and the willingness to face down monsters that could tear you apart.
Calder roared, launching himself at the pack with fury that transcended rational thought. But they were ready for him, had probably been tracking me since the moment I'd left the loft.
I hauled myself up over the cliff's edge, muscles screaming in protest as adrenaline gave me strength I shouldn't have possessed. Blood soaked my chest from wounds that would need attention soon, but pain was a luxury I couldn't afford.
The pack had come for me. Had risked everything to save someone who'd been stupid enough to think he could handle this alone.
I wouldn't let their sacrifice be wasted.
But even as I forced myself upright, even as I prepared to throw myself back into the fight, shadows rippled at the treeline. Dozens of them, flowing out of the forest like liquid darkness given form and hunger.
Rogues. More than I'd ever seen in one place, moving with coordinated precision that spoke of careful planning and strategic thinking.
Calder's howl split the night, rich with savage triumph that made my blood run cold. It was the sound of a predator who'd finally cornered his prey, who'd orchestrated this moment down to the last detail.
The clearing erupted into chaos as rogues swarmed from every direction, their stench filling the air with the reek of madness and death. My own howl rose in response—not defeat, but defiance. A call that rang through the forest like thunder, carrying pack bonds and desperate need across miles of moonlit pine.
Come to me.
