Faster than he should have been able to, corruption magic lending him speed and strength that didn't belong to any wolf. His transformation was wrong. Bigger than natural, stretched by dark craft until he was more monster than animal. Corruption magic crackled across fur that had gone black as rot, and his eyes burned with the same green fire as Calder's.
The pack erupted behind me.
Wolves surged forward as one, rage made manifest, teeth and claws and the absolute certainty that pack protected pack no matter the cost. I shifted mid-lunge, felt bones crack and reform in a blur of pain and fury, and my wolf's jaws found Rafe's shoulder before he could reach Michael.
He twisted, stronger than he should be. His own monstrous form threw me off with enough force to crack ribs, and I hit the ground rolling.
Calder was on me before I could recover.
Dead weight slamming into my side, claws tearing through fur and flesh, that terrible empty smile fixed on my face as he tried to rip out my throat. I caught his wrist in my jaws, bit down until bone cracked, but he didn't stop. Didn't flinch. Just kept pressing forward with strength that didn't care about pain.
Evan hit Calder from the side, gray wolf slamming into the resurrected Alpha with brutal efficiency. They collided likestorms, my son fighting something that had already died once and didn't seem bothered by the prospect of dying again.
But Rafe was free now. And he was heading for Michael.
I scrambled to intercept, but the corrupted wolves were everywhere. Jonah and Sienna fought back to back, holding a line against creatures that used to be wolves and were now something else entirely. Mason went down under three of them, and I heard him howl with pain before Alaric tore them off him.
Michael had pushed himself upright, blood streaming from where he'd hit the ground, but his hands were glowing. Silver-green light that said the moon magic was responding to threat, building toward something even he couldn't control.
“The ritual circle!” he shouted. “We have to break it! Calder's tied to it!”
He was right. I could see it now. Threads of dark magic connecting Calder to the carved patterns, feeding him power, keeping him animated. Break the circle and we might be able to end him again.
Rafe's jaws closed on my shoulder before I could move.
Pain exploded through my system, white-hot and wrong. I felt corruption trying to seep into the wound, felt it fighting against pack magic that saidAlpha, protected, mine.I twisted, got my own teeth around his throat, and bit down with everything I had.
Blood filled my mouth. Wrong blood. Tainted with magic that made my tongue burn.
Rafe howled. A sound of pain and rage and something that might have been grief, buried so deep under corruption that it barely registered.
And for just a second, his grip loosened.
I saw his eyes. His real eyes, underneath the green fire and the empty calculation. I saw the wolf he might have been, ifSilas hadn't found him. If loneliness hadn't made him desperate enough to become a weapon.
Then the moment passed, and he was attacking again, and there was no more time for mercy or understanding or any of the things that might have saved him if we'd had them sooner.
Then Gideon appeared at the clearing's edge.
The witch looked like he'd run miles, breathing hard, clothes torn, but his hands glowed with golden light that cut through corruption like sunlight through fog. He carried something. A leather bag I recognized, full of ward-work tools and binding materials. And his expression was grim.
“Daniel!” he shouted. “Hold them off. I can reverse the ritual. But I need time!”
Time. In a battle where every second meant blood and broken bones and the risk of losing pack. Where a resurrected Alpha commanded an army of the dead and Rafe fought with the desperate fury of someone who had nothing left to lose.
But it was what we had.
“You heard him!” I shifted back just long enough to shout. “Hold the line! Give Gideon time!”
The pack rallied, forming a defensive perimeter around the witch as he worked. Evan and I split our focus, Evan keeping Calder occupied while I faced Rafe. Father and son, Alpha and heir, fighting on two fronts because that's what the moment demanded.
Jonah and Sienna harried the corrupted wolves, keeping them off-balance, while Mason and Alaric broke ward stones with methodical efficiency. Every stone that shattered made Calder stumble, made the green fire in his eyes flicker.
And in the center of it all, Nate knelt in blood and corruption magic, conscious now, watching with eyes that said he understood exactly what was at stake. His blood had brought Calder back. Maybe his blood could send him back to the grave.
We just had to hold long enough for Gideon to finish.
Just had to survive what came next.
