“No. Worse than rogues.” Rafe finally looked up, and his eyes were wet.
“I'm sorry,” I said. The words felt inadequate. Stupid. But they were all I had. “I'm sorry this happened to you. To them.”
Rafe nodded once. Couldn't speak.
Nate stepped forward, and before anyone could stop him, he walked into the circle and put his hand on Rafe's shoulder. The new wolf, offering comfort to the grieving stranger. Because that's who Nate was. That's who he'd always been.
“We'll find out who did this,” Nate said quietly. “We'll make them pay.”
Rafe looked at him. Something flickered behind his eyes. Gratitude, maybe. Or something else I couldn't name.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
That's when the ground started to move.
Gideon felt it first. His head snapped up, magic flaring at his fingertips, and he was shouting before the rest of us even understood what was happening.
“Get out of the circle now!”
Nate grabbed Rafe's arm, yanking him backward as the scorched earth began to crack and heave. I shifted without thinking, bones breaking and reforming in a rush of pain that had become as familiar as breathing. Beside me, Evan did the same, his wolf form erupting from human skin in a spray of torn fabric.
The bodies were moving.
Not like living things. Not like wolves waking from sleep. They moved like puppets, like corpses being lifted by invisible strings, jerking upright with motions that made my wolf want to howl and run and never stop running.
Their eyes were wrong. Glowing with sickly green light that had nothing to do with pack magic and everything to do with the corruption Gideon had warned us about.
“Zombie wolves,” Michael breathed. His silver blade was up, his stance steady despite the fear I could smell rolling off him. “They're using the bodies as weapons.”
“Not just the bodies.” Gideon's voice had gone hard. Cold. “The death energy stored here. Someone just activated it. Used it to animate what's left.”
The first zombie wolf lunged.
Evan intercepted it mid-lunge. My son's wolf form crashed into the corrupted thing with enough force to send them both tumbling across the clearing. Teeth and claws and the wet sound of flesh tearing, and for a horrible moment I couldn't tell who was winning.
Then Evan's jaws found the zombie wolf's throat and tore.
Black ichor sprayed instead of blood. The corrupted creature dissolved into shadow and rot, leaving nothing behind but the stench of dark magic.
More zombie wolves were rising. All of them, dragging themselves upright, turning toward us with those terrible glowing eyes. They didn't growl. Didn't snarl. Just moved with silent, terrible purpose.
I threw myself at the nearest one, a female whose human face I could still see underneath the corruption. She'd been beautiful once. Young. Now she was a weapon pointed at my pack.
My jaws closed on her shoulder, tore, and I had to force myself not to gag at the taste. Wrong. Everything about this was wrong. But there wasn't time for horror. Only action.
Rafe had shifted too. His wolf form was lean and dark, smaller than mine but fast, and he fought with a desperate fury that spoke of grief channeled into violence. He took down two zombie wolves in quick succession, moving through the carnagelike he'd been waiting for this. Like fighting gave him something to do with the rage he'd been carrying.
Michael held his ground at the edge of the clearing, silver blade flashing in the gray morning light. A zombie wolf lunged at him and he met it with a strike that would have made any warrior proud. The silver bit deep, and the creature screamed, actually screamed, before dissolving into nothing.
Gideon’s magic hit the nearest zombie wolf like a hammer, and the creature simply... stopped. Frozen in place for one heartbeat before it crumbled to dust.
“Nate!” Gideon called out. “With me! Channel through the earth! The forest wants to help, let it!”
Nate's hands were already glowing. Green light, wild and uncontrolled, but strong. So strong. He slammed his palms against the ground and the earth responded.
Roots burst from the soil. Thick, grasping, alive with magic that smelled like spring rain and growing things. They wrapped around the nearest zombie wolves, holding them in place, and I watched something like peace cross the corrupted faces before the roots pulled them down. Back into the earth. Back where they belonged.
“That's it!” Gideon's voice was fierce with approval. “Don't fight the corruption. Return it. Give the dead back to the soil!”
