Chapter 35
Wolfe
Consciousness slammed backinto me like a fist.
Not a gentle awakening.
Not a sluggish drift.
A violent, jarring snap.
My wolf had roared inside my skull, furious and confused, and it took me a full second to realize I was flat on my back in the dirt with Killian sprawled beside me and Diesel face-down as if a tree had fallen on him.
“What—”
Killian shot upright, eyes wide and murderous. “Rowen,” he hissed.
My head throbbed, and my limbs felt heavy—too heavy, as if something had pressed me into the ground and kept me there. Not something.
Someone.
“The druid,” Diesel snarled, pushing himself upright like a man resurrected and already ready to kill again. “They dosed us. I felt it hit right before I—” His eyessnapped to mine. Realization hit him like lightning. “Oh hell no,” Diesel growled. “They didn’t.”
But they had.
Rowen’s scent was fresh. Her trail was recent and led away from us. My pulse raced. I sprang to my feet so quickly the world blurred. “Where are they?”
Cody skidded down the slope toward us, breathless. “Gone. All three. Rowen. Thalia. Adair. They shifted and left fast.”
A sound tore from my throat—not a roar, not a howl—something low, deadly, and barely human. “They hunted him,” I said.
Killian nodded grimly. “Axel.”
Of course it was Axel. Rowen knew what we would’ve done. She knew exactly how far we were willing to go, and she stopped us in the only way she could.
“Druid.” Diesel spat on the ground. “I’m going to skin that robe-wearing menace alive.”
“After,” I growled. “After we get to Rowen and the others.”
I shifted mid-stride, and my wolf hit the forest floor running, rage blazing through me in a straight, deadly line. Rowen’s scent cut through the trees—sharp, determined, furious. The other two trailed beside her. They hadn’t tried to hide it; they’d been so focused on tracking him that they left themselves exposed.
What if he’d circled them, come up behind them unawares? I ran faster.
We ran for hours, their scents like neon arrows guiding us. I didn’t really pay attention to where we were, just that we were closing in on them. Then I heard the snarls andsounds of a fight in the distance. Beneath that, I caught a scent I knew too well—blood.
I pushed even harder. Branches cracked beneath my paws. My breath burst out of me. The forest blurred past in streaks of shadow and moonlight.
We slowed as we approached.
“On my command,” I told them softly.
They were in a small pocket of woodland and stone. Thalia and Adair were shifting back and forth,healing.
I shifted without thinking, landing in human form as I watched them. And behind them—Axel.
Dead.
His body was torn open in a dozen places, blood soaking the earth, throat ripped clean out. A kill done fast, efficiently, by wolves who didn’t hesitate.
