But Korrak’s attention fractured in directions it couldn’t afford.
He dropped to one knee beside Finn, whose face had gone gray with blood loss. The younger shifter’s arm hung at an unnatural angle, bone visible through torn flesh.
“How bad?” Korrak demanded, already knowing the answer.
“Been better,” Finn gasped, managing a weak grin. “Been worse too.”
Another clan member—Yuki—stumbled over with her own injuries, pressing a torn piece of fabric against the gash on Finn’s arm. Her movements were efficient despite the blood streaming down her face.
“I can handle him, Alpha,” she said firmly. “Go.”
The word hit him like a gut punch.Go.Leave his wounded warriors. Abandon his duty as Alpha to chase after his mate.
But the bond pulsed again, sharp and urgent, carrying Winslet’s fear like poison through his veins. Bracken was probably dragging her away from the warehouse, putting distance and obstacles between them.
If the grizzly shifter got her behind locks and chains and miles of empty territory, Korrak might never reach her again.
Though he’d die trying.
“Alpha.”
The voice cut through his internal war like a blade. Axel stood before him, blood painting half his face but his blue eyes blazing with determination. Behind him, three other wounded warriors had formed a defensive line.
“You need to go,” Axel said, his tone carrying no room for argument. “Now.”
“I can’t leave you?—“
“We’ll hold,” another voice interrupted. Niko, barely able to stand but gripping a wicked-looking knife with steady hands. “We knew the risks when we followed you here.”
Finn’s bloodied fingers gripped Korrak’s sleeve with surprising strength.
“She’s your mate,” he snarled through gritted teeth, fury and desperation bleeding through his words. “We’ll live or die on our own feet. But if you don’t go after her right now, we all die for nothing.”
The words landed harder than any explosion.
Guilt ripped through Korrak’s chest, sharp and corrosive, but it drowned beneath the truth he couldn’t escape. The mate bond pulled at him like a physical chain, demanding he choose between duty and love.
This is what Bracken wanted. Split me in multiple directions and make every choice a failure.
But looking into the fierce, loyal faces of his warriors—his family—Korrak realized they’d already made the choice for him.
“Bring her home, Alpha,” Yuki said quietly.
Korrak forced himself to turn away from the wounded. Every Alpha instinct screamed that he was abandoning them, failing in his most basic duty as their leader.
But Winslet was his mate. His future. His heart walking around outside his body.
And he wouldn’t let Bracken take that away from him.
Korrak ignored the fire burning his territory, his wounded warriors, and the roars of battle erupting behind him. His focus locked onto one objective: save his mate.
As he raced toward the rear of the burning warehouse, two of Bracken’s men, their faces contorted with feral desperation, lunged from a nest of burning debris to his right. They moved with the chaotic frenzy of cornered animals, no strategy, just raw obstruction.
He didn’t slow.
He turned his momentum into a weapon. His forearm caught the first man across the throat in a crunch of cartilage, sending him choking into the snow. The second came in low, and Korrak drove his knee up into the man’s face. The man dropped like a sack of stones, unconscious before he hit the ground. Brutal. Efficient. An Alpha clearing a path to what was his.
Around him, his clan surged like a white tide. Even the wounded found their feet, their teeth, and their fury. Theymet Bracken’s remaining forces with a savagery that shook the frozen ground, buying him the seconds he needed.
