But he was losing.
I felt it through the thread between us — the rage cracking, something else bleeding through. Something desperate. Something that might have been loneliness, or grief, or the terrible weight of years spent holding a broken pack together.
For one moment, his eyes met mine.
And I saw him. Not the wolf. The man underneath. Buried so deep I could barely sense him, but there. Present.Aware.
Then the wolf surged back.
The growl that ripped from his throat was like nothing I'd heard before — deeper than thunder, louder than the wind. It echoed off the peaks and rolled across the plateau, and the four other wolves scattered, retreating to the edge of the clearing.
Cal scrambled to his feet, positioning himself in front of me again.
The large wolf didn't care.
He gathered himself. Muscles coiling. Weight shifting.
"Lumi," James said. His voice was too calm. The voice of someone who knew what was about to happen and was already calculating how to survive it. "When he moves, you run. Understand? You run and you don't look back."
"I can't—"
"Promise me."
The large wolf's eyes locked onto mine.
"James—"
The wolf lunged.
Chapter nine
The world became teeth and weight and pain.
The large wolf hit me like an avalanche. One moment I was standing; the next I was on my back in the snow, three hundred pounds of feral muscle pinning me down. His jaws snapped inches from my throat — once, twice — hot breath washing over my face, the stench of old blood filling my lungs.
I threw my arms up instinctively, trying to protect my neck. His teeth caught my forearm instead, tearing through my jacket, and I screamed.
Then James hit him.
My mate launched himself through the air, his body cracking and reforming mid-leap, human becoming wolf in a heartbeat of violent transformation. He slammed into the large wolf's side with enough force to knock them both sideways, and suddenly I could breathe again, the weight lifting off my chest—
But James didn't let go.
He clung to the alpha's back, teeth sinking into the scruff of his neck, trying to drag him away from me. The large wolf twisted, snarling, trying to throw James off. They rolled through the snow in a tangle of fur and fury, and I scrambled backward, clutching my bleeding arm—
The large wolf reared up.
James lost his grip, went flying, hit the ground hard. Before he could recover, the alpha was on top of me again — one massive paw slamming into my chest, pinning me down, his face inches from mine.
His eyes were wild. Golden and burning with rage.
James lunged.
He hit the large wolf from behind, his jaws clamping onto the alpha's hindquarters, and the impact drove all three of us together — the large wolf's weight crushing me into the snow, James's body pressed against the alpha's back, my hands trapped between them.
Contact.
All three of us. Touching.
