The bond slammed into place.
It wasn't like anything I'd felt before. Not the gentle warmth of James's bond, not the sharp clarity of Cal's, not even the complicated tangle of Neal's. This was violence — a hook sinking into my chest, barbed and brutal, tearing through whatever defenses I had and finding something vital underneath.
I screamed.
The large wolf screamed too — or the wolf equivalent of it, a howl that was half fury and half agony, ripped from somewhere deep inside him. He felt it. He felt the bond forming, felt me inside, felt the connection that neither of us had chosen taking root whether we wanted it or not.
And hehatedit.
His rejection hit me like a physical blow. Rage and terror and desperate denial, all of it pouring through the bond in a flood that made my vision white out. He was fighting it — clawing at the thread between us.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. The pain was everywhere — my arm where he'd bitten me, my chest where his weight was crushing me, my head where his rejection was tearing through our connection like broken glass.
Then Neal was there.
I didn't see him move. Just felt the impact as he slammed the sedative into the large wolf's side — once, twice, emptying everything he had. The alpha snarled, twisted, tried to turn on this new threat—
But the drugs were already taking hold.
His movements slowed. His weight shifted, becoming heavier, less controlled. The golden eyes that had been burning with fury started to dim.
Through the bond, I felt him fighting it. Fighting the sedatives, fighting the connection, fighting everything with the same desperate ferocity that had kept him alive for years.
But he was losing.
His head dropped. His legs buckled.
He collapsed on top of me.
For one horrible moment, I couldn't move. Three hundred pounds of unconscious wolf pinning me to the frozen ground, blood soaking through my jacket, the bond between us pulsing with his rage even through the sedation.
Then James was there — human again, hauling the massive body off me. Neal grabbed my hands, pulled me upright, and I stood swaying in the wind while the world spun around me.
"Let me see." Neal's voice was sharp. Professional. He was already reaching for my arm, peeling back the torn fabric ofmy jacket to examine the bite. "It's deep. You're going to need stitches."
"Later." I pulled away from him, looking around the plateau. "The others. Where are the others?"
The four smaller wolves hadn't fled.
They stood at the edge of the clearing, huddled together, watching with those empty eyes. Without their alpha, they seemed lost. Uncertain. The growling had stopped; now they just stared, waiting for someone to tell them what to do.
Cal approached them slowly.
He was limping — the alpha's blow had done more damage than I'd realized — but he moved with purpose. Making sounds I couldn't interpret. Wolf-language. Pack-language. Telling them something I couldn't understand.
One by one, the smaller wolves lowered their heads.
"They're deferring to him," Neal said quietly, watching. "Without the alpha conscious, they're looking for the next strongest pack member."
"Will they let us help them?"
"I think so. They're too far gone to resist much. And Cal is..." He paused. "Cal is their brother. That still means something, even through the feral darkness."
James had shifted back to wolf — easier to work in that form, I suspected. He circled the unconscious alpha, keeping watch, his posture tense with readiness.
Through our bond, I felt his pain. The wounds from the fight. But also his fear — for me, for what had just happened, for the bond that had slammed into place without warning.
The extraction was a nightmare.
