A hand grabs my back and tosses me into the air. I twirl and land on my feet, lips peeling back. Crouching low, I prepare to spring on my next victim when a sharp yelp pierces my ears.
The tether in my chest snaps painfully tight. I feel it in my toes.
The world blurs as I turn in that direction. I can’t see anything through the chaos, can only feel the desperate pull—hispull.
I don’t remember deciding to move. One heartbeat I’m crouched and ready, the next I’m running in the opposite direction, my paws kicking upmud and blood. I fly through the battle zone, dodging smoke and limbs and boots with every step. The taste of blood is still hot on my tongue, my vision red.
My body knows before my brain does: my mate is in trouble.
Something inside me snaps the moment I see them. Every last shred of mercy evaporates.
Rip has Rowen in his arms, squeezing him and lifting him off the ground like a doll. Rowen’s paws thrash uselessly. The sounds he makes aren’t fierce—they’re full of pain. He’s struggling to breathe.
The fox in me takes complete control.
I launch myself at them, hitting Rip’s back so hard we tumble forward, fur and limbs tangling. He rolls with it, stronger than I expected. I sink my teeth into his arm and taste blood—foul and corrupted.
Tossing Rowen aside, Rip slams me down, eyes burning with rage.
I twist and bite behind his knee, feeling the slimy give of tendon between my teeth. He grabs my scruff and hurls me aside like a toy. I skid across the ground, dirt and rock cutting into my skin.
“Who are you?” Rip sneers, head cocked to the side. His lethal eyes narrow as we circle each other.
Ah, so he didn’t know I was a half-blood.Good.
Heat flares on my shoulder, so intense I nearly yelp. I sense light breaking out through my fur, casting an eerie red glow across the ground.
Rip shakes his head. “No. That’s not—you weren’t a shifter!”
I circle him, teeth bared.
Rip’s fangs flash white in the moonlight. He’s staring at me in disbelief and loathing. Like he’s trying to figure out how he missed that I have shifter blood.
When I snap at him, he laughs. “You think you can defeat me,Tobias?”
I used to flinch every time he said my name at the club, wishing I had never met him. Now it barely fazes me. This man has no power over me. Not anymore.
I snarl.
“You think that little body can stop me?”
I lunge again, low to the ground this time. His steel-toed boot sends me flying. I hit a fallen wolf and scramble back up. My lungs heave, and pain explodes in my ribs. But as we lock eyes again, the world narrows to only him. His dangerous smirk, the blood on his mouth that smells too much like Rowen, Rowen’s limp form behind him.
Something hot ignites under my skin. Not fire. Not magic. But an all-consuming rage.
The air warps around me, distorting everything. I feel it in my bones—the way he pulls at the bond connecting us. I can no longer hear him in my head. Can no longer feel him, not in the way he’s tortured me for days.
But clearly, he still has some control. My feet move forward without my command.
I fight it, pushing back at the force with every ounce of strength in me. It only makes him try harder. He seems genuinely confused, like I should be rolling over for a belly rub or something.
Doesn’t he get it? I’mnotthat weak little human anymore. I never was.
I’m a half-blood.
I’m not someone he can feed from anymore. Someone he can control or manipulate. And I’mdoneplaying his games.
He won’t ever hurt me again. Or my family.
