He shifted back to his human form and glanced at me, breath ragged. “I’m fine.”
It was a lie.
He knew it. I knew it.
Elias knew it too. He cut across the yard in two bounding strides, slammed into the feral that had caused it, and tore its throat out with brutal force. Then he shifted back to human in a blink and grabbed Bishop’s arm.
“Get back,” Elias ordered.
Bishop bristled. “No.”
Elias’s eyes flashed. “That wasn’t a request.”
Bishop’s jaw clenched, but he obeyed, limping back toward Eamon’s position. Eamon caught him, immediately pressing his hands to the wound, expression rapt with concern.
“We’re losing too many people,” Clara said hoarsely, her injured arm cradled tight to her chest as she continued firing one-handed. “We can’t keep this up.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Exhaustion was beginning to weigh heavily on the Watch as well as us. Even Griff’s movements, brutal and unstoppable moments earlier, had begun to slow. Bishop’s injured shoulder was slowing him, forcing him to compensate. Eamon moved constantly behind us, shouting orders, dragging wounded clear, hands red to the wrists. Elias and Nox were still moving strong, but they were starting to breathe hard.
Another feral slammed into the line, driving two people backward. Someone went down hard, crying out, and for a terrifying moment I thought that we were going to lose.
Then a series of howls broke through the night.
Shapes burst from the tree line at a dead run, moving with terrifying speed and purpose. Massive wolves poured into the moonlight, coats gleaming silver, black, brown, and white under the stars, eyes bright with awareness instead of madness.
It was Zara’s pack.
Magnus hit first.
His great silver-gray wolf form slammed into the flank of the feral wave like a landslide, jaws snapping shut around a feral’s neck with decisive finality. He didn’t snarl, didn’t hesitate. He killed it, then surged forward again, breaking the momentum of the oncoming mass by sheer force of will.
Tobias followed close behind him, darker coated and leaner, moving with a methodical calm. Where Magnus was overwhelming power, Tobias was control, cutting off angles, herding ferals away from the human line, and snapping legs and shoulders to slow them down so they could slaughter them.
Callum’s gray wolf form darted through the chaos like a missile with a grin, nipping, tripping, slamming into ferals from unexpected angles and sending them sprawling into each other. Then he shifted into his human form. “Miss me, you ugly bastards?” His voice rang out mid-shift, bright and reckless.
Thorne and Killian flanked them, darker shapes cutting through the edges. Thorne fought hard, his pale white coat streaked with blood as he held ground and refused to give it back. Killian’s reddish-brown form moved more quietly, almost like a shadow that appeared at a feral’s throat and vanished just as fast.
Then more howls rang out.
Sera’s pack surged in from the opposite side of the yard, hitting the ferals from behind before they could regroup.
Logan’s wolf form, huge and black, plowed straight into the densest knot of ferals with a furious snarl, tearing one down and hurling another aside like it weighed nothing. He fought fiercely, rage sharpened into purpose.
Aidan flanked him, lighter and faster, darting in to finish what Logan started, his movements quick and ruthless. Declan barreled in next, massive and relentless, his broad dark brown wolf form crashing into ferals and pinning them so others could strike cleanly.
Jamie moved with surprising agility for his size, eyes bright and focused, protecting Aidan’s blind side. And Edward fought like a blade given fur, every movement economical, every kill intentional.
Magnus roared.
Elias surged forward beside them, his midnight-dark wolf weaving seamlessly into Magnus’s advance. Griff followed, the two of them forming a brutal spearhead that drove straight through the center of the feral mass. Bishop, wounded but burning with determination, shifted again and joined the flanks, snapping and clawing to keep ferals from regrouping.
The tide had turned, and I felt it in my bones.
I sprinted forward, knife flashing. A feral lunged at me and I sidestepped, slamming my knife into its shoulder and driving it down into the dirt. Another came from my left and I ducked under its snapping jaws, slashing across its hamstring and spinning away as it collapsed in a screaming heap.
The ferals were still dangerous, but without cohesion, without direction, they were nothing but broken bodies and brains reacting on instinct. They snapped at each other. They hesitated. Some tried to flee back into the trees and were cut down before they could escape.
