The snarl that’d been pulling at his lips dropped, glowing green eyes finding mine. In an instant, he shifted, the rain washing away the remnants of the blood once darkening his fur.
“What did you say?” he asked, not so much angry, but rather…surprised.
I remembered what the bear shifter said. He had risked everything to get him out for a reason. A reason that could serve us now in protecting our mate.
“Be their Alpha, and you take a portion of his army,” I said, swinging hard at an approaching Fae and cutting the bastard down from the air. “You could force them all to submit to you now and save them from what will come.”
The male beside me visibly shuddered, but he didn’t deny my suggestion. He was considering it as he tore his gaze from me to stare out over the battle raging around us.
The seed has been planted, I thought, swinging hard against a traitor, smiling as the slimy little Sloth demon fell in a heap.It is up to him to claim his pack.
His instincts would likely be telling him to defer to his mate. The real Alpha of their relationship. Between them, she had all the power—the true strength to rule.
But these werehisbeasts. The ones who were always meant to make up his pack. Our glorious mate had enough to concern herself with. She didn’t have the time to work with a new pack as their Alpha.
But he did.
With one last look at me, the male shifted again, but instead of joining the fight, he howled.
The sound rang out through the battlefield, a call to those who had nothing. A warning to yield to an Alpha.
The last time I witnessed something like this, it was on the fields of the Old World when a female Alpha rose from the ashes of her old pack to unite the ones at war. One of the few times I’d bothered leaving the Underworld, simply to observe the battle—to lay witness to all the death coming for me. It had been an exquisite sight to bear witness to.
And now, the loud thrum of battle quietened as the wolf called upon his fellow beasts, one Alpha for the many untethered souls fighting around us.
Shifters yearned for the community packs offered. They couldn’t survive without it. And these shifters, who had been trapped in cages, forced to change with no way to return to their mortal forms, were no different.
They yearned for the stability an Alpha could offer them.
“How’d you know that would work?” the red-headed mage asked, stilling as we watched wolves and bears and panthers fight the natural call of submission, as lions stumbled into bows and hawks dipped, searching for perch.
I barely looked at the male as I shrugged. “I didn’t,” I replied honestly. “But I’ve spent enough time walking the realms to know certain things. And I can read situations quite well.”
“Cyrus said something, didn’t he?” the mage questioned, eyeing me. He was trying to pull apart my words, though I just shook my head.
“He didn’t have to,” I said. “It was clear to me from the beginning that the wolf had to have some power over the other caged shifters, otherwise he would have been left to rot alongside our friend over there.”
My gaze cut to the bear shifter in question. Perhaps the natural second to the wolf’s Alpha. A worthy Beta in the making.
“Yeah,” the mage muttered. “That makes sense.”
One by one, the beasts crept forward, inching away from the battle and the control of their handlers. Thankfully, our soldiers knew better than to attack the shifters directly and focused their rage on the rest ofhisarmy.
Soon enough, his force would be thinned. We were overpowering him.
And we would win this war.
101
Maeve
Rain watered down the blood filling my mouth, washing away the rotten taste as I tilted my face to the sky. The dark, tumultuous clouds churned with the fury of the storm and my mate’s silent battle with our enemy. As I lowered my eyes to her, I wished I could enter the strange, protective bubble that’d formed around them. I wanted to rip Dante away from her myself. Tear his throat out for all the death and harm he’d caused to not just her—but to us all.
Instead, I ripped into the chest of a passing Fae soldier and tore out his still beating heart, grimacing as I watched him crumble to slick ground and get trampled on by a stumbling bear. The heart, hot and limp between my fingers, fell, and I stomped on it before stalking towards the ring of mates moving to surround Ivy.
As soon as Orion saw me, a breath fell from his lips. “They are getting bold,” he stated, the sword made of shadow forming in his hands once more. Beside him, Adrian replaced the clip of bullets in his gun. “And Ivy is weakening.”
I didn’t need to ask how he knew, because I felt it when I checked in with our bond. I didn’t even have time to feel relief over finally having this connection to her again. Instead, her fear filtered down it, heavy and potent, and with it came the draining of herpower.
