Sageand I burst through the forest as we ran blindly, away from the haunting howl of Sawyer’s voice. I felt him shut down inside of our bond.
He went completely numb and it killed me.
‘I’ll be right back,’I kept saying over and over, mostly to assuage my own guilt.
He stopped responding, but I knew he had a war to deal with.
“We need to be careful not to step into Ithaki land,” I told Sage as I leapt over a fallen log. There was a visible line on the ground made of crushed blue stones, and I hoped we were on the right side of it. I was running away from Waterfall Mountain, which I knew to be Ithaki land, and toward the direction Astra had run when we’d said goodbye.
Sage was in wolf form behind me, but I was running as a human. For now. My wolf was begging to come out, but I still wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. I wanted to have a good first impression with the Paladin people, and I didn’t want to roll up to their homelands and be like,Yo, I’m your alpha and I need ten thousand men, and I’m also a split shifter. Everything is fine, nothing to see here.
Wolf Angel is what Arrow had called what I was.
Maybe they would be cool with it … me, my powers, the fact that I was about to ask a very big favor…
‘Alpha?’Astra’s voice suddenly boomed in my mind and I stopped dead, catching my breath. I didn’t want to run too fast and lose Sage, so I wasn’t using my super speed powers.
‘Astra! Where are you?’I spun around, scanning the dark forest. I felt her. It was hard to explain, but I knew she was near. My body thrummed with power the deeper we stepped into this land.
Pack, my wolf chanted, excited at the prospect of seeing Astra. I’d sort of mentally glossed over the fact that I’d bitten her and claimed her as my pack member. But now I was completely confronted with it.
‘Alpha! You came home!’Her jubilation spread through my limbs until a bubble of laughter burst from my chest. Sage looked at me like I’d gone mad as I ran in the direction that I felt Astra.
‘I need to speak to you, and Arrow and … everyone,’I told her.
My wolf was beyond excited to be here, but I was tempering that excitement and focusing on the goal.
I needed a couple thousand warriors by morning. I’d promised Sawyer and Iwouldcome through.
“Alpha!” Astra’s excited scream ripped through the dark night as Sage and I altered course to follow the noise.
Suddenly twigs snapped all around us in a circle, and floodlights turned on. We both froze. Astra burst from the trees, grinning just as over a dozen warriors, all naked but for a suede junk cover, stepped out with bows and arrows, spears, and knives. Rich blue paint streaked down their cheeks in thin lines, and they looked absolutely one hundred percent ready to kill us both.
Sage’s head snapped to me and I swallowed hard.
“Alpha!” Astra threw herself in my arms as I embraced her, wrapping my arms around her thin form and ignoring the twelve angry men glaring at me. The earth vibrated under my feet and my wolf pounded against my chest, begging to be freed.
“She came!” Astra pulled away, pushing her brown hair from her face as she grinned at the armed men. “Praise the Father, she came like I said she would!”
The men didn’t lower their weapons, they simply glared at me with disdain, nostrils flaring. “City wolf,” one of them growled. “Go back home. You’re not welcome here.”
I cleared my throat nervously. “Actually, if I could speak to Arrow—”
“Go home.” Arrow stepped out from behind the line of men and the hurt in his voice caused a frown to pull at my lips. “We don’t want any more of yourcharity.”
So that’s what this was about. I saved their lives with food and they were acting like dicks over it? Astra spun, crossing her arms over her chest as if they’d pierced her with their nasty words. “What’s the matter with you?” she shouted, her voice shaking. “This is our alpha! She’s come to save us. She’ll heal the landandour people.”
I swallowed hard as Sage’s gaze flicked to mine, wide-eyed.
One of the men, holding a knife, lowered it to his side and stepped out from the trees, deeper into the floodlights. Pale light and shadows danced across his perfectly toned body as I met his hardened gaze. He looked about twenty-five years old, and had a scar running from the bottom of his eye to his lip.
“Is that right? Are you here to save us like my brother and Astra say?” He tipped his head to Arrow, who promptly looked down at his feet. “Or are you just a witch who has tricked everyone?”
I recoiled at his accusation. I wasn’t expecting this frosty reception. “I … I’m not a witch. I came because I need help. The city wolves are at war, and obviously I’ll help you in return, if—”
Every single warrior burst into laughter then, and I heard even more voices, men and women, from deeper in the tree line behind the bright lights.
Fuck.
