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She gasped as it collided with the snarling beasts.

The air erupted with light and reverberation as aetheric gold exploded on contact, not blood, but radiance, tearing the wolves into motes of dissolving starlight.

Talons met canines. Fangs were smashed. Skulls ripped open, ruptured into chaff.

The sound was all crackling energy and wind and unholy wrath.

She sat, frozen, her mouth parted in soft gasps as one by one, her hunters vanished into gilded dust.

Their forms broken apart, scattered like luminous leaves in a storm.

Gone.

All of them.

Except forhim.

He stood above her, massive and glowing, still cloaked in amethyst-amber fury.

She blinked as she took him in.

He was glistening.

An incandescence shimmered off his dark mauve, sable, and golden pelage, and moonlight caught in wrathful lines along his body like armor forged from vengeance and starlight.

He was a beast, so tall and muscled that his wraith-like silhouette blocked all view of the forest beyond.

He gazed down at her unbowed from the fight, his fur gleaming, not even panting.

He stepped toward her.

She flinched, but his energy gave off no threat.

Only warmth, safety, and security.

He lowered himself to one knee as if in supplication to her.

His massive wolf head tilted as he bent close, nudging her.

An uncontrollable urge to touch him came over her, so she did.

The instant her hand stroked between his ears, a wave of his aetheric force, in glowing bands of violet gold electric charge, encircled her.

Her torn skin healed. Her ankle knitted together. The pain slipped away like it had never been.

She gazed into his eyes, glowing and containing the wild, starry hues of distant galaxies, and her entire soul lurched.

He helped her to her feet, his giant paw wrapping around her slight hand.

Their gazes still locked, she found the breath inside her to thank him.

‘Sante.’

He raised his chin in acknowledgment.

However, the second he released her from his grasp, she fled.

Not because she was afraid of him, but because she was overwhelmed by the encounter, and needed to put space and air between them.