Page 8 of A Gathering Storm (Tides of Fate)

JAX

The storm drives needles of rain into my scarred face as I climb the cliff path, each step deliberate, controlled.

Lightning fractures the sky, illuminating the gathering ahead—five figures standing like standing stones against the tempest. My wolf prowls beneath my skin, hackles raised, sensing the wrongness of this assembly.

Declan. Grayson. Kian. Rafe. And him—the dragon who left us to burn.

Thunder masks my approach until I'm close enough to smell them all: Declan's pine-and-iron alpha scent tinged with exhaustion.

Grayson's salt-cedar steadiness. Kian's restless tiger musk.

Rafe's shadow-and-silk danger. And Finn—brine and ozone and something ancient that makes my wolf bare its teeth.

"This is madness, Declan." My voice cuts through the storm, rough as gravel over broken glass.

They turn as one, and I let them see what I've become—scarred, brutal, built from betrayal.

The white lines crossing my throat and jaw gleam in the lightning's flash.

"A panther who deals with cartels, a tiger exile, and a myth that abandoned us when we needed him most? "

Declan's gray eyes—so like mine before the rage consumed them—narrow. "Jax...”

"These aren't brothers." I gesture at the unlikely alliance, rain streaming down my arm. "They're liabilities waiting to put knives in our backs."

Rafe shifts slightly, a predator's economy of movement. His golden eyes glitter with amusement. "Charming. Does he bark on command too?"

My wolf surges forward, and I let it show in the way my muscles coil. "Watch your tongue, cat, or I'll tear it out."

"Try." Rafe's smile is all teeth and promise.

"Enough." Declan's alpha command ripples through the air, but I'm past caring about hierarchy.

"No, not enough." I round on him, years of following orders that led to blood and betrayal boiling over. "You want to trust them? Fine. But don't expect me to pretend this ends any way but badly."

Finn's aquamarine eyes flash with something older than irritation. When he speaks, his voice carries the weight of centuries. "Your paranoia serves no one, wolf. Some wounds are self-inflicted."

The words hit like claws across old scars. My vision goes red at the edges.

"Don't lecture me about wounds, sea-snake.

" I lunge forward, ready to test whether dragon scales can withstand wolf fury.

"Where were you when the Blackwater pack turned traitor?

When Graeme tore Elena's throat out in front of her cubs?

When we burned our own dead because you were too busy mourning yours? "

Declan's iron grip catches my shoulder, holding me back with pure alpha strength. But I see the flash of pain in Finn's eyes before they go cold as winter seas.

"I was learning what happens when dragons lose control," Finn says quietly. "Would you have preferred I stayed and turned Stormhaven to glass?"

"I would have preferred you fought." The words tear from my throat. "We needed you. The packs needed...”

"The packs needed to learn they couldn't rely on dragon-fire to solve their problems." Finn's form shifts slightly, scales rippling beneath his skin like moonlight on water. "Just as you need to learn that paranoia is a cage you lock from the inside."

Grayson rumbles low, a bear's warning. "Both of you, stand down. This achieves nothing."

"Nothing?" I whirl on him. "This alliance achieves nothing. Declan's desperation has him grasping at shadows and myths."

Kian laughs, sharp and bitter. "Pot, meet kettle. At least we're honest about being damaged goods."

"Honest?" My laugh is darker than his. "You're a tiger who fled his own clan. Rafe profits from the chaos that tears us apart. Grayson hides in his boat pretending the sea will protect him. And Finn...”

The crack of rifle fire cuts through my tirade.

A line of fire traces across my shoulder—silver bullet, grazing but not embedding. My wolf roars to the surface as armed figures emerge from the treeline. Military precision. Professional movements. The kind of mercenaries who know exactly what they're hunting.

"Down!" Declan's command comes a heartbeat before the world explodes into violence.

I don't think. I move.

My wolf tears free in a rush of fury and rain-slicked fur. The first mercenary doesn't see me coming—I'm on him before he can swing his rifle around, jaws crushing his throat in a spray of copper and cordite. His body armor means nothing when I find the gaps, the soft places where life bleeds out.

Gunfire erupts around me. Through the chaos, I catch glimpses of the others: Grayson in bear form, massive and unstoppable, batting soldiers aside like toys.

Kian, still human but moving with tiger grace, using stolen knives with surgical precision.

Rafe melting through shadows, appearing behind targets with panther silence.

And Finn—Christ, Finn becomes something torn straight from nightmares and legend, a full dragon blazing with fury. He moves with liquid speed, and every step sears the ground until nothing is left but scorched earth.

A mercenary swings toward Declan's exposed flank. Without hesitation, I launch myself between them, taking the silver rounds meant for my alpha. The bullets burn like brands, but I've been burned before. My jaws find the shooter's arm, tearing through Kevlar and flesh until he's screaming.

Declan's wolf joins mine, and for a moment we move as one unit—the synchronization we'd perfected before trust became a luxury we couldn't afford. He goes low, I go high. He herds, I strike. The old patterns that kept us alive through dozens of battles.

"Behind you!" Kian's shout has me spinning to catch another mercenary's rifle in my jaws, wrenching it away before his claws open the man from sternum to pelvis.

The tiger who fled his clan just saved my life. The irony tastes like blood and rain.

More soldiers pour from the trees—too many, too well-prepared. They know our weaknesses: silver for wolves, cold iron for Rafe's kind, specialized rounds designed to pierce shifter hide. This isn't random. Someone sent them. Someone who knows exactly what we are.

Grayson roars as silver finds his shoulder. Rafe hisses as iron grazes his ribs. We're being herded toward the cliff's edge, the storm-churned sea at our backs.

Then Finn does something I've only heard about in whispered stories.

He calls the storm into himself.

Lightning doesn't just strike near him—it flows through him, controlled and directed.

The rain becomes ice-sharp projectiles. The wind howls with dragon-voice, sending mercenaries tumbling like leaves.

For a handful of heartbeats, Finn Rowan becomes the myth we all feared and needed, power incarnate in scales and starlight.

The remaining mercenaries break and run. Those who don't lie still in the rain, their blood mixing with water and flowing toward the cliff's edge in pink rivulets.

My wolf retreats slowly, bones cracking back into human shape. Rain sluices the blood from my naked skin—theirs and mine, the silver wounds already closing but still burning like brands. Someone tosses me the remains of my shredded jeans, and I pull them on, ignoring the way my hands shake.

Not from fear. From the rush of fighting alongside them. From the realization that despite everything—despite my rage, my distrust, my certainty that this would fail—we moved like a unit. Like pack.

Like brothers.

Lightning illuminates us all: Grayson pressing his massive hand to his shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers.

Kian wiping mercenary blood from a stolen blade with practiced efficiency.

Rafe emerging from shadows, golden eyes taking inventory of wounds and threats.

Finn's scales still rippling with trapped lightning, beautiful and terrible.

And Declan, my alpha, looking at me with something I haven't seen in years—trust.

"We don't leave ours behind, Jax." Declan's voice cuts through the storm with alpha authority, but there's something else there. Understanding. Acknowledgment of what just happened. "Not anymore. That's what this is—what we are now."

The words should ring hollow. Should taste like lies and future betrayal. But standing here with rain washing blood from our skin, with the bodies of our enemies scattered like broken dolls, with the echo of coordinated violence still singing in our veins—they don't.

Thunder crashes overhead, a percussion that matches my hammering heart.

Without discussion, we form a circle on the clifftop.

Six men who shouldn't trust each other. Six predators who should be at each other's throats.

But the blood on the stones isn't ours—not the blood that matters.

We bled for each other tonight, fought for each other, killed for each other.

I meet Grayson's steady gaze first. The bear who stood solid as stone while bullets flew. He nods once, slow and deliberate.

Kian next, the exile whose blade saved my neck. His amber eyes hold a challenge and a promise—I've got your back if you've got mine.

Rafe's golden stare carries amusement and something darker. The panther who could have vanished into his shadows but stayed to fight. His slight smile says he knows what I'm thinking, what we're all thinking. This changes things.

Finn's aquamarine eyes are ancient and knowing. The dragon I cursed for abandoning us just turned the storm itself into a weapon to protect us. The weight of his gaze makes my wolf bow its head—not in submission, but in recognition. He came back. When it mattered, he came back.

Finally, Declan. My alpha. My brother in all but blood. The man I've followed through hell and would follow through worse. His storm-grey eyes mirror mine—scarred, suspicious, but holding onto something that might be hope.

"Fine." The word scrapes from my throat like claws on stone. "But when this goes to hell, don't say I didn't warn you."

Kian's laugh is sharp as his blades. "Wouldn't dream of it, wolf."

"It's already hell," Rafe observes, nudging a corpse with his boot. "The question is whether we burn together or alone."

Grayson's rumble might be laughter or pain. "Together means we might survive what's coming."

"Survival's overrated," Finn says quietly, his scales finally settling back into skin. "But purpose... purpose is worth bleeding for."

The storm rages around us, but we stand firm. Six killers, six broken men, six predators who just discovered they might be something more. The mercenaries came prepared for shifters. They didn't come prepared for us. For this.