Page 59 of Bound to Exiles (Rejected Wolf Pack #5)
My heart clenched at the pain in his voice. “We’re going to help them all, Heath. Just get yourself out safely.”
“I don’t know how to destroy their stones,” he said, his voice full of sadness and helpless rage. “Or mine.”
I understood immediately. The stone that kept his wolf trapped, that maintained the curse — we needed to destroy it to free him completely.
“Take them all with you,” I suggested. “We’ll figure it out together.”
Through our bond, I caught a flash of Gage, Rowan, and Flint encountering a group of Frost Fang wolves outside the pack house. Their eyes were vacant, their movements jerky and unnatural — controlled by the witches’ magic.
“We can’t hurt them,” Gage’s voice came through, strained with the effort of holding back.
Rowan growled out his fury as Flint added, “Witches controlling wolves — they know no bounds.”
“I won’t hurt Frost Fang wolves,” Gage rumbled. “They’ve suffered enough.”
“We need to destroy their stones,” I realized. “That’s the only way to free them.”
Except none of us knew where they were. Scouts had seen witches working on stones, but not where they were keeping the ones they’d already put to use.
Zak touched my arm, drawing my attention back to our immediate surroundings. “More are coming.”
He was right. My powers had awakened inside of me like never before. Like called to like, and my magic sensed theirs. More witches converged on our position, drawn by the evidence of magic. Five of them this time, their hands already weaving spells.
The group was a mix of ages and genders — two older women, a young man barely out of his teens whose magic crackled with unstable energy, and another woman whose pale skin was marked with ritual scars.
Leading them was a tall witch with silver-streaked black hair whose cold calculation made the air itself feel heavier, more oppressive.
Each of them stank of the same wrongness, but hers was the worst — magic tainted with the life force of others, stolen power wrapped around her like a cloak.
“Run!” I shouted to Brielle, shifting back to wolf form and landing on my paws. In wolf form, I projected my voice, “Find the stones and destroy them,” I insisted. “Go!”
With a reluctant growl, Brielle darted between two of the witches, her speed and agility allowing her to break through their circle while I lunged forward to distract them. One of them turned to pursue her, but the others remained focused on Zak and me.
We turned to flee, but more witches appeared behind us, cutting off our escape route. We were surrounded.
“Trap!” Zak warned the others through the bond, his alarm spiking.
I snarled, my wolf rising to the challenge. Zak’s protective shield surrounded us, keeping us safe for the time being.
“You should shift,” I warned him, but he only shook his head.
“I don’t know how to cast spells in wolf form like Brielle does,” he explained hastily over our Bonded connection.
“The famous Freya,” one of the witches called out, a tall woman with silver-streaked black hair. “And her pet mage. Tork described you perfectly.”
Heath’s voice broke urgently over the bond. “That’s Aliza! She’s the one who cursed me. She’s a powerful witch of the Ashworth Coven. They call her a magistra. You gotta get out of there.”
The witches began to close in, their magic pressing against Zak’s shield. Through our Bonded connection, I felt him drawing on my magic alongside his own to maintain his shield against their combined power.
Aliza circled Zak’s shield with a cold smile. “None of us expected you to dispatch Mabel so easily.”
“There’s a lot about us you don’t understand,” Zak replied, his voice steady despite the strain of maintaining his shield.
We’d come here to extract Heath and as many Frost Fang wolves as possible, not to take on the entire Ashworth Coven in direct combat. But with witches closing in from all sides, extraction was looking less and less possible.
“Oh, I understand more than you think,” Aliza countered. “I understand that your hybrid magic makes you powerful abominations. Your wolves leave you vulnerable.” Aliza’s smile widened. “And I understand exactly how to separate one from the other.”
She held up a small yellowish stone. “I have a pretty stone picked out just for you, Freya. Once your beautiful wolf is locked away, you’ll be ripe for the picking. All that lovely magic, with nowhere to hide it.”
“Freya, run! Get out of there!”
Heath’s panic came through loud and clear. He was free from his cell, but still weakened, his wolf still trapped.
Even my wolf whimpered. Blood trickled from Zak’s nose from the strain, but I kept my attention focused on the shield and my tether to Heath. Fear clawed at my throat, but I forced it down.
“We can’t,” I replied grimly. “We’re surrounded.”
“Then I’m coming to you,” he decided.
“No!” I shouted, not caring which of my Bonded heard our conversation. “Get out with the Bloody Dawn. We’ll find another way.”
His reluctance and his desperate need to help us surged. Then he reached out to Zak through our Bonded link. Because of the way I’d braided the bond to me, I hadn’t expected Heath to be able to communicate with the others. Somehow, he was using my bond with the others to do it.
“Zak,” Heath’s voice came, strained but determined. “Protect her. I can’t… my wolf is still trapped. But you can. You have to.”
I glanced at Zak, seeing the determination harden in his eyes as he received Heath’s message. Something shifted in his expression, a primal intensity I hadn’t seen before.
“It’s time for you to become wild and untamed,” Heath urged.
The witches closed in, their magic pressing against our shield from all sides now. We’d channeled so much of our magic into the shield, but I feared it wouldn’t hold much longer. I prepared to fight, gathering what remained of my power, knowing it wouldn’t be enough .
With a synchronized movement, the witches unleashed an elemental spell against the shield. Our magic wavered for a moment too long. The shield cracked, and then shattered under the onslaught.
In that moment, something broke in Zak as well. His dark eyes turned golden as his fangs lengthened, giving him a monstrous look. Something raw and primal pulsed through our bond. His eyes flashed as a savage growl erupted from deep in his chest — his wolf fighting to break free.
And he was already feral.