Page 29

Declan’s yellow eyes burn with madness as he snaps at my throat, foam flecking his muzzle, and I realize my assumption upon seeing him that first time I came back home was right—the man is on something. Something that makes him frenetic and unthinking.

Something that really makes him believe, even with a surprise attack, that he would ever have a chance against me.

Shifting beneath him is painful, and he manages a swipe of his claws over my ribs, which feels like liquid fire, tearing through the muscle and scraping at the bone. Hot blood runs down my side, but the pain just makes me angrier.

Declan’s wolf is smaller than mine, and he fights with a desperation that gives him an edge, but I’ve been training since the day I was born.

I’m better than him in every way. More focused, stronger, bigger, more strategic.

There isn’t a neuron in my brain that believes I am going to lose this fight.

Shifting shoots through my system like a shot of espresso, leaving behind the clean, burning trail like whiskey down the throat. It sharpens my senses, floods my muscles with predatory power.

The scent of Declan’s fear cuts through everything—the smoke and ash, Nora’s scent, Kalen shouting at me from over my uncle’s shoulder.

I tried to give this man mercy, to give him the benefit of the doubt. Even after seeing him crouched over my father like that. Even knowing, just from the look on his face, that my father’s death wasn’t wholly accidental.

But mercy is what my father would have offered. It’s the way of a good leader.

I gave my mercy to Declan, and her wasted it.

My uncle lunges for me again, going for my jugular, but I’m ready for it this time, dodging him and kicking up, sending out wolves tumbling over. Declan thrashes wildly when I land on top, my paws pinning him down.

His claws kick out, looking for purchase on my shoulders and chest. I should bury my maw in his neck, shake him out like a limp doll. Years of rage pour out of me—rage at his corruption, his willingness to sell out the pack. To destroy innocent lives, just to make some money.

Rage at the way he threatened my daughter. He held a knife to her throat. Treated her like a bargaining chip.

The wolf in me wants to take my time, to play with him, to sit on him like this and use my weight to squeeze the life from him. To fight him until he’s so weak from exhaustion that I can take him apart piece by piece, ripping off his legs and listening to his howling like sweet music.

My wolf wants the pleasure of his pain.

The human in me wants him dead.

And through all of it, I know that Nora is here. That she’s watching this play out. That this will be an example to her in the future, should she ever take over as alpha supreme of the pack.

So I snap at him, burying my teeth in his throat and ending this once and for all.

He fights, but starts to wane sooner than I thought, his struggles growing weaker, his movements becoming more frantic and uncoordinated.

Blood mats his fur and flows around his eyes, staining my muzzle copper red.

His blood tastes rotten, like you would expect from a man pumping his body full of drugs.

Declan’s eyes roll back in his head.

This is for my pack , I think. This is for my daughter.

And finally, though there’s no proof of this and I’ll never really get closure, I add, And this is for my dad.

The final snap of Declan’s neck is almost anti-climactic.

Moving with certainty, I drag his body to the edge of the cliff and toss it over, watching it tumble into the smoke, disappearing from sight long before it hits the ground below.

The wolf is satisfied. Ready to sleep for years. But that relief is short-lived. Just as I shift back to my human form, feeling the screaming pain of my ribs more acutely, daemon fire starts to roar around us.

During this episode, we’ve been so focused on Declan, on playing out this drama, that we haven’t been paying attention to the flames around us, growing nearer. Closing in on us.

The heat is overwhelming, and the smoke makes my eyes burn. My truck—along with the extinguisher—is at the bottom of the cliff. Even if I had the energy left to fight, I don’t have any of my equipment.

Phina shouts something at me, standing with Nora held close to her side, but I can’t hear them. As we realize the fire is all around us, the seven of us back into a tight circle, coughing and struggling, arms up futilely over our mouths.

My mind races to find a solution to this, to think of something we can do.

Soren starts to cough harder at my side, and this time, nobody bothers to pound at his back to help the stuff out. We’re not clear of it, and it’s going nowhere.

The fire moves fast, defying logic and physics. It’s not going with the wind, seeking fuel—it’s hunting us. Deliberately circling around us. As though seeking revenge for the death of a man who repeatedly helped to bring it to life.

It licks up the trees and writhes around us, cutting off every escape route. The temperature is so high that I can feel my hair singeing and my skin blistering from the radiant heat. The air itself seems to be on fire, searing my throat and lungs.

For the first time in my life, I actually start to think that I might die in a fire. Grabbing Phina and Nora, I hold them to me, unable to speak, but praying they know everything I want to say through the way I hold them.

Then, from nowhere, relief.

I blink, lifting my head, wondering if we really died that quickly. Then I see the little bubble forming around us, just like the one Phina made at the high school earlier.

Phina shouts something at Nora, but our daughter doesn’t listen, shaking her mother’s arm off and increasing her focus, raising her arms, growing the bubble until it includes Soren, who falls to his knees on the ground, hacking and coughing.

Instead of fighting her, Phina joins in, creating a bubble of her own, pushing it up and out around the other guys, who look around dazed, like they also think they’re already dead. The bubbles grow and grow, though I’m unsure how or where they’re finding the energy for it.

Nora’s small frame trembles with the effort of channeling so much power. Sweat beads on Phina’s forehead. The bubbles grow, and the fire pushes back into the trees, looking for all the world like it’s afraid .

“More,” Nora says, her voice shaking. She doesn’t look up from her hands, like a kid who needs to watch them as they type. Like if she looks away, the magic might stop. “I need more!”

For a moment, the bubbles start to shrink, then Phina takes a jerky step to the side, and, her eyes squeezed shut, she takes Nora’s hand, holding it in hers. The domes grow and combine, the magic around us thriving, pulsing through the air with considerable strength.

The barrier becomes something solid, pushing back against the flames with a renewed force. It’s suffocating it. Doing more than we’ve ever done with the extinguisher.

As they push, the daemon fire recoils almost like it’s in pain, the roar of the flames rising in pitch until it starts to sound like screaming again.

My head swims with pain, and blood continues to flow down my side, but I stand with my daughter and Phina, hands on their shoulders, not knowing what to do for them.

I can feel how unsteady they are. How much this is taking from them.

It looks like it’s going to work, then Phina slips, moaning as her hand falls from Nora’s. She collapses backward into me, and I catch her, watching as the dome halves in size. Nora throws both her hands up like she’s going to catch it, hold it up.

“I can’t,” Nora sobs, shaking her head, her entire body vibrating with the effort. I reach up for her, taking her hand where Phina held it before, but I have no magic to offer her.

“It’s okay,” I say instead, squeezing her hand, so proud of her for trying. “Nora, it’s okay. You did your best.”

Nora turns and looks at me, tears streaking down her dirty face, and then she does something I wasn’t expecting.

She laughs.

And when she does, it’s like magic bursts forth from her, pulsing into the wall and pushing outward like a sound wave. It sweeps over the forest in a sonic boom, extinguishing the fires atop the trees, muffling them instantly until only tendrils of smoke rise from where it was before.

“Holy shit ,” Lachlan breathes, standing there, looking out at the aftermath.

Then, just like that, Nora collapses into me. I hold her, too, reaching up to feel her pulse. It’s weak, but it’s there.

My daughter just saved our lives.

“Did you see that?” Felix asks, appearing beside me with his hands on his head, his mouth wide open with awe even as he’s still wheezing through the smoke. “Holy fucking gods, Xeran, did you fucking see what they just did? They—”

I turn, still holding the girls in my arms, looking at my friends. The men who have followed me into fires, who would do it again.

“You saw nothing,” I hear myself say, looking at each of them. Soren frowns but says nothing, and the others follow suit. “None of this happened.”

“Xeran—” Kalen starts, but I shake my head, already knowing what he’s going to say. Magic like this could be all the difference in firefighting.

But I have to learn more about it before I go offering up my family to the flames. And after seeing Nora collapse like that, there’s not a single part of me that wants to see her do it again.

“ Nothing ,” I repeat, and I realize my voice carries with it the authority of the alpha supreme. “Now, help me get these guys to the hospital.”

Kalen and Soren lean down to help, but Felix lets out a low whistle, his hands on his hips as he looks out at the town below us through the drifting smoke.

“Sure,” he says, then frowns. “If the hospital still exists.”