Page 42 of Curses and Casualties (Hunters Hollow #3)

Ryan

G eorgia’s anger spikes, a wave of horror and fury so sharp it nearly unmans me.

Kane surges, wanting to leap the walls right now and tear out every throat in the clearing until they’re nothing but heartstones on the ground.

But I sense movement on the far side. Scarlett herself, no longer in wolf form but stalking toward the crater on bare feet, caked in dirt and bright with fresh blood not her own.

She’s flanked by Ethan and a few other survivors, all of them bruised but upright, Ethan acting as her unlikely honor guard.

She doesn’t hesitate to jump. Down the wall, slipping once, slicing her calf bloody on a jag of obsidian, but she makes the descent in seconds.

She lands in a crouch, then rises slowly, deliberately. Every eye follows her movement as she crosses the bloodied ground. Her father tries to lift his head, but Elder Gray yanks the rope, forcing him back down.

“Let him go,” Scarlett says, her voice carrying despite its quietness. “Your issue is with me.”

The Alpha laughs, but it’s an ugly sound. “My issue? You were to be my mate. My chosen. The future of this pack.” His voice rises with each word until he’s shouting. “And you betrayed me for what? For them?” He gestures wildly at Georgia and me. “For this abomination they’ve created?”

“I betrayed nothing,” Scarlett says, still advancing. “You can’t betray what was never yours.”

“I MARKED YOU!” The Alpha roars, and the force of his fury makes several wolves whimper. “You wear my mark! You are MINE!”

“Not anymore.” Scarlett reaches up and touches her neck where the mark used to burn. “I had it removed. A witch burned it out of me. I’d rather bear the scar of her magic than your claim.”

The Alpha’s face contorts into something inhuman. “Then you’ve signed your death warrant. And your father’s.” He nods to Elder Gray, who tightens his grip on the rope.

“No,” Scarlett says, and there’s something different in her voice now. Something ancient and primal that makes even Luna’s ears prick forward. “You want to settle this? Then settle it with me. Wolf to wolf. Right here, right now.”

“You challenge me?” The Alpha’s voice drips disbelief. “You dare?—”

“I claim the right of severance,” Scarlett announces, her voice ringing off the crater walls. “By the old laws, a wolf may challenge for freedom from an unwanted bond. Do you accept, or do you forfeit your claim?”

The Alpha’s laugh is cruel. “The right of severance also grants you the right to a champion, little wolf. Oh, but wait. That’s only if you have a mate. And you have none.” His gaze sweeps mockingly over the assembled wolves. “Seems I’ll get to put you down unchallenged.”

Scarlett’s jaw tightens, but her voice remains steady. “I can fight for myself.”

“How touching,” the Alpha sneers. “And how foolish.”

I feel the shift in the atmosphere. The right to severance is old law, even older than the Elders’ rule.

Even they can’t deny this right. Around the crater, wolves murmur uneasily.

The cruel irony burns through me that Scarlett does have a mate, one who could stand in as her champion.

But Fenris is still back at the camp, barely strong enough to stand. Fuck, Fenris. Scarlet needs you.

“How about you stop dancing around me and shift already,” Scarlett hisses, claws already out. “We’re all tired of listening to your bullshit.”

The Alpha’s jaw works, fury and calculation warring on his face.

“When I kill you,” he says finally, “your father dies next. Then your friends. Then anyone who’s ever shown you kindness.”

“If,” Scarlett corrects. “If you kill me.”

They shift simultaneously, wolf forms exploding from human skin. The Alpha is massive—solid black fur gleaming like oil, scarred from dozens of battles. Scarlett is smaller but sleek, her silver-red coat catching the moonlight like living flame.

They circle each other while the rest of us form a rough ring around them. This is sacred now. No one can interfere.

The Alpha strikes first, using his size advantage to try to bowl her over. Scarlett flows around him like water, raking claws along his flank as she passes. First blood to her.

He spins with surprising agility, jaws snapping where her throat was a heartbeat before. She’s already gone, dancing backward, then darting in to harry his other side. She’s using her speed, her agility, trying to wear him down with a thousand cuts.

But the Alpha didn’t hold his position through size alone. He’s smart, patient. He lets her dart in again, then pivots at the last second, his shoulder catching her mid-leap. She goes flying, hitting the crater wall with a crack that makes me wince.

“Scarlett!” her father cries out, earning a boot to the ribs from Elder Gray.

She’s up again, but slower now. Blood mats her left shoulder. The Alpha presses his advantage, driving her back with snapping jaws and swiping claws. Each exchange costs her—a gash here, bruised ribs there. She’s fighting beautifully, courageously, but she’s losing.

Georgia presses against my side, muscles coiled to spring. ‘ We can’t interfere,’ I tell her through our bond, though every instinct screams to help our friend.

‘I don’t care,’ she insists. ‘ I’m not letting our friend die here.’

I look at her and give her a slow nod, because she’s right. We intervene.

We move into position just as Scarlett stumbles, her injured leg buckling. The Alpha sees his chance and lunges, jaws wide for the killing blow. Time slows as those teeth descend toward her exposed throat.

That’s when the world explodes.

A howl unlike anything I’ve ever heard splits the night—rage and love and desperate protection woven into a sound that speaks directly to the soul. Even the Alpha freezes, his killing bite arrested inches from Scarlett’s throat.

“Impossible,” someone breathes. “He was dying.”

But impossibility doesn’t matter when your mate is in mortal danger.

Fenris erupts from the forest like the wrath of ancient gods, and I realize with a shock that he must have heard me call him, must have dragged himself from his sickbed to claim his right as her champion.

He’s enormous, silver-gray fur matted with dried blood from his earlier battles, moving on what should be broken legs.

But mate-bond trumps injury, love conquers pain, and he’s beyond anything but the primal need to protect what’s his.

“The broken Alpha,” Elder Gray whispers, and for the first time tonight, he sounds afraid.

Fenris doesn’t even slow down. Three hundred pounds of desperate fury slams into the Alpha, sending him tumbling across the crater floor. They roll in a tangle of teeth and claws, but this isn’t really a fight anymore. This is execution.

The Alpha tries to recover, tries to use his experience and cunning. But Fenris fights like something already dead and too stubborn to realize it. He takes wounds that should drop him—the Alpha’s claws rake his sides, teeth find his shoulder—but he doesn’t even flinch.

There’s a moment where they lock together, jaws clamped on each other’s necks, a stalemate of mutual destruction. Then Fenris does something I’ve never seen. He releases his hold, exposing his own throat. The Alpha lunges for it, instinct taking over. That’s when Fenris strikes.

His jaws find the Alpha’s extended throat and clamp down with the force of a steel trap. The Alpha thrashes, tries to break free, but Fenris just bites deeper, harder, with the inexorable pressure of a wolf who’s already decided to die for this.

With a savage wrench of his head, Fenris tears the Alpha’s throat out entirely.

Blood sprays in a crimson arc across the moonlit stone. The Alpha’s body convulses once, twice, legs kicking uselessly at nothing. Then the transformation begins.

His wolf form stiffens, fur hardening to gray stone. The process spreads from his torn throat outward—flesh becoming granite, blood crystallizing to crimson quartz. Within seconds, the Alpha is a perfect stone statue of his final moment, jaws still open in a silent snarl.

Then he crumbles.

The stone wolf collapses into dust, cascading across the crater floor in a gray avalanche. When the dust settles, only one thing remains—a heartstone, dark as old blood, pulsing with the last echoes of the Alpha’s power.

For a heartbeat, no one moves. No one even breathes. The only sound is Fenris’s labored panting as he stands over the remains, swaying like a tree in a hurricane.

Then Scarlett moves.

She shifts back to human form and stumbles forward, her face a mask of fury and pain. Without hesitation, she raises her foot and brings it down on the Alpha’s heartstone with all her remaining strength.

The stone shatters.

The sound is like breaking glass and screaming wind combined. Dark energy erupts from the fragments before dissipating into nothing. The Alpha is truly, irrevocably dead.

“Good riddance,” Scarlett spits at the dust.

Then Fenris collapses.

His wolf form shudders violently, muscles spasming as he tries to hold the shift.

But he’s spent everything, every reserve of strength, every drop of magic, possibly pieces of his own life force.

The transformation reverses against his will, bones cracking and reshaping wrong, leaving Magnus naked and broken on the blood-soaked ground.

Scarlett rushes him, stumbling through her own injuries until she’s forced onto all fours, crawling until she pulls his head into her lap with shaking hands.

“Magnus?” Her voice breaks on his name, tears streaming down her face. “Magnus, please. Open your eyes.”

His eyelids flutter, and when they finally focus on her face, the anguish in them is devastating.

“It wasn’t...” his voice is barely a whisper, raw and broken, “wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

Then his eyes roll back, body going limp in her arms. Still breathing, but only just.

“We need healers!” Scarlett screams, but when Amara starts forward, a growl rips from Scarlett’s throat. “Don’t—” She catches herself, cradling Magnus tighter. “Please. Just... help him. Please.”