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COLE

I hadn’t slept the night before. How could I, when Kyle had Avery and Ashton? It had been bad enough when he only had my son. Now, it was goddamn agony. All I’d done was lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Waiting. Hoping.

Langston and Zayde hadn’t slept, either.

Their grief at losing their best friend had kept them up all night.

Throughout the night, I’d heard their murmured conversations downstairs.

I’d thought about going down to join them, but it was their grief, not mine.

I couldn’t intrude on that. As much as I’d liked Porter, I’d only known him a short time. Not years.

Milbanks had been called, unlike last time.

I kicked myself for trying to keep that a secret to begin with.

He’d been irate and called the coroner to take the body for an autopsy.

I doubted they’d find any connection to Kyle.

The guy was too careful for that. The gun wouldn’t be registered.

The men would have worn gloves. No. There was little the cops could do until they had a trail back to Kyle.

Even then, I’d seen the hesitation in Milbanks’s eyes when he took my statement.

The eyes of a human in a position of authority who desperately didn’t want to get involved in pack politics and warfare, even when lives were at stake.

He’d wanted to rain hell down on someone when a human was attacked.

Now that it was a shifter, he was getting antsy.

We’d get no help from him. No real help. Unless I was very wrong.

The men arrived early that morning, showing up individually as the sun rose.

Looking out my bedroom window, I watched them pull in and park.

Men with families and dreams of their own, willing to put their lives on the line for me and mine.

The very image of it filled me with hope.

Something this selfless, this brave, couldn’t fail.

Downstairs, Zayde and Langston stood with cups of coffee, eyes red-rimmed from crying.

I imagined they’d spent the night sharing stories about Porter.

Hopefully, I could talk them into a nap later on, but I doubted that would happen.

If they were as wired and nervous as I was, sleep would be impossible to achieve.

“The men from North Carolina texted me,” Langston said. “They’ll be here within the hour. Our other friends from Iowa land at noon. They’ll be here this afternoon.”

“Good to know,” I said. “Have you guys seen Trent?”

Zayde pointed at the door with his mug. “He got here before the sun came up. He’s out meeting with your people.”

I found Trent milling among the pack members. To my surprise, there were nearly a dozen men who hadn’t helped us out before.

“What’s going on here?” I asked, nudging Trent.

“Word got out that tonight’s the night. Had a few more men volunteer. I told them they didn’t need to, that we had enough support, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer. Said they’d do what they had to for you and Farrah.”

Langston and Zayde joined us as I gazed out at the men. If I wasn’t mistaken, there was a hint of surprise in Langston’s eyes as he looked over the new faces.

“More help?”

“The more the merrier,” I said.

With nothing to do but plan and prepare until midnight, I let the men use my house to relax, plan, and prepare. It was early, but none of us wanted to be alone in the hours leading up to the attack. A brotherhood was forming, a bond that could only be built through danger and duty.

When the men from North Carolina arrived and were updated, they melded in with the Harbor Mills men like they were old friends.

I’d never served in the military, but this showed me the kind of friendships that could be forged through situations like this.

Langston and Trent’s relationship made more sense to me now.

The Des Moines pack members arrived in the late afternoon—a group of seven menacing men who Langston said were his father’s enforcement team.

“An entire team?” I asked.

Langston smirked. “Not every pack is as small as Harbor Mills. The bigger the pack, the more enforcers. Dad’s main enforcer stayed back to maintain discipline, but these are his best men. They’ll be a huge help.”

Langston and Zayde pulled the new arrivals aside and commiserated with them about Porter.

The man had been a beloved member of the pack.

An ache formed in my stomach, and I tried my best not to picture him as I’d last seen him.

If the looks on those grieving men’s faces were any indication, Kyle was about to have something worse than hell descending on his pretend castle.

The day and evening dragged on as though, rather than twelve hours, it was twelve days.

Farrah and a few other members of the pack arrived in the evening with nearly thirty pizzas.

Remarkably, there was very little left. Part of it was the shifter metabolism, but it was mostly stress eating.

When ten o’clock finally rolled around, our little army had coalesced into a group of new friends and old friends.

Men brought together for a mission, pulled from all over the country to do battle under my banner.

It was terrifying and exhilarating all at once.

“Does the general want to address his men?” Trent asked. There was sarcasm in his voice, but also a bit of what I could only call awe.

Climbing into the back of my truck, I raised my hand, asking for quiet. The nearly forty men turned their faces to mine.

“I’d like to thank all of you,” I said. “None of you need to be here. Many of you have no dog in this fight. You left your families, traveled a long way from home, and did all that for a stranger.” I put my hand to my chest. “Me. I can’t express how much this means to me and my family.

We’ve lost friends, and I’d love to say we won’t lose more before the night is over, but the odds aren’t on our side.

Knowing that, you still came. I will never forget it, and I have no idea how I can ever repay you.

All I can say is if any of you are ever in trouble, ever in need, ever backed against a wall?

Harbor Mills will come running. Of that, you can be damn sure, and I’ll be at the head of the column, ready to pay back what I owe.

” I glanced at the Iowa pack. “We lost a damn good man yesterday. A man who died trying to protect my mate. Tonight? We honor him. Not with tears or kind words, but with violence. With retribution. Now, let’s go kick some fucking ass! ”

The Harbor Mills pack members threw their heads back and let out an earth-rattling howl.

Langston raised his fist and looked at the Iowa men. “For Porter!”

Those men joined the howl, followed by the North Carolina contingent. My eardrums rattled. Farrah stood on the porch, her hand clasped over her ears, face shining with amazement.

Men piled into cars and trucks. I got in beside Trent, and Zayde and Langston settled in the backseat. Before Langston could get his door closed, Farrah wedged herself in beside him.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I asked.

She slammed the door and buckled her seatbelt. “If you think I’m going to sit here by the goddamn fire like some medieval maiden waiting for the men to come home, then you don’t know me.”

“Farrah, I don’t think?—”

“Shut it, Cole. Ashton is my nephew. And…” She looked away, her cheeks flushing. “Avery is family. Or at least, she will be whenever you finally claim her, dumbass. Let’s go.”

I sighed in frustration, but I knew my sister. Once she had her eyes on the prize, there was no changing her mind.

“All right. Let’s do this,” I said.

We drove to a meeting place two miles from Kyle’s mansion, abandoned the cars, and shifted. In seconds, a mass of writhing muscle, fur, and glinting teeth swooped into the forest, and we rushed through the woods like silent assassins, tension building with each yard closer to our objective.

Soon, the floodlights and fences of Kyle’s mansion came into view. We stopped at the edge of the forest and shifted back to our human forms.

Langston edged his way toward me and knelt next to me. “Electric fence is still on,” he said.

He was right. Even from nearly two hundred yards away, I could hear the dull hum of the electricity surging through it. I glanced at my watch. Five minutes to midnight.

“There’s still time,” I said. “The note said twelve.”

“Are you sure we can trust this note you got?”

“There’s nothing else to do, Langston,” I said wearily. “It’s now or never. Whether we have help on the inside or not, we go in at midnight.”

“Just wanted to make sure you were on the same page.”

“Trent,” I hissed. “Come here.”

My friend joined me, staying low. “Yeah?”

“Are the new Harbor Mills men armed?”

“I made sure of it,” Trent said.

The newcomers hadn’t had time to train with us and might have been a liability in direct combat, so we’d armed them with pistols and rifles.

They’d be the first group to move out, taking position low on the ground, ready to blast any of Kyle’s men who might come out to greet us when we were spotted.

“Tell them to start heading out. Right there, there’s a little berm in the yard that blocks the light of the spotlights. Tell them to group there and get into shooting position.”

“On it.” He moved away, whispering orders to the men.

They moved toward the house slowly and steadily, staying upwind of the men patrolling inside the fences of the mansion. We didn’t want them to catch our scent until it was too late.

The tension in my body built with every passing second.

It was two minutes to midnight, and my wolf was thrashing about in my mind, ready to unleash himself on our enemy.

I’d never felt so primal in my life. It was almost as though I’d slipped farther into my wolf, a raging animal being held back by the barest hint of humanity.

“Shift,” I whispered as my watch showed one minute to midnight.

Word spread, and the men morphed back into their wolves.

My paws trembled, and my jaw ached, the desire to bite and rend flesh almost too much to take.

I couldn’t explain the feeling. I ached to do harm, to do damage.

I was not a violent man at heart, but a thrill shot through me at the thought of hurting those who’d hurt me and the people I cared about.

With no warning or preamble, the lights of the mansion went dark.

The floodlights shut off, and the hum of electricity vanished.

I stood still, shocked that it had actually happened.

Part of me, a deep and cynical part, had been worried that this was a trap.

Now, through the light of the moon, I wasn’t seeing a mansion.

I saw a sheep with its throat turned toward a predator, defenseless and ready for death.

Releasing the loudest howl of my life, I led the pack forward. My paws hissed over the grass as my pack howled like demons sent from the pits of hell.

From the screams and shouts coming from the mansion, those inside it were not prepared to meet our wrath.