Page 151 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

I smashed into Seth as I shifted, letting my inner wolf free in the cramped tree-clogged space at the rear of the Jeep. He skidded to the side, dazed as a startled foreign wolf bared his teeth, coming for him with bloodlust in his eyes.

Shit. I moved to intervene, but Clay was faster, his massive dark wolf checking the attacker and sending him sailing into the white skin of a birch tree, staining it red.

You good? I sent to Seth through the pack bond, not pausing to check for myself as I got into position in front of him, covering his flank from any other attack.

Good, he replied, and I charged left of him, moving around the other side of the Jeep where the feral snarls and cries of shifters in battle bombarded my ears. The scent of fresh blood wetting my jowls.

Jared streaked past only a second before Clay and Seth joined ranks with me, rounding the sacrificial Jeep to the bloodbath on the other side.

Two shifters lay motionless around Vivian and Charity’s feet while five more attacked viciously. One got a hold on the back of Vivian’s neck and an ear splitting cry of pain assaulted my ears before my wolf all but blacked out with rage.

I tore the beast from her back with a lock on its neck in retaliation.

It was easy to overpower him, and I didn’t stop as blood gushed into my mouth or as his cries rang loud in my ears.

I cut off the sound with a sharp jerk of my head, snapping his spine and leaving him to grow lifeless on the forest floor.

Something slammed into my side, and I grunted in pain before rearing up on my hind legs to attack.

The wolf’s ears lowered in submission only a moment before my strike fell, but I couldn’t stop myself. There would be no mercy. Not from me and definitely not from my wolf.

My jaws clamped around his shoulder, taking him down with ease until I had him pinned beneath me. Still, he didn’t move to fight. He lay there prone beneath my paws and teeth, snout pressed to the dirt, a sickly whine humming between his lips.

I growled at him, putting my face in his, my need for blood temporarily nullified by the sight of the pathetic creature beneath me.

They’re getting away! Jared called, and I snapped my head up, seeing what they saw.

Three more corpses lay on the ground now, making a total of five.

The remaining two were fleeing and Vivian was hot on their heels, her sandy fur matted with the blood of her enemies.

An all-consuming rage gleaming in her eyes.

Stop! I demanded. We stick together, Viv. I’ve already got one here. Let them go.

I can’t. Vivian!

Clay bolted after her, I’ll bring her back, he promised,

and I had to believe they’d be fine. That Clay would catch the fleeing wolves and help Vivian end them before they got too far away.

My other mate approached, a slight limp in his right leg. I’ll take him, he offered, and I grudgingly relented my hold on the shifter still blowing dirt with his incessant whining.

Everyone whole? Charity asked, and I lifted my head to her, checking her over. She seemed all right save for a gash in her collar that was already quickly healing.

I tested my legs, afraid that the hit to my flank might’ve broken some shit, but it seemed I was only badly bruised.

Yeah. All good.

I allowed a momentary flash of pride at what we’d managed to accomplish here today. We’d been outnumbered and had come out whole anyway. I credited the element of surprise, but not above the skill of my packmates.

For what I’d asked them to sacrifice here today, there were no words. In the battles we’ve had to face in the years past, there had been death, but never before now had I asked them to fight for me, for our pack. To shed blood in the name of our family.

And not one of them looked as though they regretted it, though I sensed it may haunt them for a time, regardless.

We waited for Clay and Vivian to return before doing anything. The rest of us waiting in patient silence as we collected ourselves. Let our bodies settle and heal.

It didn’t take long. Within a few minutes, they returned. Both of them looking a little worse for wear, but mostly unharmed. Vivian loped over to me with her ears pressed down against her head while Clay followed only a few steps behind. A darkness rolling off him in waves.

Sorry, Viv sent through the pack bond. I couldn’t...I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

I shook my canine head. It’s all right.

It wasn’t, really, but what was done was done and they were both all right. Next time, and I fucking prayed there wouldn’t be a next time, I’d need to command her to stay with the group.

Have you questioned him yet? Clay asked, leaning down over the still-keening wolf pressed to the dirt beneath Jared’s white paws.

I was waiting until you got back.

Let him up, I instructed Jared, and everyone formed a ring around the shifter as Jared lifted his paw.

The shifter didn’t even try to get up. He kept his head pressed flushed to the earth, sides heaving with even more alarm now that he was released.

I shifted back, grunting as the transformation made something in my hip pop where a bone must have been slightly knocked out of the joint.

“Fuck,” I groaned, earning myself a worried look from Clay which I waved off. “I’m good,” I assured him before turning my attention back to the shifter on the ground.

“Shift,” I ordered him. “We need to have a little chat.”

The wolf let out one last sniveling whine before shifting, turning into a tan boy with short black hair who couldn’t have been older than fifteen or sixteen. His dark brown eyes peered up at me from where he lay, slightly covering his face as though anticipating an attack.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I decided, pity spurring the words from my lips. “Not if you tell me what I want to know.”

He nodded, lowering his hands from his face with twitching slowness.

“I-I can’t,” he stammered. “He’ll kill me.”

Clay growled, and I bared my teeth at the boy. Pitiful fucker or not, I would have the answers I needed to protect my pack. No matter the cost. A hollowness formed in my gut, and I winced at the thought of hurting the boy, but steeled myself against the feeling.

This is what it means to be alpha.

“If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll kill you,” I promised him, shocked at the sincerity in my voice.

His red-rimmed eyes welled up and honestly I had to wonder who the hell sent this child on an attack errand. There was no fucking way I’d have sent someone like him. He clearly wasn’t ready.

“P-Please, I just—”

“Start talking. I want to know who sent you. I want to know where they are. What they’re planning. How large their pack is. And where the hell he’s keeping the shifters he captured.”

His brown eyes widened. “Now.”

Vivian punctuated my demand with a fierce snarl that sent the boy to shaking again.

“Okay!” he shrieked. “Okay, I’ll tell you.”

I crouched down closer to his level, putting the full weight of my stare on him.

“H-his name is Devin.”

It took me a moment to register what the kid said, my mind refusing to translate the syllables of his name into anything meaningful.

What. The. Fuck.

Clay charged the kid, knocking him from his side to his back and pressing his paws down into his shoulders. His claws drawing blood as he snarled in the boy’s face, hot saliva dripping from his jowls. His bright blue eyes crazed with fury.

“Clay!” I barked, drawing his attention just long enough for him to get ahold of himself and step off the sobbing teenager and stalk away into the trees.

Not far enough that he couldn’t hear, but far enough that he could hopefully stop himself from killing the kid. He began to pace between the trees.

“I want to make sure I’m understanding you,” I said, swallowing down my knee-jerk reaction to scream. “Your pack alpha is Devin Wright?”

He lowered his gaze from mine, wiping at the snot beneath his nose. “Yes.”

Yes.

Fucking yes.

Devin Wright.

My high school boyfriend. The one who slapped me around and called me a whore. The very same sadistic psychopath who kidnapped me and shackled me in a fucking cave because he was convinced I was his one true mate. The same Devin Wright that sunk his canines into my shoulder and sealed my fate.

Absently, my finger trailed over the scars on my shoulder. The jagged edges of them from where his fangs tore open my flesh beneath the full moon.

I swallowed back bile, my stomach simultaneously filling with dread and burning with a rage so hot I feared it would consume me. My wolf battered at my defenses, feral with rage of her own. Her focus narrowing until inside, all we could see was his face...and how we would absolutely mutilate it.

“Keep talking,” I said, my voice a distant monotone. “O-our pack is the largest in the whole state. He took over five other packs in the last year alone by challenging their alphas.”

How had we not fucking heard of this? And how had he even managed that? He must’ve had something up his sleeve. Some secret weapon. Otherwise succeeding in the takeover of five different packs in one year would be downright impossible.

I shared a look with Jared in his wolf form, whose amber eyes looked more like fire in this moment than they ever had.

“How many?” I demanded.

“I...I don’t know exactly. Maybe seventy.”

I couldn’t conceal my gasp of alarm at the insanity of that number. I’d never even heard of a pack so large. We had close to fifty and were considered the largest pack in the western United States.

“What does he want?”

Vivian snarled impatiently, and I knew she was getting antsy not knowing where Destiny was. I shot her a look that I hoped conveyed that was what I was going to ask next and she needed to chill for a sec.

“How should I know?” the boy asked in a shrill voice. “I just j-joined when he took over my p-pack a few weeks ago.”

I glared at him.