Page 87 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

Their wolves wanted to hurt me, I realized. They were trying to attack.

Layla’s sharp claws scratched at the stone floor, leaving jagged white streaks where they managed to form divots in the rock. Vivian battered at her bonds, thrashing and pulling, yelping when the force of her lunges nearly snapped her bones around the manacles.

A cracking sound stole my attention from them for a second and I found a jagged line in the stone around where the chain of Vivian’s manacles was bolted deep in the rock wall. Rock dust floated down from it. If she kept pulling, she would get free.

I viewed it all numbly. My friends, their clothes scattered like discarded rags on the ground. Snarling and growling and snapping…at me. Their binds beginning to loosen.

Quinn, unconscious and alone on the cold floor.

Jared and Clay, watching with bowed heads and sorrowful eyes.

Ryland sitting regally with a twinkle in his eye.

And Destiny…staring unblinking at Vivian, a whine in her throat.

I could feel my best friends’ rage like a fire in my blood and I cowered away from it. It was too much. It hurt too much. My sides squeezed painfully, and I realized that awful keening sound was coming from my own lips. My canine eyes were watering, burning.

It’s okay Allie, I heard Jared whisper soothingly in my mind.

They don’t know what they’re doing, Clay’s voice joined his brother wolf’s.

I shook my head over and over, wishing I could seal my eyes against what I was being forced to witness. To endure.

Their pain was my pain.

And I had a feeling they knew exactly what they were doing. This was all my fault. They should be angry. They should hate me.

They should have the right to tear me apart.

With each thought, I retreated further into myself. Deeper into that dark part of my mind where my wolf tucked me away when I gave her the reins. She already had control, but what little I may have been keeping for myself, I gave over. I couldn’t do this.

I couldn’t be here.

My wolf, fueled by pure animal instinct, gratefully filled all the gaps, helping to shove me back to my dark place. To the safe place where I could survive this storm.

The horrid sounds I’d been making faltered and then stopped. My body rose and instead of a cry of anguish, my chest vibrated with a furious growl.

Allie? Jared questioned, but we were beyond listening, even to our mate.

Letting my wolf take over and shoving myself in the backseat had been unconscious, but even now, from the darkest corner of my mind, I knew what she was doing.

I could feel it ballooning inside of us. That strength.

That need to exert our dominance.

Wait, I whispered within, trying to stop my wolf. But she wouldn’t hear me.

Her intent, our instinctual intent, wouldn’t allow our friends to harm us. We had things to do yet.

With our front paws pressed hard against unyielding stone, we lifted ourselves up, our shoulders back.

Bow, we snarled, fixing both newborn wolves with withering stares.

In the recesses of my mind, I was shouting.

Screaming. I didn’t want to do this. Not to them.

But I knew there was no other choice, so I screamed and shouted to no end.

I’d tucked myself too far in and there was no stopping this from happening.

Layla was the first to buckle under the pressure of my stare, her eyes widening as her snarls gave way to tiny yelps.

Vivian was next, fighting it the whole way, steaming saliva dripping from her jowls as her head lowered. As her shoulders shook under the crushing weight of my will.

A primal, snapping growl left my lips, rebounding back to me in the echo of the chamber.

Bow!

Still shaking with the effort of fighting it, Vivian’s body finally joined Layla’s pressed flat against the stone. Their sounds of rage and pain muted, as though they too were muffled under the weight of my dominance.

But a new contender raced to fill the silence, and I turned my gaze in the direction of the frenzied snarl to find bright orange eyes locked on the bowing wolves.

He snapped at them, moving into a crouch with his hackles raised.

My insides twisted sharply as he lunged, putting himself in front of Vivian. He snapped at her face, and I went full dark.

Lights out. Red.

Everything is red.

Something snapped.

A cry of hurt and there was something in my mouth like old earth and new pennies.

Pain blasted into my side and a sharp knock to my skull replaced the hazy red with shooting stars. Pops of color. My vision returned in spurts and flashes.

Ryland, Clay bellowed.

Don’t fucking move.

The command was for more than just me, I realized, and even though I was lying on my side, still trying to clear the stars from my eyes, I found I still could. My paws twitched and I pulled myself back to all fours, keeping my right leg lifted. Something in it didn’t feel right. Displaced.

That’s when I noticed the manacles around my ankles and wrists.

The chains that’d been anchored in the wall lay broken at my feet.

Still circling my limbs but attached to nothing.

I peered up to inspect the spot where I’d been chained, finding four gouges in the rock where the chains had been rooted.

Destiny stood there now, her wolf breathing heavily as it locked eyes with Vivian. Vivian whined low in her throat, and I felt something shift in the air.

Destiny cleared the gap between them, nipping at Vivian’s paws. Her tail began to swish over the stone, and she twisted playfully in her chains, nipping back at Destiny.

They…bonded a faraway voice whispered through my skull.

Then another stole the attention, and I was jarred back to the present.

You dare defy me?

The words were a twisted sneer in my thoughts, and I found Ryland standing over me, looking down into my eyes with such wild anger that it was a wonder he hadn’t killed me already.

I’m sure that the wound I saw glistening with crimson in his shoulder is from my teeth. I can still taste him on my tongue.

You dare attack me?

His growl sent tremors racing over my skin, and I could feel his will—the will of my alpha—pressing down on me. I knew it was meant to make me bow. I should bow. But I couldn’t.

He was going to hurt them.

My alpha didn’t like to see them bow to anyone but him.

If I hadn’t stopped him, would he have killed them? Jared caught my eye with a little angered groan, and I twisted to see both him and Clay forced into low crouches and remembered they were compelled by their alpha not to move.

Their steady gazes begged me to follow suit.

Please, Clay’s voice floated through my thoughts and something in that single word—in his broken plea—got through to me. I came roaring back to the surface, taking some control back from my wolf.

She wouldn’t bow. But I could make her.

What other choice was there? Fight him here and now? Injured with stars still dancing through my eyes? Fight him and lose. Fight him and die.

Then what would happen to Layla and Vivian? Who would protect them?

A low hiss skirted past our lips as I sunk into a crouch and lowered my head.

I should end you, Ryland’s words rattled in my skull.

It was the moon-triggered shift, Jared’s frenzied voice joined the conversation.

She wasn’t in control, Clay offered. She wasn’t in control, and you know it.

Except, that wasn’t the problem, was it?

I defied my alpha. I attacked him. Was that not an outright challenge?

Should I even have been able to do that? I didn’t fucking think so.

But I was incredibly glad that I could. What would have become of Layla and Vivian if I hadn’t done what I did?

I didn’t regret it. I wasn’t sorry. But he needed to think I was.

They’re right, I managed, pushing the thought toward Ryland, imploring him to hear me. I should never have…I lost control.

Ryland snapped at me and it took every last ounce of my self-control to keep my wolf from snapping right back at him. To keep her from tearing his ugly face clean off his skull.

Somewhere at my back, Layla whined softly. The happy sounds Vivian and Destiny were making a moment before vanished.

It wasn’t hard to see why. Ryland had begun to pace. His muscled, lithe body flexed. His hackles up. His teeth bared.

Uncle Ry, please— Shut up.

He growled at Jared, who to his credit, didn’t so much as flinch.

Clay growled softly, his blue gaze never leaving me. His hard stare warned me not to react without the need for words. This would end badly if I did and we both knew it.

Jared may have been hopeful that his uncle would be merciful. Would forgive. But Clay knew better.

So did I.

In a camp full of wolves who were all sworn to their alpha, if I made one more move against him, I’d never make it out of here alive. Hell, I may not already.

Ryland whirled on me in the blink of an eye.

I barely had time to see him, much less react before his jaw clamped around my front leg.

The bone snapped and pain unlike anything I’d ever felt screamed in every nerve ending in my body.

Horrid, pitiful sounds scratched up my throat.

The cadence of my voice changing as the shock of the pain jarred my wolf back enough that I was able to reemerge.

The animal sounds turned to human gasps and sobs as I clutched my splintered limb to my chest.

Blood dribbled down my forearm where a knifepoint of white bone protruded from my skin just below my elbow.

I gagged at the sight of it, my stomach turning and vision awash with watery stars again.

The cloying smells of pepper, firesmoke, and whiskey assaulted my senses as Ryland leaned in, naked and steaming in the cold. His human hand curled around my chin, gripping hard enough that I knew there would already be bruises beneath his fingertips.

“That was a warning,” he spat. “You won’t get another.”

He shoved my head to the side, and I cried out as my body fell over, crushing my broken limb.

“Get her out of my sight,” Ryland hissed.

Human hands lifted me. A string of curses tumbled from familiar lips. Clay’s voice whistled past my ears. “I’ll fucking kill him.”

“What was that?” Ryland demanded.

“I’m not leaving them,” I managed through gritted teeth, blurting the words quickly before Clay could have a chance to repeat himself and get us all killed. “I won’t leave my friends.”

Ryland’s eyes sparked back to an orange glow and his upper lip curled back. “What did you just say—”

“I’ll stay,” Destiny’s voice rose above all other sounds and I craned my neck to see her standing next to a still canine Vivian, her right hand plunged into the thick fur on Viv’s neck as my friend leaned into her human mate.

“What’s going on?”

Charity, in a long t-shirt, appeared in the doorway, taking in the blood-soaked stones and my broken limb. The chains and manacles still attached to my wrists and ankles but no longer anchored to the wall.

The jagged bite mark still seeping blood in Ryland’s shoulder.

“Charity can stay in your stead,” Destiny offered, lifting her chin. She didn’t trust Ryland right now, either, I realized. The way she was clutching my best friend to her told me she would die before she saw anything happen to her, too.

Ryland looked like he was about to disagree, staring at Destiny and her new mate in disgust, but Charity spoke first.

“I will not move until you return,” she told him, stepping the rest of the way inside and bowing her head to her alpha.

Mollified by her obedience, Ryland snapped, “See to it that you don’t,” and shifted back into his wolf form, casting one last scathing glare in my direction before loping out of the moon chamber and away into the night.