Chapter 33 #2
I let the strands of my consciousness infiltrate my attacker as his claws dig into my flesh, tearing searing lines down my chest. I clench my teeth so tight I taste blood.
I manage to attach to a memory, some painful moment, the moment this wolf’s dad died, and while he’s momentarily distracted, I use every ounce of strength in my body to flip him off me.
The wolf goes flying up and over the edge of the cliff. I scramble onto my belly, peer over the ledge, and watch as he falls, twisting and writhing, and finally landing with a thump.
He isn’t dead, his chest expands in pained, shallow breaths, but he’s more than incapacitated.
Before I even think to check my wounds, I close my eyes and reconnect with every wolf in the Elite and Rocky Pack armies.
“Shift!” I yell. “It was a distraction. They’re here! Shift now!”
Jasper shifts first. I can sense his energy changing, the wolf inside being released. He lifts his muzzle into the air and releases a booming, night-splitting howl.
The Elite and Rocky Packs follow suit in an explosion of lupine energy. The humans gone, the woods are now full of wolves, growling, snapping their strong jaws, clawing at the sod, ready for battle.
As I manage to flip onto my ass, sitting up to reach out into the western edges of the forest, I finally am able to get an image of Walter’s Axis Pack.
Thousands and thousands of wolves are darting through the trees.
Rows and rows of them, leaping forward, fangs bared, eyes yellow, and hungry for blood.
It’s a violent wave crashing down on us, an unstoppable torrent.
A deluge of wolves with one thing on their mind—kill, kill, kill.
I rise to one knee, throw my hands out to the sides, trying to harness more of the moon’s energy and send an image of the incoming Axis Pack to my comrades.
“They’re coming,” I say, ignoring procedure, forgetting that I’m supposed to relay my messages to the officers, and instead speaking to the entire Elite and Rocky Packs. “They’re coming!”
“Max!” Jasper’s voice bellows in my head. “Shift and get back here, now!”
“Right, coming!”
I do as Jasper says. I don’t want to be alone out here any more than he wants me to be.
I let my wolf out. The seams of my clothes tear as the fabric shreds and falls away.
Caramel fur sprouts all over my body. My bones break and reconfigure.
Finally, I fall onto all fours, the pads of my paws softening the landing.
I stand as my wolf, at the edge of the cliff, and as if on instinct, let out an almighty howl.
I’m in this now, time to do what I was meant to!
Not wanting to go the way of my solo attacker, I find another way to descend the cliff, which takes me in a wide arching path through the forest.
Trying to run and keep track of the onslaught of Axis Pack wolves is tricky and at one point I slide to a screeching halt, right at the edge of a line of trees, a hair’s breath away from rocketing into a current of wolves pummeling the earth.
Luckily, they don’t notice me as I change direction, running alongside the never-ending stream of Axis wolves while staying out of sight.
Once I feel like I’ve found my footing I’m able to reach out again and get a new lay of the land.
“Jasper,” I say. “The Axis Pack has split up, they’re converging on the campsite from three angles, at nine, eleven, and seven o’clock. We need to head them off, create the funnels around these streams.”
“Got it,” he says, signaling to his battalion to join him as they race to where one stream of Axis wolves is heading. “Tell the others.”
I send the same message to the heads of each battalion, hoping we can close ranks in time to stop any wolves from slipping through to the camp. And at the same time, I adjust my trajectory, intending to meet up with Jasper and his wolves.
The moment of impact comes with a crash. As our battalions diverge from their positions to meet the onslaught of attackers, wolves collide in an explosion of teeth and fur. Aftershocks ripple through the forest.
I arrive at the spot where Jasper and his team are already in the middle of an epic dogfight. Luckily the trees have forced Walter’s wolves to spread out, and with three of our battalions all combating our enemy at once, the odds seem fairly even.
Jasper is central to it all, tossing Axis Pack wolves aside by their necks like they weigh nothing.
His hind legs propel him into the air, his muscles working like machinery, propulsive and unstoppable.
He leaps to help one of his wolves who’s been pinned down, knocking their attacker clear across the forest and into the trunk of a nearby oak.
He spins around and whips his paw through the air, taking out two more at the same time.