Chapter 31 #2
Tears tried to form in my eyes, threatening to spill over. I blinked them away hard. Not now. Not the time. I could cry later, after this was over, after everyone was safe. Right now I needed to be strong.
“How much farther?” I asked, my voice coming out rougher than I intended.
Ryder checked the screen. “About forty minutes at this speed. Then we go on foot.”
Forty minutes. Forever and no time at all.
I settled back in my seat and kept watching the trees blur past outside. Counting the seconds until I could hold my family again.
The trucks stopped about two miles from where Knox was being held. We pulled off the road into a thick group of trees where the vehicles wouldn’t be seen easily. Noah turned off the engine and everything went quiet. Just the tick of the cooling engine and wind rustling through leaves.
Everyone got out without making much noise. Doors clicked shut instead of slamming. Gear got checked one last time. The wolves who were going to shift took off their clothes and left them folded in the trucks.
Then they shifted.
I’d seen it plenty of times by now, the way their bodies changed. Bones cracking and reshaping, fur spreading across skin. It happened fast, just a few seconds, and then I was surrounded by massive wolves with eyes that glowed in the moonlight.
It was still kind of amazing, honestly. Even after everything, even knowing what we were about to walk into, part of me was in awe of what these people could do.
Cole and Noah stayed human, one on each side of me. Their claws were out, long and sharp and ready. They were my guards tonight, my protection if things went bad.
We started moving through the forest.
The ground was rough out here. No paths, no trails, nothing to make walking easy. Just trees and bushes and rocks everywhere, trying to trip me with every step. This was rogue territory, land that no pack had claimed, wild and forgotten.
I pushed forward anyway, ignoring how much my legs were starting to burn. The vest was heavy. My feet kept catching on roots and stones. Every few minutes I’d stumble and have to catch myself on a tree trunk.
The wolves moved around me like it was nothing, like they were floating while I crashed through the underbrush like a drunk elephant. I felt clumsy and loud compared to them. But I kept up. I wasn’t going to be the reason we slowed down.
The bond in my chest got stronger with every step. Knox was close. Really close now.
We came over a small hill and stopped.
There it was.
A big cabin sat in a clearing below us, surrounded by thick woods on all sides.
It looked nicer than I expected, more like a vacation rental than a bad guy’s hideout.
Nice porch that wrapped around the whole thing.
Big windows with light spilling out into the darkness. Someone had put money into this place.
But what caught my attention was the smaller building off to the side. A garage or shed, maybe fifty feet from the main house, looking a lot less fancy. According to Ryder’s phone, that’s where the blue dot was.
That’s where Knox was.
My breath caught in my throat. He was right there. So close I could almost feel him.
The team spread out around the property, moving into position without making a sound. I crouched behind some trees with Cole, and he handed me a pair of binoculars.
I looked at the cabin through the lenses, adjusting the focus until everything went sharp.
Someone was moving inside, pacing back and forth by a window. A woman, waving her arms around, clearly in the middle of an argument. Mary. It had to be. Even from here I could see how pissed off she looked, gesturing wildly at someone I couldn’t see.
Another figure walked past a different window. Lucio. I recognized how he moved, that confident swagger that made me want to punch him in the face. He looked upset too, his movements jerky and agitated.
But I didn’t see Mira anywhere.
I lowered the binoculars, my stomach tightening. Where was she? Inside somewhere I couldn’t see? Out in the woods watching for intruders? Waiting to ambush us?
Not knowing where she was made my skin crawl. She was the wild card in all this.
A wolf came back from scouting ahead, shifting to human form to whisper to Cole. He was one of our guys, young but experienced, and he looked worried.
“Tripwires,” he reported quietly. “All around the place. Not just alarms. Explosives. Traps set up to hurt anyone who gets close.”
My blood went cold.
“How many?”
“At least a dozen that we found. Could be more hidden better. They were expecting someone to come rescue the Alpha.”
I thought about that for a second. They had set up defenses, knew we’d try a rescue eventually. Made sense. But they hadn’t expected us this fast. They hadn’t expected Knox to be wearing a tracker that would lead us right to their front door.
Thank god for Knox and his paranoid gift ideas. All that worrying about keeping me safe had ended up saving him too.
“Can we get rid of the traps?” I asked.
The scout nodded. “It’ll take time, but yeah. We’ve got people who know how to deal with this stuff.”
I signaled for everyone to wait. Nobody moved forward until those traps were dealt with. The last thing we needed was to lose wolves to explosives before we even got to the house.
Cole got a small group together, wolves who had military experience or knew about demolitions. They moved forward carefully, disappearing into the trees. Every now and then someone would signal back, letting us know they’d found another trap and were working on it.
I kept watching the house through the binoculars, hoping nobody inside noticed what was happening outside. Hoping the wind wouldn’t change direction and carry our scent toward them. Hoping we had enough time to do this right.
Movement near the garage caught my eye.
I looked at the smaller building, at a dirty window high up on the wall. Something moved behind the glass. Then a hand pressed against the window for just a second before pulling away.
Was that Knox? Did he know we were here? Was he trying to signal us?
My heart jumped into my throat. That was him. It had to be him.
Hold on, I thought, sending the words through the bond as hard as I could. Just a little longer. I’m almost there.
We were so focused on the buildings and the people inside that we completely missed the danger coming from behind us.
The first warning was a low growl from somewhere in the trees at our backs. A sound that made every hair on my body stand up.
Then all hell broke loose.
At least a dozen rogues came at us from the forest.
They appeared out of nowhere, huge wolves with matted, dirty fur and yellow teeth.
Their eyes were wild and hungry, nothing human left in them.
They must have smelled us moving through their territory.
Must have been following us, gathering their numbers while we sat here like idiots watching the house.
To them, we were just fresh meat. Trespassers in their domain.
The first rogue slammed into our group before anyone could react. One of our wolves went down with a yelp, teeth snapping at his throat. Then everything exploded into chaos.
I stumbled backward, reaching for the taser at my belt. Our neat formation fell apart as wolves crashed into each other, ours and theirs mixing together in a mess of fur and claws and teeth. Cole grabbed my arm and yanked me behind a thick tree, shoving himself between me and the fight.
“Stay down!” he yelled, then shifted and threw himself at a rogue that was trying to get around the tree toward me.
The clearing turned into a battlefield.
I pressed my back against the tree, heart pounding so hard I could barely breathe.
Wolves were fighting everywhere around me.
Snarling, biting, clawing at each other.
Blood splattered across the ground, dark in the moonlight.
Bodies crashed through bushes, snapping branches. The whole place smelled like blood.
Our wolves were doing well. They were trained and working together, which gave them an edge over the wild rogues who fought alone. But the attackers had more bodies and fought like they had nothing to lose. Like this was their last meal and they were starving.
I saw Noah take down a rogue with his claws, slashing across its throat. Ryder was fighting nearby in wolf form, his jaws locked on a rogue’s leg while Sawyer went for the kill. Moonfang and Ravenshollow wolves fought side by side, just like I’d told them to.
But we were losing people too.
One of our wolves got surrounded by two rogues at once. Another went down with deep cuts across his side, struggling to get back up. This wasn’t a clean victory. It was ugly and brutal and people were getting hurt.
Then I noticed something else.
The house had gone quiet.
The lights were still on, but nobody was moving in the windows anymore. The fighting had alerted them. Our surprise was completely ruined.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
Something slammed into me from the side.
I barely saw the rogue before it knocked me flat on my back. A massive wolf, all teeth and claws and matted fur that smelled like death. It pinned me to the ground, its weight crushing the air out of my lungs. Its breath was hot and rotten on my face. Drool dripped onto my cheek.
I screamed and shoved the taser against its neck, jamming my thumb on the trigger.
The rogue convulsed, a horrible sound ripping out of its throat. Its whole body jerked and spasmed. It stumbled back just enough for me to roll away, scrambling on hands and knees to get distance.
But as it fell, its claws raked across my arm.
Pain exploded through me, hot and sharp and immediate. I cried out, grabbing at my arm, feeling blood already seeping between my fingers. The cuts burned like fire.
The rogue collapsed, still twitching from the shock. Another wolf from our side jumped on it and finished the job.
I leaned against a tree, breathing hard, looking at my arm.
Three long scratches ran from my elbow almost to my wrist, blood welling up in thick lines.
Not too deep, I didn’t think. The claws had caught me at an angle, slicing through skin and some muscle but missing anything really important.
I could still move my arm, still grip things.
It hurt like absolute hell, but I’d live.
The fighting was winding down around me. The rogues were being pushed back, their attack falling apart as our wolves regrouped and fought back hard. Bodies littered the ground, and most of them weren’t ours.
We were winning. Barely. But we were winning.
The last few rogues turned and ran, disappearing into the forest with their tails between their legs. Some of our wolves chased them for a bit, making sure they wouldn’t circle back and try again.
Then it was over.
I looked around at the aftermath. At least four of our wolves were down. Some just hurt, some not moving at all. Everyone who was still standing looked beaten up and bloody.
But most of us had made it.
Cole shifted back to human and ran over to me, his eyes going straight to the blood soaking through my sleeve.
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s not bad.” I pushed myself up straighter, gritting my teeth against the pain that shot through my arm. “Just some scratches. I can still move.”
“You need medical attention-”
“Later.” I looked him dead in the eyes, letting him see I wasn’t going to back down. Not now. Not when we were this close. “Knox, Blake, and Thomas are still in that house. We finish this first. Then you can patch me up.”
He stared at me for a second, probably trying to figure out if I was going to pass out or something. Whatever he saw in my face must have convinced him, because he nodded. “Okay. But you stay behind us. I mean it.”
I didn’t argue. I knew what I could and couldn’t do. Fighting wolves wasn’t on my list of abilities.
The team pulled together, everyone who could still fight forming up around me. Someone handed me a strip of cloth and I wrapped it tight around my arm, trying to slow down the bleeding. The pain throbbed with every heartbeat, but I shoved it to the back of my mind.
I could hurt later. Right now I had a job to do.
Noah appeared next to me, covered in blood that wasn’t his. His green eyes were fierce and angry.
“Ready?” he asked.
I looked at the house.
“Let’s get my family back.”
We moved forward together. The wolves who could still shift did, spreading out through the trees. Those in human form walked with their claws out, ready for round two if it came to that.
We crossed the yard, moving carefully around the spots where traps had been disabled. Every step brought us closer to that cabin. Closer to Knox and Blake and Thomas. Closer to the people who had torn my family apart.
We stopped at the edge of the porch.
The front door was closed. Everything was quiet.
Cole held up a hand, signaling for everyone to spread out. Wolves circled the house, covering every window and door. If anyone tried to run, they’d have nowhere to go.
I took a breath.
Then I stepped forward and reached for the door.