Chapter Twenty-Eight Hunter
This was turning into a bloodbath. There were at least fifty wolves from Dylan’s pack fighting alongside us, and somehow Lupe had triple our numbers in her reserves.
I disemboweled, ripped, and tore through so many wolves that I lost count.
Blood matted my fur and oozed down my chest in a thick, viscous fluid.
When I first claimed Dylan, I thought I left the brutality and bloodshed of the Enforcer life behind.
Something about her told me she would bring peace to my life, and now I am back to square one, doing what I have been stuck doing for decades.
Slaughtering my own kind.
It wasn’t hard to see which wolves here were my foe and which were my friends.
There was a scent about the ones that Lupe claimed for herself.
Our opposition’s scent was more that of a wolf than of a man.
These even shed their human skin faster than what normal werewolves could do, giving these abominations an edge with their speed and strength.
Their minds were shattered, revealing creatures who had abandoned their human forms. These were pure wolves, no humanity was left in their eyes.
Their ferocity and lack of control showed in their fighting style.
There was no strategy for how they fought, no advanced tactics or forethought.
It was all teeth, claws, snarling, and lunging towards my stomach or throat like a wild animal.
Even though I was doing the same, I knew to distract them with a bite to their limbs.
I had the privilege of formal military training, and I learned so many ways to kill an opponent, and a lot of the ways were to incapacitate them first. That’s what I tried to focus on.
These things , however, only had one goal in mind ,and they were relentless to achieve it.
If I were less careful, or lacked the knowledge to successfully block an attacker, an attacker could easily rip open my jugular.
Because of Dylan, I could feel a faint pull on the pack bonds within her.
I had access to them all from my bond with her, and I tried to assess how the others were doing.
There was only one death from her pack so far, which was a good sign that we could handle this.
The man was a good fighter too, but he was quickly overwhelmed and taken out.
I felt they were targeting the strongest fighters in the pack first to overwhelm them with numbers and savagery and then pick off the rest when the ranks broke.
It was the same for me, Jackson, and Silas.
The three of us fell into a rhythm in the chaos and coordinated the attacks so we wouldn’t suffer the same fate as our fallen comrade.
We stuck by each other’s sides as much as we could to avoid being singled out, and it was working for us.
We had lost sight of Dylan, making us all nervous.
I didn’t know about the others, but I kept reaching for the bond to feel her. Her energy was still as strong as ever.
When we all felt her terror rise from the shadows, we went to find her.
Do you see her? Silas asked as we approached. Is she still alright?
Like I can fucking see through this any better than you can! I snarled.
Our girl is stronger than this. She will let us know if she needs us.
Jackson was right. Dylan would let us know if she was in mortal danger, but this thick fog of shadows worried me.
Other wolves were jumping into the melee, and it was getting harder to tell who was friend and who was foe.
I had to rely on the scent of the pack to tell me, and I almost got it wrong a few times.
The intermingling of aromas and odors mixed, and the contact of bodies fighting and wrestling, added to the challenge.
My wolf went frantic; all he knew was that Dylan was somewhere lost in the shadows, and we couldn’t see her.
We will keep wolves from going in. Lupe could be commanding them to go in there and attack Dylan to make the odds in her favor.
Good plan! Jackson rang with agreement in my mind.
Why aren’t we going in there? She could need us! Silas growled.
A few more wolves came towards us, and we charged them in an attempt to keep them from disappearing into the fog.
It didn’t take us long. Some of these wolves had no fighting skills.
It seemed like they were only just coming into their wolves.
I worried I was attacking the lycan equivalent of child soldiers, but I couldn’t let that bother me right now.
They were still an enemy who would have no qualms murdering me, Jackson, Silas, or Dylan.
Unfortunately, the bitter truth of it was, there was no reversal from whatever Lupe had done to them.
Once a human was severed from its wolf counterpart, there was nothing left to save.
Dylan managed to get Lupe to drop the shadowy fog.
It made me smile to see her not being rattled about the ongoing battle raging around her.
It also made my heart sing to see Lupe pissed.
Silas wasn’t as happy about it, but he would learn that Dylan was a powerful force to be reckoned with.
We didn’t need to worry about protecting her so much; she was more than capable enough to handle herself.
It was our privilege to be the ones who could protect her, but she didn’t need it.
It helped in this fight to know that, but it still didn’t stop me from wanting to be where she was in this fight now.
Despite her combat prowess and her headstrong nature, I desperately wanted to be the one who would protect her.
When the fog dropped, we all saw the four wolves, two on either side of Lupe.
Teowulf joined our ranks, and his wolf gave me a curt nod, as if he knew we needed another to help right now.
Just as those wolves stared at my mate, we took off.
We didn’t even have to coordinate our attack.
We stood in a similar way, and we moved to strike the ones who were in our direct line of sight.
These, however, weren’t like the rest of the wolves who we wiped across the battlefield.
These soldiers knew exactly what they were doing in a fight.
It made sense as to why they were close to Lupe. They were her personal body guards.
They weren’t a match for us, though.
It took a little longer than expected, but I overpowered the wolf I took on and sunk my teeth into the skin of his neck.
This guy’s fur was thicker than normal, but I found his skin and shook my head to rip a large bloody piece of it out.
He pushed his claws into my underside, but it didn’t pierce to cause any damage.
I felt his life force fade away and looked up to see more wolves coming in from the tree line.
What the fuck!
How could there possibly be more wolves coming into this fight?
Where the hell did Lupe get all of them?
This was becoming a battle I wasn’t sure we would live through at this rate.
There were too many damn wolves for us to face.
Every time it looked like we had the upper hand, more were coming in. We needed more reinforcements.
Before we left, I contacted the Monarch and told him what we were facing. He didn’t seem to care. It didn’t sound like the alpha I grew up with. If I would have told him this was happening in my youth, he would have sent hundreds of wolves to the battle to ensure the victory.
Why wasn’t he doing that now?
Most of the Monarch’s pack were those who went through the academy to become an Enforcer.
We were the werewolves’ army, and we knew what our job meant.
We were the ones keeping everything in line, and I signed up for that life.
When I found Dylan, I gave it up, but the Monarch gave me the blessing to do so.
How the fuck are we going to deal with this? There are too many of them! Jackson growled as he came to my side to stare into the field of oncoming wolves.
Good fucking question. I don’t know. The Monarch didn’t seem to care when I told him what was about to transpire.
This time around, it didn’t look like fifty wolves. There were more. So many more.
Lupe had been busy when we originally thought her to be defeated.
We should have taken her down for good. Where she even found this many wolves to join her cause had me baffled.
I didn’t think this many would sign up to become something that wasn’t even a werewolf. These were wolves in human clothing.
And these had already shifted. They were at their full power this way.
I just had to thank the damn Great Moon that none of them seemed to know how to wield the shadows like Lupe did.
Some weren’t even good at using their astral form like Dylan.
Lupe said this process worked better with Shadowborns, but too many of these wolves weren’t Shadowborns.
Lupe gathered others who weren’t of that subspecies to join her cause.
This was how she planned to take over. It looked like she was just taking over anyone who opposed her and was adding them to her army as pawns. And now I had to kill every single one since there was no damn cure.
They swarmed us. Others joined in the fight from Dylan’s pack, all seeing where the next wave came in to help. Too many of them looked like they were on their last amount of energy to fight. Their movements had become sluggish and almost cost them their lives.
A wolf jumped on my back and rolled him off and snapped down on his front right limb until I heard a crunch.
He rolled to his feet and favored the one I had broken, but he didn’t stop there.
He lunged the best he could at me, fumbling from his injury and opening him up for my attack.
My canines bit down deep into his shoulder, and I ripped it away with a tug.
He slowed down, but still tried to attack.
It didn’t work as I made my way into ripping him apart until there wasn’t much left.
Anger rolled through me as I continued to make my way through the crowd of wolves, all of us fighting the same fight.
It became a rhythm of me fighting off a wolf myself and then helping someone else as the enemy gained the upper hand.
I looked over to see my mate trying to evade Lupe’s blows, but Lupe looked like a tornado.
Her movements were faster, and it made it harder for Dylan to land anything.
If any of these wolves fought like Lupe, we all would be dead.
Hunter! Need you! Silas yelled through the bond and I looked to see two of the feral wolves on top of him.
He held them back as best as he could, but their snarling teeth gnashed toward his face, spewing saliva forward.
I barreled into one, knocking him off my new pack brother and I tore into him as my rage needed to be sated.
I was so over this shit.
Jackson jumped into my vision and then over me.
I turned my head to see him on top of a wolf that was trying to take me on from behind.
This was utter madness. We were killing them left and right.
The ground was stained red with their blood and piles of enemy combatants lay dead with throats ripped open and drained of their life.
Yet somehow there were more hordes of these fresh wolves charging towards with little care for their own lives.
Full of hatred and savagery, they kept trying to take us on.
It didn’t matter. They will all end the same.
Where the fuck are all these damn wolves coming from?! Jackson snarled in my head.
Another good question. Lupe somehow had this many damn wolves on her side?
There were tens of thousands of us in the supernatural world, but I would’ve never guessed this many of them thought Lupe’s plans were the way this world should be.
Clearly, I was the one wrong here since there were at least a few hundred fighting for her.
This was insane. There was a glimmer in the light above, and I looked up to see the moon glowing in this weird way.
Panic laced through me as I thought Lupe had gained the power to influence the damn moon.
Even worse, I thought the shadows were returning from the darkness I saw shrouding around Lupe.
But that’s not what I saw at all.
The moon glowed and a new light cast down on the battlefield.
I could see everything all around me, like a floodlight had been turned on.
I could even see all the wolves fighting the others.
Blood and bodies were everywhere on the ground.
In the treeline's darkness, in the inky black forest that surrounded us, eyes appeared.
The glowing eyes of predators all reflected the moonlight on a solid wall of danger and murderous intent.
Great. Even more fucking wolves for us to fight. We are all going to die!
A familiar power wrapped around me, and the bond I forgot about sounded in my chest. I felt a small sense of relief spread through me as more wolves walked out on the battlefield.
There weren’t as many as the wave that Lupe brought upon us, but it would be enough.
Just enough to change the damn tides and for things to end here and now.
The power washed over me, and I felt my bonded brothers stiffen as they walked up to me.
Every wolf in the area stopped to look at who was coming onto the field.
They were all going to die, but not in the way they thought. This was exactly what we needed.
Is that who I think it is? Silas asked through the bond.
No fucking way that’s who we think it is. He wouldn’t have come here, right? Jackson added.
My wolf was impressively big, as were Jackson and Silas.
But this behemoth of a wolf was larger than all three of us.
His coat being impossibly black like the night sky and a patch of dark gray on his head almost like a crown.
.. which was fitting given who he was. The monster that had emerged from the forest and now stood in front of us looked to be a creature of myth.
A nightmare told in hushed tones by parents to their children when speaking about the dangers of the woods at night.
A legend among werewolves, famous for keeping order in the realm.
It was exactly who we thought it was. The Monarch has just entered the fight... and he brought reinforcements.