Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
The black wolf launched at Vaughn.
With a ferocious snarl, the white wolf charged Dekker.
The clearing exploded into chaos. Shouts of confusion and fear. Screams of pain and terror.
Dekker’s knife slipped an inch from Raven’s neck. His body went rigid against hers. “What the hell—!”
Raven took her opportunity. She raised her foot and kicked backward with all her strength, aiming for Dekker’s kneecap.
He had time to scream.
Then the white wolf was on him.
Luna sprang at Dekker just as Raven dropped and twisted sideways. The wolf’s paws struck Dekker in the chest. She closed her powerful jaws around Dekker’s forearm. The wolf’s teeth sank into flesh, muscle, and bone.
Dekker screamed and fell backward. The knife slipped from Raven’s neck. A line of fire seared her throat.
They collapsed to the ground, entangled in flailing limbs. As she fell, Raven twisted free of the wolf’s scrabbling paws. Landing on top of Dekker, Luna kept her iron grip on Dekker’s arm with her teeth.
Raven rolled on the ground, flattening a swath of soaked ferns. Shakily, she clambered to her hands and knees. Scratches covered her arms and face. Blood dripped steadily from the cut across her throat. The zip ties dug into the flesh of her wrists. Rain slicked her face, soaked her body.
She didn’t care about herself. Scrambling awkwardly to her feet, she scanned frantically for the wolves.
Raven shouted, “Run, Luna! You have to run!”
They shouldn’t be here. The wolves were supposed to be far from here, running free. Safe and alive. They weren’t supposed to come back.
They weren’t supposed to save her.
Twenty yards away, in the center of the open clearing, Shadow battled Vaughn. Vaughn managed to slam the butt of his rifle against Shadow’s muzzle. Shadow let out a pained whimper and darted out of harm’s way.
Three Headhunters armed with pistols sprinted toward Vaughn. Scorpio and Cobb ran toward Dekker. They shouted, their rifles drawn, aiming wildly. They didn’t shoot for fear of hitting Dekker.
Dekker writhed beneath the wolf. Screaming in pain, shrieking curses. Snarling, Luna crouched atop him. She snapped viciously at his throat. Dekker attempted to shield his neck and face with his arms. Punching at her snout, striking at her head.
Run! Raven’s brain screamed at her. This was her chance to escape. But she couldn’t run.
She couldn’t leave the wolves in the hands of the Headhunters.
Not when they had come back for her. Not when they were in such danger.
The wolves had made her pack. They’d made her family.
She had to do something.
Time slowed. Her heart battered against her ribs. Rain pelted her exposed head. The world was gray and hazy, blurred by the raindrops clinging to her eyelashes.
Across the clearing, Shadow kept Vaughn at bay. Circling and darting, leaping and snarling and biting.
Vaughn fired several times but couldn’t aim fast enough. Shadow was a black ghost, dissolving in the rain to mist before reappearing to tear a gash in Vaughn’s arm, to nip viciously at his leg.
Raven needed a weapon, a better one than her tiny whittling blade. She was helpless without one. She scanned the slick wet grass, searching desperately for Dekker’s serrated hunting knife or Damien’s pistol—
There. Among the bent ferns, a glint of steel.
Before she could seize the large hunting knife, Damien appeared. He picked it up and turned toward her. His face a rictus of fear, confusion, indecision.
Raven thrust out her bound arms. “Help me!”
Damien sliced through the zip ties with the knife and freed her wrists. The plastic pieces slipped to the grass. Raven grabbed the knife from Damien’s hands. Her fingers were slick with her blood. It soaked into her shirt.
“You need to go!” His voice was frantic. “Quickly, while they’re distracted. Go. Run!”
“I can’t. Not without—”
Another gunshot sounded. Much closer. Louder.
Raven’s heart stopped. Her ears rang. She whirled to the right.
Scorpio had fired at Luna and missed. On the ground, Dekker wrestled Luna to the death. Scorpio and Cobb circled them warily, searching for an opening.
Luna snarled and snapped at Dekker’s throat. Dekker’s clothes were shredded. His arms and chest were bloodied and tattered. Luna lunged for his throat, closing her jaws a hair’s breadth from his Adam’s Apple. She was ferocious, unrelenting in her attack.
Cobb lifted his rifle, finger on the trigger.
Raven raised the knife and lunged at him. “No!”
Sensing her attack, Cobb dodged to the side. Her knife scraped harmlessly across the arm of his leather jacket.
Cobb whirled and struck her in the side of the head with the rifle.
Pain exploded inside her head. Stars danced across her vision. She staggered, momentarily stunned. The knife slipped from her hand.
Cobb fired. The round nicked the white wolf’s left ear, drawing blood. He cursed.
Before he could fire again, the wolf plunged her jaws into Dekker’s throat. Her teeth closed deep. She clamped her jaws and shook her head fiercely, ripping and tearing and shredding through the man’s jugular. Blood arced from his throat in a wide red spray.
Dekker shuddered. His mouth opened in a gurgling scream. His eyes bulged in horror. His body twitched, convulsed, and then stilled. Blood soaked the ground, the ferns, his torn throat.
Luna had killed him.
The Headhunters shouted in alarm. They couldn’t help him now. Their rifles swiveled toward the wolf.
“Kill it!” Cobb shouted. “Hurry! Don’t let it get away!”
“Luna!” Raven cried. “Run! Go!”
As if comprehending her words, Luna leaped from Dekker’s limp form before the Headhunters could regroup and shoot her. The wolf streaked across the clearing.
But Luna didn’t flee into the safety of the woods. Instead, she swerved toward Vaughn and Shadow, coming to her mate’s aid.
She was ten yards from Shadow, then five.
Everything moved in a terrible, languid slow motion. Raven tried to take a step and stumbled, still dizzy. She could only watch in breathless dread.
Cobb swung around, planted his feet, and raised his rifle. He was too far for Raven to stop him. He aimed and fired at the white wolf.
Luna yelped in pain. Her right hind leg dragged on the ground. Blood bloomed across her hindquarters.
Raven screamed. “No!”
Before she could run at Cobb again, Damien wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back. Raven fought him, twisting to get away. He was strong and held her fast. “It’s not safe! Stay back.”
Her legs buckled. Pain speared her ribs, her skull, the bleeding cut on her neck. “Let me go! Luna!”
Too late.
Cobb fired again.
Luna staggered. She took a faltering step, then another. With a whimper, she slumped to the ground.
“Get up!” Raven cried. “Get up! Run!”
Luna did not get up. A scarlet stain spread through the thick fur of her throat. Her legs twitched like she was chasing a deer through the woods on a beautiful moonlit night. Only she wasn’t. She couldn’t. She would never run again.
Raven shoved at Damien, trying to break free, to get to Luna. “Let me go! Luna!”
Damien tightened his grip. “They’ll kill you. Raven, stop—”
“Luna, get up! Get up!”
Luna’s sinewy body shuddered. Her great chest heaved with the effort of each panting breath. Her regal head lifted once, as if searching for her mate, for Shadow, then it sagged limply to the ground. The wolf let out a faint, pained moan. Then she went still.
Thunder boomed overhead. Lightning flashed. The sky split into jagged pieces.
“NO!” Raven stared at the fallen wolf, bereft. Damien tightened his grip, holding her upright. “No, no, no!”
Rain pelted the wolf’s body. It mingled with the blood and ran in reddish rivulets through the matted fur like small bright rivers. She didn’t move. Her chest did not rise and fall.
The white wolf was dead.