Chapter 22 - Dane
The explosion hit like a clap of thunder.
Flames roared, smoke bloomed like black wings, and the walls of the Pine Shadow Club shook with the force of the blast. Dane hit the ground hard, dust and ash raining down on him. His ears rang. The taste of blood coated his tongue.
For a moment, all he could hear was the pounding of his heart, loud, urgent, primal.
Then came the screams.
He pushed up with a groan, blinking soot from his eyes. Around him, the world was chaos. Rubble littered the floor. Flames licked the air. Somewhere to his left, Rick barked orders, and Felix shouted something he couldn’t make out. The air was full of smoke and snarls and the tang of blood.
But none of it mattered.
His wolf surged to the surface, furious and wild. His boots crunched through ash and ruin, wolves snarled all around him, his thoughts fixed on one name.
Lola.
He had to find her. Had to protect her. She was alive. She had to be.
She had to be.
He should’ve been helping the pack. Should’ve been taking orders, guarding Felix’s flank, coordinating with Nicolas and Rick. But none of that mattered when the world had narrowed to one violent, singular truth.
He came for my mate.
That thought had taken root in his gut, and it would not let go.
Dane shoved through a tangle of collapsed timber and broken stone.
Behind him, wolves snapped and shrieked, bodies slamming into walls and earth.
His pack fought like hellhounds, a hurricane of snarls and strikes.
John Heath’s wolves had joined the fray too, leaner, slightly smaller alphas, but ruthless, practiced, and tactical.
They didn’t fight like they owed the Iron Walkers a damn thing, but rather like men defending their own corner of the world.
Heath himself was barely visible through the smoke, flanked by two lieutenants, barking low orders with an eerie calm. Rick circled nearby, blade glinting crimson, eyes narrowed, his savagery taking over.
Then Dane spotted a wolf, already shifted, its red-gold fur streaked with ash and blood. It crashed into an enemy alpha with brutal grace, tearing through muscle and fur with terrifying precision.
Marsha. It was Marsha.
Dane blinked, his head in a daze. Marsha had been in the club when the explosion happened; she had been one of the women trapped—
But then Daisy’s unmistakable figure, small and cream-furred, blurred through the smoke and pounced with a vicious snarl, guarding Marsha’s flank as she swung a shattered chair leg like a cudgel with her teeth.
Somewhere, Nicolas cried out with pure animal relief as he saw his mate.
Dane’s chest tightened.
They’d escaped. They were here. They were unhurt.
Lola did this. Lola got them out.
A scream cut through the night, not pain, but rage, and other females broke into the clearing, wolf-shifted, eyes wild and glassy with adrenaline. They weren’t trained. They weren’t ready. But they were here. Fighting.
He felt it in his bones. The pack was shifting. What had once been hierarchy and ritual was now blood and trust and fire.
“Felix!” Dane shouted, dodging a swipe from a brute with broken teeth. He countered, slammed the alpha’s head into the debris, and kept moving. “Felix! The women made it out!”
Felix, in his massive russet wolf form, turned mid-fight. His flank was bleeding. He snarled loud, “What?”
“They’re here. They’re unhurt. Lola—” Dane’s voice cracked, “she must have got them out.”
Felix’s expression faltered, a rare, momentary flicker of heartbreak, but he didn’t pause. He launched himself back into the fray, taking down two alphas in one bone-jarring leap.
The air changed.
Dane didn’t need to turn to know who had arrived.
The scent hit him first. Bitter, metallic, and wrong.
Red Teeth stepped from the smoke like a figure carved from nightmares.
Blood slicked his chest; his scars gleamed like firelight across his jaw.
His bone mask was cracked at the brow, half hanging loose from one temple.
The raw ruin of his face beneath it was barely human.
But it was his eyes that chilled Dane the most, not fury, not even bloodlust.
Amusement.
He looked amused.
Red Teeth was flanked by two remaining alphas, both limping but upright. One held a blade. The other had a makeshift torch. They looked at Dane like he was already dead.
Dane growled low, guttural. His claws flexed.
“Where is she?” he snarled.
Red Teeth tilted his head. “So she is your little bitch,” he rasped. “Brave girl. Couldn’t keep her mouth shut.”
Dane surged forward, but Rick's hand snapped out, stopping him.
“Wait,” Rick said. His voice was deathly calm. “He’s baiting you. Think.”
Dane wrenched his arm free, chest heaving. “I don’t care.”
Rick didn’t argue. He just stepped back, eyes flat. “Then end it.”
That was all Dane needed.
He moved, low, fast, and dangerous, and the battlefield responded. Around them, the fight thinned. Even Felix turned, watching as Dane stalked toward the man who had nearly destroyed them all.
Red Teeth ripped off the remains of his bone mask and tossed it to the ground. His smile was all broken teeth and blood.
“Come on, then,” he said.
Dane didn’t answer. He just shifted, huge and terrifying, claws extended, eyes gold-bright and blazing. He stepped between the fires, the blood, the bodies.
“Where is she?” his voice cracked like lightning.
Red Teeth sneered, “You never did have any discipline, did you? A shame your father didn’t succeed in beating all that sentiment out of you.”
Dane snarled, “Where is she?”
Red Teeth shifted, hulking and scarred, more beast than wolf. He was a figure who had haunted Dane’s nightmares. A dark mirror to what Dane could become.
It ended here.
Red Teeth didn’t waste time on posturing. He lunged. Dane dodged left, barely avoiding claws that would’ve gutted him. They collided like titans, fang to fang, bone against fury.
Red Teeth was bigger, older, and brutal in a way that spoke of decades of war. But Dane fought with something more. Not just rage. Not just grief. He fought for Lola. For Sam. For the entire damn pack.
Blood sprayed, coating the mud and ash, as they both tried to rend the flesh from each other.
From the corner of his vision, the pack surged forward. Rick, blade flashing, cut through a pair of Red Teeth’s alphas, protecting Felix as he howled commands. John Heath’s wolves circled, his alphas coordinated, precise.
But Dane saw only Red Teeth.
The mad alpha tackled him, sending them both crashing into the rubble. Dane hit the ground hard, a crack blooming along his shoulder. Red Teeth opened his mouth, his yellow fangs poised to lunge—
A blur of motion.
Nicolas, his wolf massive and dark, collided with Red Teeth from the side. He was knocked off-balance. Lola’s name echoed in Dane’s head like a war drum.
Nicolas circled, snarling. Behind him, Daisy, in her cream wolf form, darted through the chaos, biting at exposed throats. Her head perked up, and she loped forward, pawing at the rubble.
“Lola!” Daisy said through the bond, her words like sunshine cracking through storm clouds, “She’s here! She’s alive, she’s breathing!”
Dane’s world tilted for a moment, then sharpened into exquisite focus.
Lola was alive. She was alive.
But Red Teeth lumbered to his feet, a dark shadow of death, and all of Dane’s senses focused in.
She was alive. But as long as this bastard still breathed, she wasn’t safe.
Dane surged up, tackling Red Teeth with renewed strength. He rained blows, teeth breaking skin, fury breaking bone. “You touched her,” he snarled, “you hurt my mate.”
Red Teeth clawed at him, snapping teeth, grazing Dane’s throat.
Then, a howl.
Felix. It reverberated through the wreckage, rallying their wolves. The Iron Walkers responded as one. John Heath’s pack followed suit. They surrounded Red Teeth’s remaining alphas, overwhelming them.
Dane pinned Red Teeth. “This is for every life you took. Every fear you left behind.”
He drove his teeth into Red Teeth’s throat.
Silence.
For a beat, the world seemed to hold its breath.
Then Red Teeth’s body slumped. Dane staggered back, panting, chest heaving.
Felix approached slowly, his fur streaked with soot and blood.
Shifting, he approached slowly, muscles flexing. He crouched beside the fallen alpha, nudging the body with his boot, then looked at Dane with all the weight of the years since the uprising. “It’s over.”
“No,” Dane rasped, “not until I see her.”
He stumbled toward the rubble. Daisy had already shifted back into her human form, brushing the soot from Lola’s face. Nicolas, still a wolf, ran over, nudging his mate away and into the protective hollow of his chest with his great shaggy head, warning growls low and insistent.
Dane felt the savage need to protect his mate keenly.
He shifted, dropping to his knees, pulling Lola up and into his arms.
She was breathing, barely.
All around them, the pack picked itself up from the fight.
Dane didn’t think about them. He couldn’t focus on anything but the woman in his arms.
And the small life he could smell in her womb.
Their baby was alive.
Hot tears rolled down his cheeks, cutting through the soot and blood.
He brushed Lola’s hair from her face, pressing his nose into her neck. Her pale skin was bruised, scraped, but her eyes fluttered open.
Dane let out a heaving gasp. “Lola.”
She blinked up at him. “You’re alive.”
He pulled her in tight, cradling her head, not caring about the blood, the ash, the sting in his shoulder. “So are you. Thank God, you’re okay.”
“The others?” she asked, voice hoarse.
“They made it out. You saved them.”
She closed her eyes, tears slipping down her cheeks.
The rest of the pack began to gather around them. Cassie was there, tucked into Felix, Rick, Nicolas, Daisy, and even John Heath, standing like a sentinel just beyond the circle. The Pine Shadow Club still smoldered behind them.
Felix stepped forward, one hand on Dane’s shoulder, “You did well.”
Dane looked down at Lola, who clutched his shoulders like a lifeline.
“She did it all,” Daisy said, “she saved everyone.”
Lola, still trembling, muttered, “I didn’t know if it would work. I didn’t know if I’d make it out.”
“You didn’t need to know,” Dane said, brushing a soot-streaked curl from her face. “You were brave enough to try.”
Rick paced, his wolf dark and menacing, his eyes alight with fury as he took in the smoldering wreckage.
He was half-wild with rage.
Felix glanced over at him, expression grim.
It would not be easy to tame his fury.
John Heath cleared his throat, stepping forward. Felix’s gaze whipped to him. “We’ll hold the borders until your wounded are safe.”
Felix nodded once. “We thank you for your aid.”
Heath tilted his head. “Then we’ll talk about the boon.”
Felix’s eyes narrowed. “Understood.”
But Dane didn’t care about politics or alliances.
He only saw Lola.
He pressed his forehead to hers, voice breaking, “You’re mine. I should have said it sooner. I won’t ever let you go again.”
Lola gave a small, trembling smile. “You better not.”
The pack closed in around them, a circle of strength, of unity, of survival.
The Iron Walkers had held.
And at their heart was a trembling scholar and a broken enforcer, clinging to each other in the ash of what almost was, and in the hope of everything still to come.