Chapter 19 - Zak #2
I threw up a shield on instinct, blue light crackling around us as curses streaked past. Beside me, Brielle did the same, her magic interweaving with mine to form a stronger barrier.
But there were too many.
The camp erupted into chaos. Moonblessed wolves, caught off guard, hesitated — unsure whether to stand and fight or retreat to defend their walls.
Ironwood was trying to form defensive ranks, but the sudden assault caught them scattered throughout the camp.
The Midnight Path and Bloody Dawn charged forward with reckless courage, meeting the witches head-on.
My eyes widened at the sight of several huge cat shifters and even an eagle swooping through the air.
But the strength in our numbers might be our greatest weakness, too. Our allies had no coordination. No unified strategy.
“Fighters forward!” Gage’s mental roar projected through the pandemonium. “Form up! Protect the non-combatants!”
But his voice was just one among many alphas trying to command their own, resulting in terrible chaos.
“This way,” Rowan projected his alpha voice, and we all zig-zagged to avoid the magic thrown at us.
Already weary from creating the wards, I was trying to do too many things at once — hold shields against the magical barrage, coordinate our retreat with my mates, and fight back against the advancing witches. None of which came to me naturally in this less familiar form.
“We’re coming for you,” Freya’s voice whispered through the Bonded link, warm and fierce. “You’re pack. You’re my mate. You’re powerful.”
And through the Bonded link, she flooded me with strength, power, and the will to keep going. Witches scattered from our allies’ attacks, and for a moment, savage satisfaction surged through me.
But this was worse than our previous battles with the Ashworth Coven. Much worse.
With Trella, the coven master, their power was amplified beyond anything we’d faced before. They could pull magic from each other, channel it, focus it with devastating precision.
Just like a Bonded link, but with more members. More power.
And they were using it.
A group of witches began chanting in unison, their voices rising in an eerie harmony. Dark, twisted magic coalesced around them, sickly green light gathering into a pulsing sphere.
At the center of the formation, I saw two familiar figures. Directing the spell was Magistra Aliza, her power amplified by the full strength of her coven, which filled me with dread. Beside her was none other than Dryden, the traitor.
They turned their attention toward the Midnight Path and Bloody Dawn shifters charging toward them.
Helpless fear clawed at my throat as I realized what was about to happen.
Artemis and her Bloody Dawn wolves were young shifters, most of them only a few years past their first shifts.
They were survivors who’d rebuilt their lives from nothing, and now they were about to suffer something even worse.
I had to do something.
“No!” I screamed through our bonds, but I was too far away, too slow.
The sphere of magic washed over the closest warriors like polluted seafoam. It seemed sticky, absorbing into their coats, failing to travel past its initial victims.
Astrid’s bear and cat shifters were formidable fighters, fierce and fast. But when that wave of tainted magic washed over them, everything changed.
A cheetah shifter, mid-leap toward a witch, suddenly stumbled.
His form flickered — fur to skin to fur again — and then he crashed to the ground in human form, naked and vulnerable.
A mountain lion shifter nearby let out a scream of agony as the same magic hit her.
She collapsed, shifting involuntarily to human form.
From human form, the cheetah shifter dug his hands into the ground and clearly tried to shift back, his face contorting with effort.
Nothing happened.
His eyes went wide. “My cheetah — I can’t — he’s gone!”
Beside him, his packmate tried to do the same, desperate to call her cat back, but only silence answered.
“They’re taking their animals!” an alpha howled.
Dean agreed, “It’s like Freya’s magic, but… perverted!”
Horror froze me in my tracks.
In Frost Fang, the Ashworth witches had been experimenting. But after Freya had stripped Dryden of his wolf, Tor’s ravens caught sight of them experimenting on him, no doubt trying to replicate her magic.
But this… this was different. Darker. Where Freya’s Odinswolf power had been a clean severance, this felt like corruption, like something fundamental had been twisted and broken.
The shifters who’d lost their animals collapsed, broken and human. Fear rippled through the entire camp like wildfire. This was far worse than curse stones, which could be destroyed.
This felt permanent. Final.
Aliza had twisted whatever she’d learned from studying Dryden into something monstrous. No one could undo what Freya had done to him.
Except… they didn’t have Odinswolf power. Different source, different rules — but I didn’t have time to chase that thought.
Rowan, Heath, Varden, and Dean had formed a protective circle around Brielle and me, the massive alpha wolves snarling warnings at the advancing witches from behind our shield. As we slowly backed toward the camp and our allies, the enemy pressed forward, emboldened by their success.
One of Tor’s ravens swooped over the witches, giving us all a better view of exactly what we were facing.
Not far from Aliza and Dryden, another woman stood at the center of it all, protected by three witches who kept up a shield: her Bonded.
The same three symbols marked their temples.
They looked like inverted chalices — three overturned cups, likely representing their power.
One for each of their Bonded lovers, just as I now wore runes for Freya, Rowan, Gage, and Heath on my cheekbones.
“That must be Trella,” Gage growled through our Bonded link.
“They’re not shielding Dryden,” I pointed out, hoping one of us could make use of that knowledge somehow.
Aliza’s lips curved in a triumphant sneer. She raised her healed hand in a mocking little wave at me, a silent reminder of our previous battles — and of how thoroughly she believed she’d won.
You failed to stop me before, little half-mage, her smirk said. Try again.
Dryden followed her gaze.
“The big, black wolf,” Dryden’s voice cut through the chaos, pointing directly at Rowan standing near me. The witches had bolstered his voice, still giving him a place of power among them. “He’s one of the Howling Echo.”
“Why is he still helping them?” Heath’s mental voice was raw with betrayal and fury. “After everything they’ve done?”
Trella grinned fiercely and urged her coven forward. “The black wolf is the biggest I’ve seen. Let’s take their hope. We’ll show them not even alphas can survive our new spell.”
The witches began gathering their power again, that sickly green light building around their hands.
And they were facing directly toward us, their eyes on Rowan.
Freya panicked, her emotions snapping like a taut wire breaking. She howled, her fury calling all of us to battle.
Lightning began crackling along her white fur, uncontrolled and deadly. Through our bond, I felt her human consciousness sliding away as her wolf took over, consumed by the need to protect her mate.
Dryden’s head whipped around, and when he saw Freya’s fur standing on end, her lightning crackling, he took a step back, his eyes wide in fear.
“Maybe pick a different alpha,” he warned Trella. “Otherwise you’ll make them all go feral.”
“Feral wolves are dumb wolves,” Trella laughed.
One of her Bonded laughed along with her. “They should do the sensible thing and surrender. Aren’t they supposed to yield when they’re overpowered?”
“Beasts dictated by instinct,” another of Trella’s Bonded added. “Not smart enough to know when they’re beat.”
“Maybe Dryden’s right,” the last Bonded muttered, the only one who seemed to notice Freya was no ordinary wolf.
“Take the big, bad wolf,” Trella demanded.
“No!” Freya’s mental scream was raw, primal, echoing with the remembered agony of them severing Heath’s link to us. “Not Rowan!”
“Freya’s going feral,” Gage’s mental voice was tight with alarm. “She’s about to lose control completely.”
“Remember what happened when she unleashed her magic before,” Heath warned. “She killed Pandora and everyone nearby.”
“She’s more powerful than she was back then,” Gage said, running to stand in front of Freya, to try to break her line of sight and force her human side to the forefront.
Thanks to the Bonded link, I could feel her pulling in even more power. “And she’s drawing power from all seven of us.”
“She’ll never forgive herself if she hurts innocents,” Flint added.
Immense power built in her — enough to level the entire battlefield if used recklessly. And right now, her rage blinded her to everything except the threat to Rowan.
“Freya,” I called through the Bonded link, trying to reach her before she lost herself completely. “You have to be careful. Your magic, if undirected—”
She cut me off. “I can see the bonds. All the pack bonds. I won’t hurt pack.”
“But not everyone here is in a pack bond,” I pressed, sending images through our connection — Brielle fighting beside me, Gabriel and his brothers who hadn’t been formally accepted into any pack yet, Jasmine. “What about them?”
For a moment, her fury wavered. I felt her struggling to hold onto her human side, to think beyond the primal need to destroy anything that threatened her mate.
The witches’ spell was almost ready. Sickly green light pulsed brighter as they leveled their hands at Rowan, ready to unleash it.
“I have to do something,” Freya’s voice was desperate now, caught between her wolf’s rage and her human conscience. “I can’t let them take his wolf. I can’t.”
The magic built to a crescendo, and I knew we were running out of time.
The witches raised their hands in unison, the corrupted magic reaching its peak.
Rowan snarled and crouched lower, ready to dodge, but there was nowhere to run.
The shield Brielle and I had up between us and the witches wavered as Freya pulled the power into herself, absorbing not just the magic from her Bonded, but from her coven as well.
Her lightning crackled brighter, her control slipping further with each heartbeat. I could feel her teetering on the edge of unleashing devastation that would consume friend and foe alike.
Just as the witches prepared to release their spell, just as Freya’s power threatened to erupt, Tor’s calm voice cut through the Bonded link.
He strode up on two legs, then crouched beside Freya.
Without fear, he reached through her crackling lightning to touch her fur, whispering something only for her wolf’s ears.
But different words reached me through the Bonded link.
“Zak, amplify my voice. We need to distract them a moment.”
Tor straightened, chest out, eyes on the witches. I shifted back to my human form and wove the familiar spell, my magic carrying his words across the entire battlefield. His voice rang out clear and strong, cutting through the screams and snarls and crackling magic.
“You think only witches have magic?”
Tor called out, his blue eyes seeming to glow, reflecting the magic before him. His laughter was rich and defiant, utterly fearless in the face of the coven.
“Let us show you the power of wolves.”