Chapter 20 - Heath
Heath
Rowan and I braced for the witches’ spell, standing slightly in front of Dean and Varden, and well ahead of Brielle and Zak.
I prepared myself for the blast radius of the witches’ curse, fully expecting to lose my wolf again, as the witches raised their hands.
It had been horrible to experience firsthand, but the thought of them targeting Rowan, of him losing his wolf when he was the one of us most in touch with his beast — well, I could understand why it had driven Freya into a feral frenzy.
Through the Bonded link, her power was still gathering, dangerous and ready to strike, but now more controlled, more purposeful with Torsten by her side.
“You think only witches have magic?”
Torsten’s vicious laugh cut through the chaos of battle, momentarily drawing everyone’s attention.
“Let us show you the power of wolves.”
He didn’t charge into battle like the rest of us alphas would have. Instead, he shifted, his white wolf standing directly beside Freya, their shoulders and haunches touching.
Two white wolves with blue eyes, standing side by side against the darkness, lightning crackling around them both. The sight sent a primal thrill through my chest — my mates, united in power I was only beginning to understand.
“Look at the bonds, Freya,” Torsten’s voice resonated through the Bonded link, calm and deep. “Love, loyalty, friendship. Mate bonds and pack bonds.”
Through our connection, I suddenly saw what she saw — not with my physical eyes, but through the magical tapestry that linked us all. The battlefield transformed into a complex web of luminous threads, pulsing with life and connection.
Not just between the wolves… but also between witches.
Unlike our bonds, though, the coven’s bonds appeared as brittle, artificial threads — ugly, rust-orange things built on compulsion rather than choice.
In contrast, the bonds between our allies blazed with vitality.
The Howling Echo pack bond was the clearest to me, stretching from my chest straight to Gage right alongside our Bonded link and mate bond.
Through Freya’s eyes, I could also see those between the Ironwood pack, the ones still connecting Frost Fang to Gage, the Bloody Dawn’s small number of threads, the bonds between the few Moonblessed wolves who’d arrived so far, right down to the mate bonds between Jasmine and her men, and even Astrid’s unique shifter pack bond, uniting various types of shifters into something just as strong as any pack.
Pride swelled in my chest as I watched Freya’s power build, controlled now instead of the wild, destructive force we’d started to fear. This was my Freya — the woman who sought to protect us all with abilities none of us fully comprehended.
Lightning crackled along both wolves’ fur, but it didn’t erupt from their bodies this time. Instead, starlight seemed to flow from Torsten into Freya, feeding her power, guiding it. The energy built between them like a storm gathering strength.
“Now,” Torsten murmured through the link. “Show them what happens when they threaten our pack.”
Freya’s focus narrowed to a burning point, guided by her enhanced sight and Torsten’s steady presence. Power strained through our Bonded link until my teeth ached; any more and something in one of us might snap.
She didn’t blast indiscriminately like we’d feared — instead, she targeted the witches… No, not even the witches themselves. The ugly, twisted bonds that held the Ashworth Coven together.
“Break them,” I growled through the link, pushing my own strength toward her.
Her attention fixed on Trella, the coven master standing protected by her three Bonded at the center of the enemy formation.
All the lightning around Torsten slid over to Freya, and it rose into a crackling ball over their heads. Then, like a lightning strike, it shot forward, straight at Trella.
The flash was blinding. With my enhanced vision, I had to squeeze my eyes shut against the brilliance. When I opened them, the witches’ brittle bonds were bursting apart from the surge of energy.
The witches screamed as their connections shattered. Trella’s face contorted in agony as she even lost hold on her Bonded, her carefully constructed power structure crumbling around her. Without their shared strength, the individual witches became vulnerable, disoriented — but not harmless.
Cut free of the coven’s control, some lashed out in raw panic. A bolt of sickly green magic slammed into a Bloody Dawn wolf, knocking him out of the air mid-leap. A poorly aimed spell skimmed the ground near my feet, turning snow and soil into a hissing, smoking pit.
The wolves struck back.
Artemis led the Bloody Dawn, charging from the left flank while Gabriel and his brothers attacked from the right.
Thatcher’s Ironwood wolves poured in behind them, and I heard Gage’s commanding howl rally the Frost Fang fighters.
The coordinated assault was beautiful in its brutality — and bloody.
Some of our people went down as they punched through the witches’ defenses.
Still, no one could reach Trella and her inner circle.
But Freya wasn’t finished.
Her lightning-bright gaze fixed on the biggest threats — Trella, the witches she’d been Bonded to, and Aliza, the magistra who had torn my wolf away with those cursed stones. The memory had my lips curling back with a vicious snarl. I wouldn’t let them destroy Rowan’s wolf.
Neither would Freya — I felt her weigh their actions and judge how to respond.
I pushed my approval to her as she made her decision: they’d proven themselves to be enemies of all shifter-kind — first at Elder Forest, then at Frost Fang, and now here facing our new protection council.
Freya shifted back to her human form so the witches could hear her words. Torsten draped his coat around her small shoulders as she amplified her own voice.
“For Heath and the shifters you tortured,” Freya’s voice was fierce with protective fury. “For Rowan and the shifters you would have harmed. For all of us.”
She drew once more on our combined strength through the Bonded link — not just mine, but Gage’s pack alpha dominance, Flint’s steady strength, Rowan’s feral intensity, Zak’s magical knowledge, and Torsten’s ancient wisdom. The power that built between the two Odinswolves was staggering.
Freya’s magic cracked open the sky itself, a brilliant column of lightning and witchfire that illuminated the entire battlefield. For a single breath, the world went silent.
Then Freya’s second strike fell with pinpoint accuracy from the clear night sky. It struck Trella and her inner circle like the judgment of the stars themselves.
Trella and Aliza just simply… ceased. The flash of Odinswolf lightning and searing witchfire consumed them both completely, leaving nothing but scorched earth where they’d stood. The charred remains of Trella’s Bonded also fell lifeless to the frozen earth.
I threw back my head and howled in victory, the sound ripped from somewhere deep and primeval.
“Backlash incoming,” Zak’s urgent voice cut through our celebration. “Freya, brace yourself!”
Freya swayed, knees buckling as the severed magic snapped back toward her like a broken tether.
Torsten was already there to catch her, his starlight magic flowing into her, helping redirect the magical recoil.
Zak’s blue healing light joined them, the three working together to contain the explosive feedback from destroying so much dark magic at once.
Power roared through the Bonded link until my vision spotted at the edges.
When it cleared, I saw Freya barely on her feet with Torsten’s arm around her.
Blood trailed down from her nose from blood vessels that had burst from channeling so much power.
Her exhaustion — and Zak’s — dragged at my own energy stores, Zak having nearly burned himself out to keep the worst of it from tearing her apart.
The witches were fleeing now, broken and demoralized.
Their magical assault crumbled as they scrambled to escape our allied forces.
A wave of fierce satisfaction washed over me as I watched the last of Trella’s broken coven disappearing into the darkness with Midnight Path shifters of every kind chasing them down.
Big cats shrieked in outrage, wolves growled in fury, and an eagle screamed overhead.
Now that the battle was over, my wolf wanted nothing more than to claim his mates, to see for himself that we’d all escaped the fight unscathed. Zak got to his feet first, stumbling toward Freya. Rowan and I rushed to help him across the battlefield.
But Shante got to her first, immediately shifting back to stand with her bestie. Her dark eyes took in the scene — the charred witch bodies, the fleeing enemies, before falling on Freya.
“Leave it to you to finish the fight before I even get here.” She put her hands on her hips as she looked at Freya. “Some of us were actually trying to get some sleep, you know.”
Despite everything, I felt a smile tug at my lips. Trust Shante to lighten the mood after a battle.
But our celebration was cut short by the sight of the Midnight Path shifters who’d been caught in the witches’ earlier attack.
The cheetah shifter crouched in human form, mewling piteously, his hands clawing at the frozen ground as he desperately tried to call his animal back.
The mountain lion shifter beside him had tears streaming down her face, her eyes wide with the same horror I’d felt when the curse stone severed my connection to my wolf.
“No,” I breathed, the memory of that emptiness hollowing me out even now. I remembered the crushing despair, the feeling that part of my soul had been ripped away. These shifters were living that nightmare right now.