Chapter 20 - Heath #2
Shifters from every pack began crowding closer, their faces etched with concern and fury.
Artemis pushed through the gathered Bloody Dawn fighters, her grandfather Hank limping behind her.
No doubt she’d done her best to convince him to stay in camp, but with the witches bringing the threat to our doorstep, I wasn’t surprised the old alpha had refused to be sidelined.
Gabriel, Garreth, and Grayson formed a protective circle around Jasmine as their wolves padded closer, their white coats still pristine despite the battle.
Members from every pack shifted back to human form, as if to show solidarity with our fallen friends.
“What did they do to them?” Thatcher demanded, his Ironwood packmates flanking him.
“Same thing they tried to do to all of us,” Fern growled, her fellow Frost Fang betas nodding grimly behind her.
Freya pushed forward, and the crowd easily parted for her, the savior of us all. She fell heavily to her knees beside the broken shifters. Through the Bonded link, her exhaustion dragged at me, locked in a tug-of-war with fierce determination.
“It’s not permanent,” she stated, her voice clear and strong despite the magical drain. Her snow-blue eyes blazed as she activated her Odinswolf sight once more. “They may have cursed them without stones this time, but they couldn’t copy what I did.”
As she reached toward them, Zak’s fresh bite mark showed on the base of her right thumb, dark against pale skin. Proof she belonged to all of us.
Through our connection, I saw what she saw — the faint shimmer of animal spirits still present within the cursed shifters, just blocked by the witches’ corrupted magic. Like shadows trapped behind a wall, desperate to break free.
“Freya,” Zak warned, moving to her side with his hands already glowing blue with healing magic. “You’ve already expended enormous energy tonight. Don’t push yourself too hard.”
“They’re suffering,” she replied simply, extending her hands toward the cheetah shifter. “Just like Heath suffered. I won’t leave them like this.”
My chest tightened with emotion as Torsten moved to wrap his arms around hers, the physical contact seeming to steady her.
Zak stepped forward next, channeling the dregs of his healing magic through their connection.
Gage, Flint, Rowan, and I instinctively moved closer, offering our strength through the bonds that linked us all.
Freya’s fingertips crackled with lightning for just a moment before turning blue with healing magic.
She held out a hand to each of them, and the two shifters each grabbed onto her like she would save them from drowning.
But when she pushed her magic into them, her magic changed from the usual healing blue to a perfect, clear glow.
I watched, mesmerized, as the shimmer of their animal forms began to return, growing stronger with each passing second.
The cheetah shifter gasped, his eyes going wide with disbelief. “I can… I can feel him again.” His voice cracked with emotion.
The mountain lion shifter sobbed with relief. “She’s back. Oh goddess, she’s back.”
Both immediately shifted, reassuring themselves that they could. Their animals moved with tentative joy, as if afraid the connection might disappear again. Then they shifted back and dropped to their knees before Freya, their faces shining with gratitude and awe.
“Thank you,” the cheetah shifter whispered. “I thought… I thought I’d lost him forever.”
I remembered exactly how that felt — the crushing certainty that my wolf was gone, that I’d never be whole again. Watching Freya not only defeat our enemies but reverse their most terrifying attack filled me with profound relief and fierce pride.
Around us, the gathered wolves murmured in amazement. Freya had brought them victory, but also restoration, healing, and hope — proving that even the witches’ most devastating magic could be undone.
“Incredible,” Artemis breathed, her youthful face reflecting the same awe I felt.
“She’s not just powerful,” Hank added, his weathered voice carrying the weight of decades. “She actually cares. That’s what makes a true leader.”
Brielle nodded approvingly. “And that’s why we follow her.”
Mine, my wolf rumbled with possessive pride. Our queen. Our Astral.
The moment of triumph shattered when the Midnight Path pack alpha dragged a familiar figure across the battlefield, her bear’s strength making it look easy.
“We avenged our packmates as best we could,” Astrid announced, “though a few witches escaped.”
She pushed the hunched man forward, who stumbled over the charred remains of one of Trella’s Bonded.
“But this one…” she raised her eyes to me just as I let out a snarl of recognition. “Smells nothing of magic and too much like someone I know.”
Standing among the scant remnants of his witch allies, all of which were either dead or fled, my father straightened his shoulders. Abandoned and alone, Dryden’s face was a mask of rage and terror as he took in Trella’s obliteration, the witches’ rout, and Freya’s overwhelming display of power.
All his carefully laid plans and political maneuvering — his alliance with the Ashworth Coven, his schemes to seize power and control by marrying me off to Trella, his betrayal of pack after pack — were reduced to ash and failure.
I prowled closer. My eyes locked with his, daring him to see the son he’d manipulated and lied to, the alpha he sold to the witches for political gain.
Naked and unashamed before the man who’d sired me, only cold detachment remained.
This pathetic figure had no power over me anymore.
Behind me, I heard Astrid reuniting with her cheetah and mountain lion shifters, as they explained in hushed voices how Freya had given them back the missing pieces of their souls.
“Hello, Father,” I said, my voice carrying none of the deference he’d once demanded. “Looks like your witch friends abandoned you.”
“If you decide to kill him, you have my full support,” Gage told me through the Bonded link. “Come what may.”
“What threatens one of us threatens all of us,” Flint agreed.
Dryden’s nostrils flared, his hands clenching into fists. “You ungrateful fool. Do you have any idea what you’ve cost us? The alliances I built, the power we could have wielded—”
“We?” I laughed, the sound harsh in the December air. “There was never any ‘we,’ Dryden. There was only what you wanted, and how you planned to use your children to get it.”
“I told Hazel and Harlow I wouldn’t,” I answered my packmates via the Bonded link. “Living without his wolf is punishment enough.”
Through the Bonded link, Freya’s and Zak’s attention zeroed in on me, ready to intervene if needed. Someone tossed me a pair of pants, so I donned them.
Dryden’s face flushed red. “I gave you everything! Position, education, opportunities most wolves could only dream of, and you threw it all away—”
“You gave me guilt trips,” I cut him off. “You tried to manipulate me. You told me I was never good enough, never dominant enough, never worthy of the family name unless I did exactly what you demanded. Then you let them torture me, and you wanted them to torture Rowan, too.”
This was mine to finish. The scared boy who’d desperately sought his father’s approval was gone, replaced by an alpha who knew his own worth.
“I found my real family,” I continued, gesturing toward Freya and my packmates. “People who value me for who I am, not what I can do for them politically. People who would die for me, just as I’d die for them.”
Dryden’s laugh was bitter. “That hybrid witch? Those outcast alphas? You threw away everything—”
“For love,” I said simply. “Something you never understood. Something you were never capable of giving anyone.”
I turned my back on him then, the emotional weight lifting from my shoulders. This was my closure — not violence, but absolute dismissal, complete irrelevance.
He no longer mattered enough to hate.
“I reject you as my kin,” I said over my shoulder. “You’re nothing to me now.”
But Dryden couldn’t stand being dismissed. “Then you’re no son of mine!” he snarled behind me.
The collective shout ripped through the Bonded link before I heard the metallic click: “GUN! HEATH!”
I whirled, instincts honed by years of combat taking over. The small handgun in Dryden’s trembling hand aimed at my chest. His finger squeezing the trigger.
The shot rang out across the battlefield.
Fire exploded along my left side as the bullet tore through flesh and muscle, blood splattering through the air and across the snow.
I stumbled but I didn’t go down, managing to keep my feet as warmth spread down my side.
Dryden’s eyes went wide. He’d expected me to fall, expected the gun to end this. Instead, he’d pissed off and wounded an alpha wolf — one he could no longer fight as an equal.
My self-control disappeared as my protective instincts exploded into murderous rage. I couldn’t let him fire that gun at anyone else. And there was no way I was going to let him take me out.
Part of my mind registered the hit, cataloged the damage. The wisest course was probably to leave him to Gage, who was sprinting toward us. But I’d taken worse injuries before, I could heal up later.
Right now, my wolf was fighting to shift, howling for retribution.
I refused him, hanging onto my human form. Dryden couldn't shift, so neither would I.
As Dryden brought the gun up for a second shot, I lunged forward and caught his wrist, twisting and crushing until I felt the bones fracture. He screamed in pain, the weapon falling from his nerveless fingers.
I caught it before it hit the ground.
Harlow and Hazel warned me not to kill him, but he’d just forfeited his right to live. If I didn’t kill him, my mates would. I’d been a fool to show him mercy. This was my mess to clean up.
“You brought this on yourself,” I growled, my voice barely human as I pressed the muzzle against his chest.
Dryden’s eyes went wide with terror as he realized what was about to happen. “Son, please—”