Chapter 27 - Freya #3
When the enemy pushed too close to where I stood with my mates, Rowan and Torsten fell into the same ruthless rhythm they’d found in Denraider before.
Rowan’s massive black wolf drew their attention, leaving them open for the white flash of Tor’s jaws.
Tor nimbly answered every opening without hesitation.
Satisfaction rolled off both of them through the pack mind — the sharp, bright kind of pleasure that came from knowing someone would always be exactly where you needed them in a fight.
Denraider had built their military doctrine around overwhelming domination, fear, and rigid hierarchy. They’d never faced anything like this seamless cooperation, this ability to anticipate and counter their every move before they’d even fully committed to it.
“This is impossible,” one of their alphas snarled, projecting his voice, not realizing we could all hear him, his words caught by nearby shifters and carried throughout the pack mind. “How are multiple packs coordinating like this?”
Denraider’s rigid hierarchy crumbled against this unified response. Their alphas barked conflicting orders as situations changed faster than they could adapt. Their subordinates hesitated, confused by commands that made no sense in the rapidly evolving battle.
And with every victorious moment, everyone’s confidence in the pack mind grew, reinforcing our shared power. It made the pack mind easier for me to hold. Unlike when I’d needed to focus before, I effortlessly held the magic now.
“This is incredible,” Artemis’s voice whispered through the pack mind, her wonder mixing with fierce satisfaction as her pack moved with the fluid grace of wolves who’d been fighting together for years instead of days.
“I’ve never felt anything like it,” Gabriel added, his own amazement coloring the shared consciousness as Celestial Alloy anticipated and countered every Denraider move.
Awe in my power only grew. I was their Radiant, the hybrid who could unite packs that were once enemies. The Odinswolf who led without dominance. The witch who healed instead of harming.
And my six mates held me, kept me tethered to my own body so I didn’t get completely lost in the pack mind.
This was why the stars had marked me with six mates. Why fate had brought together wolves from different packs, different bloodlines, different worlds. We weren’t just lovers — we were the foundation of something entirely new. A way of fighting, of living, of being that could transform everything.
Through the network, I felt our victory building like a rising tide. We weren’t just holding our ground — we were winning. Denraider forces that had seemed overwhelming minutes ago were being systematically dismantled by our coordinated response.
Then Tor’s urgent voice cut through the euphoria like a blade.
“Freya,” he said, both aloud and through our bonds, his ravens’ sight showing him something that made his blood run cold. “They’re bringing her forward.”
While we were absorbed with the battle on the ground, Tor’s ravens had converged overhead, circling like vultures, focused on one particular shifter.
My blood turned to ice as two Denraider enforcers emerged from behind the rocky outcropping, dragging a figure between them.
I couldn’t see her well from here, not with my own eyes.
But it didn’t matter. I could see her as clearly as I stood beside her through the ravens’ keen view, with eagle shifters’ perspectives, and the other shifters’ viewpoints from the ground.
Racing to meet them, Lydell’s wolf jumped back up on the rocky outcropping. He shifted back as they brought forward their next prisoner.
White hair contrasted against all the dark battle uniforms of Lydell’s men as she fought to shake free of their grip.
A face that could have been my own reflection, if I’d endured years of captivity instead of finding love among outcasts.
Snow-blue eyes like mine that blazed with defiance even as her captors forced her forward.
Valkyrie.
My sister. The family I’d thought lost forever.
Her hands were bound behind her back with rough rope, but that was the only restraint they’d used.
Even as a prisoner, even surrounded by enemies, she held her head high.
There was no broken spirit here, no defeated slave.
This was a woman who’d survived more than twenty years in Denraider’s hell and emerged unbroken.
I felt a surge of fierce kinship with this stranger who shared my blood.
She moved like I did, with a grace I’d never noticed I carried but looked familiar to my mates — it came from being neither alpha nor beta but something else entirely.
Her eyes swept the battlefield, assessing threats and opportunities despite her desperate situation.
Then Lydell’s enforcers forced her to her knees before their pack alpha, and my heart stopped.
“Surrender now,” Lydell roared, drawing a wicked curved blade from his belt, “or watch your kin bleed out in front of you!”
He held the knife to Valkyrie’s throat, the steel gleaming against her pale skin. One quick slice would end her life, would destroy the family I’d only just found.
I dared not call down my lightning and witchfire upon him like I had Trella, not at the risk of hurting my sister. I was helpless to do anything but watch this unfold.
Through the pack mind, hundreds of fighters felt my fear as their own. Allied fighters stumbled as my panic infected our shared consciousness. Their perfect coordination dissolved into chaos. The seamless cooperation that had been devastating Denraider’s assault cracked like glass.
Terror flooded through me like ice water, and my consciousness snapped back to my own body so violently it felt like whiplash.
I was going to lose her. After everything, after finally learning her name, after Rowan’s sacrifice to find her, after seeing her alive and strong and defiant — I was going to watch my sister die while hundreds of minds felt my anguish as their own.
“Freya,” Gage’s voice cut through my spiraling thoughts. “Stay with us.”
“Focus on the pack mind,” Zak urged. “Don’t let him break it.”
Flint’s presence pressed in close behind those words, a steady warmth against the raw edge of my fear. Heath nudged Gage forward, pushing our pack alpha a half-step closer to me as if sheer proximity could keep me from splintering. It helped.
Except it was too late. I’d lost control.
The pack mind convulsed, and for one horrible moment, I thought I was going to destroy everything we’d built in my desperation to save the one person I couldn’t reach.
But then something extraordinary happened.
The pack mind didn’t collapse. Instead of being shredded by my terror, the tapestry of connected minds shivered around my fear. Their determination flowed back to me alongside their absolute refusal to let Lydell win.
“We’ve got this,” Artemis’s voice whispered through the connection, youthful certainty and alpha courage blazing like a beacon. “Keep fighting.”
“For Freya, our former packmate,” Thatcher rallied Ironwood.
“For Valkyrie,” Idori added, her protective instincts extending to my sister as if she were her own child, igniting the Moonblessed pack’s determination.
“For all of us,” Astrid growled. “We will not break.”
“Stay strong, sister,” Fern called. Flint was her littermate, and as her brother’s mate, she considered me a sister… and by extension, Valkyrie as well. “We’re coming for you.”
The realization hit me like lightning. The pack mind wasn’t under my control the way an alpha controlled a pack bond, commanding subordinates through dominance.
Every individual contributed to the pack mind, and when I faltered, they picked up the burden.
They became the strength I couldn’t find in myself.
I didn’t have to carry this alone.
Through our shared consciousness, a pincer maneuver closed on Lydell’s position, coordinating a rescue attempt even as I struggled with my fear.
Midnight Path shifters scaled the climbable faces while New Dawn wolves circled around from the south.
Celestial Alloy provided covering fire as Ironwood and Moonblessed fighters pressed forward from the center.
Only the sheer drop on the far side of the outcropping stayed bare of our forces. Tor’s ravens showed a narrow goat trail hidden there and a knot of Denraider enforcers holding that rear escape route — too many for the few climbers we could spare to dislodge while the main battle still raged.
Lydell’s attention split between the approaching threats and his hostage. His alpha enforcers shouted warnings as our forces closed in from multiple directions, their rigid command structure unable to adapt to the fluid coordination of the pack mind.
One of his lieutenants fell to Astrid’s bruising power, the massive bear shifter’s roar echoing across the battlefield and bolstering our morale as she tore through Denraider’s defensive line.
Another enforcer went down under a coordinated assault from three different packs, their perfect timing leaving no room for escape.
In that moment of chaos, Lydell’s grip on Valkyrie loosened. The knife wavered away from her throat as he turned to defend himself against the approaching threat.
She didn’t waste the opportunity.
Valkyrie twisted away from his grasp, her bound hands making her stumble and fall.
When she raised her head, for one heart-stopping moment it felt like her gaze locked onto where I stood behind our lines.
Through Dream’s eyes, I watched her stare straight toward me — straight toward the crackling line of my lightning.
Recognition flashed across her features as she realized what I must be, another Odinswolf. Despite everything she’d endured, despite the chaos surrounding us, she smiled.
My heart nearly stopped. She was alive. She was strong. She was my sister, and she knew me.