Chapter 5 - Bryan
The first wolf lunges for Skylar’s throat, and I catch it mid-air with my bare hands.
My fingers tangle into matted fur as I twist, using the creature’s own momentum to send it crashing into the nearest tree. Bones crack on impact, and the wolf crumples to the ground in a heap. It doesn’t get back up.
Five more are coming. My wolf comes darting forward, and I let him have control.
The change rips through me faster than thought.
One second, I’m on two legs, and the next, I’m on four with my clothes nothing but shredded fabric somewhere behind me.
Ten years of agency work has turned shifting into something as natural as breathing, so it’s just the seamless slide from man to beast that I’ve perfected through countless missions and more kills than I care to count.
The scarred wolf reaches me first. He’s big—probably a beta in whatever’s left of the Cheslem hierarchy—and he fights like someone who’s never tasted defeat. His jaws snap toward my neck, and I duck under them while raking my claws across his exposed belly. Blood sprays hot against my muzzle.
He howls and staggers back, but he doesn’t fall. These wolves are tough, corrupted by whatever dark magic the Cheslem pack used to enhance their fighters. Stronger, faster, and harder to kill than any normal shifter.
Good thing I’ve killed plenty of them before.
Two wolves circle to my left—One-Ear and a massive gray brute with a chunk missing from his shoulder—while two more flank me from the right.
A mottled brown female and a rangy male, both smaller than the others but no less dangerous.
The scarred wolf recovers enough to complete the formation and box me in from the front.
Classic pack hunting strategy. They’re coordinating, communicating through some silent channel I can’t access.
I’ve seen this before. Studied it. Learned exactly how to break it apart.
I feint toward One-Ear, making him commit to the attack, then pivot at the last second and slam into the gray brute instead.
My teeth find his throat before he can redirect, and I tear out a chunk of flesh and fur and cartilage that spatters across the forest floor.
He goes down, gurgling with his legs kicking uselessly at the dirt as the life drains out of him.
One-Ear slams into my side while I’m still finishing off his packmate. The impact sends me rolling across the forest floor, and I barely get my feet under me before he’s on top of me again. His claws rake down my flank, leaving burning lines of pain in their wake that make my wolf snarl with fury.
I twist and bite, catching his foreleg between my jaws and clamping down until the bone snaps with a satisfying crunch.
He yelps and stumbles backward, his movements suddenly clumsy and desperate.
I don’t give him time to recover. I’m on him in an instant with my teeth at his throat, and then he’s not a problem anymore.
Three down. Three to go.
The remaining wolves have seen enough. I watch the decision happen behind their eyes.
The mottled brown female and the rangy male exchange a look that needs no words.
They’ve watched me tear through half their strike team in less than two minutes, and whatever loyalty they have to their mission isn’t worth dying for.
They bolt.
Their paws thunder against the forest floor as they flee toward the underbrush, abandoning their scarred leader without a backward glance.
I let them go. The one in front of me is the real threat.
The scarred wolf stands his ground, even though he’s now alone.
Even though he’s seen what I can do. Unlike the two who fled, this one carries the corruption deep.
I can see it in the mottled patches beneath his fur and smell it in his scent.
The newer recruits can still override their programming when survival instincts kick in.
The old guards will fight until they win or they die.
This one has clearly chosen death over dishonor.
From the corner of my eye, I catch Skylar peaking out from behind a massive oak with her back flat against the bark. Her duffel bag lies forgotten in the leaves at her feet. Her face has gone pale, and she’s watching me like she’s seeing a stranger wearing the face of someone she used to know.
She is. The Bryan she knew died a long time ago.
The scarred wolf makes his move. He comes at me low and fast, going for my legs instead of my throat. Smart. Take out the mobility, and the kill becomes easy. It’s a technique the Cheslem trainers drilled into their fighters during the years when they were building their army.
Too bad I’ve fought wolves who were better at it than he was.
I leap over him and twist in midair to land on his back. My claws latch onto his spine for purchase, and my teeth sink into the back of his neck. I don’t go for the killing bite—not yet. Instead, I wrench sideways, and his spine gives with a sickening snap.
He collapses beneath me, paralyzed from the shoulders down.
I shift back to human form and crouch beside him, watching as his body forces itself through the change.
It’s ugly, the way a dying wolf reverts.
Bones pop and reform at wrong angles. Fur recedes in patches.
By the time it’s finished, a man lies in the dirt where the scarred wolf used to be—middle-aged and gaunt, with those same parallel scars cutting through his face and a mouth full of blood.
I grab a fistful of his hair and yank his head up. “Talk, and I’ll make it quick. Who sent you?”
He laughs, wet and gurgling. Blood bubbles at the corner of his lips. “You’re already dead. You just don’t know it yet.”
“Who. Sent. You.”
“Rafe. Matthias’s son. Lance’s brother. You killed his brother. Now he’s going to take everything from you. Starting with her.”
His eyes slide toward Skylar, and my wolf snarls so loud the sound rips out of my human throat.
“He’s been watching you for months,” the dying man continues. “Waiting for you to come home. Waiting for you to have something worth losing.” Another wet laugh. “Rafe couldn’t believe his luck when the lottery matched you. Now he doesn’t just get to kill you; he gets to make you suffer first.”
I snap his neck before he can say another word.
Silence floods the forest.
The fight lasted maybe five minutes, and four wolves are down while two more are running for their lives. Blood soaks into the fallen leaves, black in the moonlight, and the copper smell of it fills my nostrils until I can taste it on my tongue.
The wounds on my flank burn, but they’re shallow. I’ll heal within the hour. Nothing else seems damaged beyond what rest will fix.
I stay crouched over the body for a moment, replaying what he told me. We thought the Cheslem remnants would scatter without leadership, fade into nothing the way dying movements always do.
I should have known better. Revenge is a fire that doesn’t burn out on its own.
I stand and turn toward Skylar. She hasn’t moved. She’s frozen against that oak like she’s become part of it.
I’m standing naked in front of her, covered in blood and dirt, but I don’t bother trying to cover myself. Modesty stopped mattering to me years ago, and we have bigger problems than her seeing me without clothes.
“Are you hurt?”
She shakes her head slowly, like the motion requires conscious effort. “What... What was that?”
“Cheslem. What’s left of them, anyway.” I glance back at the bodies scattered across the clearing. “I’ve been hunting them for years. Looks like they’ve been hunting me right back.”
“Hunting you? Why would they be hunting you?”
“Because I killed their leader’s brother six months ago. His name was Lance. He was organizing the survivors, trying to rebuild their power base. My unit tracked him down and put him in the ground before he could finish.”
“Your unit.”
“Black Ops. Shifter division. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past ten years, Skylar. Hunting down Cheslem wolves and making sure they can’t hurt anyone else.”
She stares at me like I’ve sprouted wings and started speaking in tongues. “You’ve been... All this time, you were...”
“Killing.” I don’t soften the word. She deserves the truth, even when it’s ugly. Especially when it’s ugly.
Movement in the trees makes me spin around, and my body tenses for another attack before I can think about it. But it’s just wind stirring branches, nothing more. No reinforcements coming to avenge their fallen packmates.
Yet.
“We need to move.” I grab her duffel bag from the ground and sling it over my shoulder. “The two that ran will report back to whoever sent them. More could be on the way.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Yes, you are.” I turn back to face her, and whatever she sees in my expression makes her mouth snap shut. She doesn’t argue when I take her arm and start pulling her away from the carnage.
We walk in silence for several minutes, putting distance between ourselves and the bodies. My mind keeps circling back to what that wolf told me before he died. Rafe has been watching me for months. Waiting for me to come home. Waiting for me to have something worth losing.
The girl was a bonus, he said. Rafe couldn’t believe his luck when the lottery matched you.
Skylar jerks her arm, pulling me from my thoughts, and demands, “Let go of me.”
I release her arm and stop walking. We’re deep enough in the forest now that the boundary marker is well out of sight, but still too far from Silvercreek proper for my comfort.
“This isn’t just about me,” I tell her. “They didn’t come for me tonight. They came for you. The first wolf went straight for your throat while the others tried to keep me occupied. If Rafe wanted me dead, he would have had them focus their attack on me. Instead, they prioritized taking you out.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. I’m nobody to them.”