Chapter 30 #3
Both hind legs drove into my chest with astonishing force, launching me backward.
My already weakened shoulder gave way beneath the impact.
I hit the ground awkwardly, trying to recover, but my leg refused to answer me.
Too slow. One heartbeat the hyena had been beneath me, the next it was on top of me.
Its jaws closed around the back of my neck, not deep enough to kill but with enough pressure to force me where it wanted me.
It shoved hard, driving me through the snow until my spine slammed into the trunk of a fallen pine.
The dead tree shifted under the impact, one shattered limb dropped across my back, and another pinned my left rear leg beneath its weight.
I shoved upward, and nothing moved, the trunk settling another inch deeper into the snow until it had me pinned.
Pain exploded through my trapped leg, but worse than the pain was the look in the hyena’s eyes.
It had planned this. It hadn’t stumbled onto an opportunity, it had been herding me toward this exact spot since the fight began, and now its forepaws settled heavy on my chest and it stared down at me with yellow eyes gone almost calm, barely even breathing hard while every breath I dragged in scraped through bruised ribs and blood soaked into the snow, my vision narrowing at the edges no matter how hard I pushed against a weight that wouldn’t give an inch.
Behind the hyena, Ronan made a sound, weak and hoarse, trying to drag himself back into the fight, and the hyena didn’t so much as glance around. It already knew Ronan wasn’t getting up again.
My wolf refused to stop struggling. Soren. Asha.
For the first time since Raff had died, I believed this was how my story ended, not in some last stand, just here under a fallen tree on a frozen mountain because one hunter had been patient enough to wait until I had nothing left to fight with.
The thought that hurt worst wasn’t for me, and it wasn’t even for Raff. It was for Soren, curled safe around Asha behind a steel door, trusting me because I’d told him I’d come back. I’m sorry. I love you.
My wolf bared his teeth one last time. Protect.
The hyena lowered its head and opened its jaws.
Then the light disappeared. A shadow fell across both of us, so enormous that for a heartbeat I thought another storm cloud had crossed the sun. The hyena’s ears snapped back.
For the first time since the fight had begun, uncertainty crept into its posture. It didn’t lift its weight from my chest, but its attention shifted past me, its eyes tracking something emerging from the trees behind us.
A low rumble rolled across the clearing; the biggest grizzly I’d ever seen stepped out of the trees.
His shoulders stood higher than the hood of my truck.
Winter-dark fur covered a frame so broad it made every wolf I’d ever fought seem insignificant by comparison.
Fresh snow clung to his back and steamed gently where it touched the warmth of his body, while old scars crossed one massive shoulder, disappearing beneath thick fur that had clearly healed years before.
Whether desperation or arrogance drove it, I couldn’t tell, but instead of backing away the hyena snarled and threw itself at the bear with a shrieking laugh, jaws wide and claws extended, aiming for the throat as any predator would.
The bear barely moved.
One enormous foreleg lifted almost lazily.
The paw met the hyena in mid-air.
The sound echoed around the mountain.
Not a slap.
A crack.
Bone.
The force of the impact threw it sideways as though it weighed nothing at all. It hit the trunk of a spruce with sickening violence. The tree shuddered. Snow exploded from its branches.
The hyena collapsed into the drift at its base, dead, and the bear turned his head slowly towards me, dark eyes settling on the tree pinning my hindquarters before drifting to the blood soaking my chest. He glanced at Ronan, taking in the wounds, the dead hyena lying beside him, the rifle still inches beyond his reach.
Only when he’d assessed the entire clearing did he move.
He crossed the distance in half a dozen unhurried strides, each one making the ground tremble beneath me. Reaching the fallen pine, he gripped the trunk between both forepaws.
I’d spent every ounce of strength trying to lever that tree off me.
The bear lifted it as though it were little more than kindling.
He carried it several feet away, then dropped it onto the snow with a heavy thud. The pressure vanished from my trapped leg so suddenly that I almost tried to stand. My legs buckled, and I had to catch myself before my muzzle hit the snow.
The bear watched me for another moment, then he shifted.
The change was quick for something so large. Bone folded. Fur receded. The massive shape compressed into a broad-shouldered man with iron-grey hair, a beard thick enough to hide half his face, and the same calm eyes that had stared across the clearing moments before.
“Cassian?” he asked, and I lowered my head, and he turned to Ronan, who was unconscious.
“Friend?” I whined a yes. I needed to change back but fuck, the pain was so insane, and I needed a moment.
“Okay then, seems like you boys decided to redecorate my mountain,” Sheriff Ray Decker said, his voice as dry as gravel.
He stalked over to the trees behind, retrieving jeans and dragging a flannel shirt over his shoulders, then boots, unhurried, as though finding half-dead wolves and dead hunters on his mountain happened every week.
Only when he’d buttoned the shirt did he glance towards the hyena and nudged it once, confirming what we’d all already known. Dead. He checked out the clearing before lifting his gaze towards the house hidden beyond the trees, and when he spoke again, all trace of humor had disappeared.
“No one comes onto my mountain to hunt people. I’ve been sheriff for six years, and nobody leaves it after trying.”
Then he stared at me.
“Now,” he said quietly, “let’s get you both home, and maybe you can tell me what the fuck is going on.”