Chapter Nineteen
Something strange happened when a person had nothing to lose.
When it was do or die.
When the only option was to survive something awful out of spite, or to lose oneself completely.
Succumbing to the dark meant the bad guys would win, and the good guys would lose.
She couldn’t let Dodger down. If he was out there in those woods somewhere, fighting to stay for her? She could fight too.
Lyric struck her across the face. “I need you to fight me the second your wolf comes out of you. Hey!” She yelled over the snarling that filled the room.
Destiny gasped air and arched her back against the mattress. The pain was excruciating.
Lyric cupped her cheeks and leveled her with that bi-colored glowing gaze. “You have to fight me. Your wolf has to hate me, or it will be bound to this Pack. To me! Fight me. Do you understand?”
No. She didn’t understand. She could barely put together the words. “Home,” she choked out.
Lyric grabbed her by the neck and dragged her to the window, shoved her face up to the glass.
Destiny buckled against the pain in her body.
She had a new bite on the back of her good arm, and one on her ribs, and one under her knee.
Lyric was trying to bring the wolf to life.
She was trying to keep it alive long enough to heal the poisoned arm.
She couldn’t hate her. She was trying to save her.
Outside, a truck pulled through the trees. In the yard, the Packs were gathering. Some were Changing.
She knew that truck. It looked so familiar. White. Big. She frowned and blinked hard, trying to stay lucid.
Dodger.
“Wait,” she whispered, locking her arms against the windowsill. She cried out at the pain, and when she sagged, Lyric held her up roughly.
“That’s your man, isn’t it?”
Dodger kicked open his door. He wore jeans, and no shirt. His injuries looked awful. His torso was shredded, but the bleeding had stopped, and the gashes looked to be angry red scars already. Most of them were closed. His eyes were the color of frost as he barked out something to the crowd.
He lowered the tailgate of his truck roughly and grabbed something out of the back. Her stomach dropped to the floor as he dragged two bodies from it.
The werewolves were dead. She could tell. He threw them at the others and yelled, “Where is my mate?” in a booming voice that rattled the house.
She’d never witnessed such volatile rage on a man’s face before. Her skin electrified with chills as a wolf came out of the woods behind him. Dodger, watch out!
Wait. She blinked hard. The wolf was dark brown with red laced in it’s topcoat. It was enormous. She knew that wolf. She’d grown up with that wolf. She’d been protected by that wolf.
“I’m going to guess that’s Behren Young,” Lyric growled. She turned Destiny in her arms. “Fight me but save me from them. I’m going to take you to them. Fight me but save me.” She arched her dark eyebrows and lowered her chin, leveling her with a serious look. “Do you understand?”
Weakly, Destiny nodded.
Another snarl racked her body, and she buckled.
“Change now. If you’re going to Change, do it while you can help them.”
“Help them,” she gasped out on her hands and knees.
“It is your man and your father against three Packs. No more gun, girl. You have different weapons now. You have teeth. You have rage. You want to help them? Give them your rage!”
Lyric pitched forward and Changed into the gray wolf that had bitten her arm out in those haunted woods.
She stood over her and snarled, and it did something awful to her. It made the darkness inside of her swell and grow.
Destiny cried out in pain and writhed as something inside of her broke. “Dodger,” she gasped in the moment before her bones broke.
Lyric’s attack happened fast. Destiny wasn’t even upright yet.
She twisted and latched her teeth into Lyric’s neck, but the gray wolf shook her off.
Destiny hit the wall and yelped. Her skin was on fire, and every nerve ending felt like lightning was striking it.
She felt skinned. God, it hurt! Everything hurt!
Give them your rage.
Destiny struggled up and absorbed the impact of Lyric slamming into her. She didn’t know what she was doing. She didn’t know how to fight in this body. All she knew was she had to relinquish control to the monster she’d become.
She was strong. As the ache faded away, Destiny stretched her muscles and tested her jaw strength. Lyric yelped in pain, and the bloodlust took her. This was power. She could hurt. She could defend herself.
Dodger.
Destiny slammed Lyric into a desk in the corner and the furniture splintered.
She pitched forward and grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and slung her to the side.
Lyric’s wolf went flying through the window to the deafening sound of shattering glass.
The shards rained down on her, but Destiny closed her eyes and went straight out that breaking window with Lyric.
She landed on her and latched onto her shoulder.
The snarling in the clearing didn’t come from the Changing wolves.
That deafening sound that took up all of her senses was her voice. Her wolf. Her wolf?
This was her now.
Give them your rage.
She kicked off Lyric and spun, faced Dodger. Two wolves had Changed on her left and they were loping toward her. Destiny peeled her lips back, exposing her blood-soaked teeth. She flattened her ears. I will kill you.
“No,” Dodger said. He swung his gaze to the others. “No!” he roared.
Behind him, her father was pacing, eyes trained on her and filled with fury.
Oh, they knew who she was.
She limped toward them and turned, stood in front of Dodger to protect his Change. He didn’t need it. This wasn’t like the first time she’d seen it. This was almost instant. It was a tight grouping of pops and a huff of his breath as he broke into his wolf.
He pushed up on all fours, and came to stand beside her, his furious glowing eyes on the others. On her other side, her father stood. They both towered over her petit wolf, and she could feel it—the dominance and anger that roiled from their animals.
She’d known in some capacity that Dodger was big, and her father was big, but now? As the wolf? She understood it.
They were terrifying.
“Faulk Creek Pack!” one of the tall men to her right called out. “Fall back! This is not our fight.”
“The hell it isn’t!” Aro screamed. “You will engage.”
The man’s eyes held fire as he stood between Aro and the five people who were jogging toward a pair of Jeeps parked by the trees.
“You said we were eradicating a problem Pack. Elder’s orders.
” The man jammed a finger at him. “You stole this human from Rogue Pack and had her Turned, Aro! There are no other Elder’s here supporting you!
You are working on your own out of vengeance.
My people aren’t responsible for the consequences to that. ”
“They killed our people!” Aro yelled.
“Because you attacked them! Werewolf law! Any Pack is allowed to defend themselves. What did you want them to do? Roll over and die quietly? No Pack works like that. Their Alpha reached out for peace, and you do this? It’s messed up.
” He was backing toward his people, who were loading up in a rush. “Not our fight.”
“I’ll kill you for this!” Aro yelled.
“I’ll be ready!” the Alpha barked back, his voice echoing through the clearing.
The sound of the Jeep engines tickled the fine hairs in Destiny’s ears.
She could hear everything now. The murmuring, the uncertainty.
The racing heartbeat of her mate beside her.
The soft growl of her father. The exact tone of crunching sound the leaves and dry grass made under Dodger’s paw as he stepped forward.
More werewolves were Changing now on the outer edges. There were twenty people in this clearing, at least. Twenty versus three of them.
And for the wolf, numbers didn’t matter. She liked their odds.
She didn’t know how she knew when to charge. It was instinct perhaps. Her wolf was in tune with Dodger and her dad. In this body, she just knew what to do.
The collision of her body against the gold-eyed wolf should’ve hurt, but she didn’t feel anything right now.
The pain from her poisoned arm was gone.
The pain from the Change was a distant memory.
All she felt was power. God, she was fast in this body.
Fast and lethal. Her jaws were so strong.
They were made for ripping and destruction.
She could see everything, feel everything.
Every defined piece of fur on her opponent, the uncertainty in their glowing eyes as she toggled between one to the next.
She could be engaged with one, and feel another moving into position.
She could see their moves in her mind’s eye.
Even if they were behind her. Three piled on, and her confidence grew.
She found her rhythm. Latch onto one throat, rip.
Spin and grab the front leg of the wolf sailing through the air at her, break it and fling the animal.
Dodger was beside her, under a pile. It didn’t matter. His wolf knew what to do like hers did.
Don’t think. Just destroy.
She could feel the dull ache of teeth sinking into her thick skin.
Give them your rage.
Her wolf could sense and see everything happening around her, like a movie.
The way the snow flew into the air when the fighting wolves landed hard.
She could see some of the people running away, running for the houses, running for the cars parked along the edge of the woods.
She could hear the yelling, the yipping, the yelps of pain, the snarling.
She could hear the howl that drifted in a haunting melody from the woods, and she knew her people were here.
Her fights had been dragged close to the house, and she could see her father brawling with three wolves in a blur of violence and power.