14. CHAPTER 14
Everything inside me is screaming at me to go to the front of the line and take the lead. It’s not because I would have some ridiculous hero complex. It’s because Alyssa is there and the Alpha in me demands that I protect my fated mate.
She’s capable of looking after herself, I say to my wolf, needing him on my side to help me suppress the urge.
But she’s our fated mate, my wolf growls back. We only get one, and if we lose her, no one will ever be able to reach even her knees. She’s ruined us for anyone else.
She saved us,I argue. She saved our family, our kingdom, our legacy.
Which is why she has to be protected, my wolf insists.
You know full well that if we do that, we’ll lose her for sure, I reply. At least now, she lets us be by her side to try to protect her.
My wolf makes a small sound in resignation before retreating, but not too far. His help will be needed if we are to successfully slay the witches.
Graham warned us about their numbers being between twenty and twenty-five. We’ve expected that there’d be a lot of them, especially congregating around Hekate. Between the four packs, we have thirty-six wolves fighting on our side. The prognostics aren’t the best, but the surprise is on our side, and if we act fast, we can cut their numbers in half before they even manage to throw one protection spell up.
“It’s a laundromat,” I whisper, Night Vision helping me see the faded sign.
“It’s a front,” Blaine tells me. “The witches often use small businesses to provide them with cover for their meetings.”
“They’re like the mafia,” I comment, rather amused by the new discovery.
“But a lot deadlier,” Blaine agrees, then brings his index finger to his lips in a shushing gesture.
Alyssa, Malia, Gavin, and Jensen share a look, exchanging a wordless communication as we proceed onto the next stage of our plan. The first one was clearly the arrival, and the second task was to surround the witches by covering all the possible exits.
Malia and her Lightbringers join the Dark Hunters as we make our way around another block to get to the back of the building without being too obvious. The only distinction between the two packs is the different emblems on our biceps. The Lightbringers have a flashlight, which in my opinion, is ridiculous and the opposite of badass, and Dark Hunters have two hunter’s arrows put one over another in a cross.
I make sure to glue myself on Alyssa’s ass, staying as close to her as possible. We arrive on the other side of the building without any problems, and without seeing a single soul.
Something’s off, my wolftells me, and I want to agree with him, but I don’t know the streets, so I can’t exactly say if the silence is normal.
Malia and Alyssa don’t seem too worried, their heads turned toward the door. Alyssa glances at the watch on her wrist, counting us down to the time we’ve set with Gavin. We agreed to attack the witches at the same time, hitting them from both sides.
Movement on the second floor, my wolf alerts me, and I squint to try to see it myself.
The curtains are preventing me from getting a better view, but that doesn’t stop me from staring at it a moment longer. I need to confirm it by myself before I mention it to the Alphas.
The light’s turned off, which means that there are no shades to be thrown on the old curtain. In theory, the Night Vision should help me see, but in this case, I’d need X-ray vision as well.
Alyssa’s eyes are still locked on the watch on her left wrist, and she slowly lifts her right hand. Time’s almost up. She counts down the seconds once we reach five.
I tear my eyes from the third floor and prepare myself for her to give a sign. My muscles tense and my feet dig into the ground beneath me, ready to propel me forward. The moment that she only has an index finger left, she waves her hand down, and we rush to the backdoor.
Blaine’s the first to reach the door, slamming into it with the force of his whole body, then lowering himself on the ground, making as small of a ball out of himself as possible considering the size of him. It gives us plenty of space to jump over him and get ahead while he recovers from the significant impact his body took when he crashed against the massive thick door that was undoubtedly protected with a spell or two as well.
Half of the wolves stay with Malia to clear out the rooms while the rest of us make our way toward the front, looking for the stairs. Gavin meets us halfway, his team following the same divide tactic as ours. Malia and Jenkins will join us as soon as they’re done.
As the highest-ranking member, Gavin automatically takes the lead. Alyssa allows his Beta to follow him, the same as I have to allow Blaine to position himself in front of me to cover the Alpha. I have to suppress every urge that arises in me to not push him out of the way. That’s how packs work and that’s how we’ve been trained. I’m lucky that they let me go third in the so-called row.
There are too many bodies in front of me to properly take in the tight stairwell we’re ascending. When we reach the first floor, Gavin and Alyssa, along with the Betas, already confirm that the first room’s empty.
“I’ll take this floor, you move up,” Gavin says and gestures for the mix of the Pack of Shadows and the Lafayettes to follow him.
As Alyssa leads us up another flight of stairs, my perception changes. While before, I was seeing everything as if in a speed-up movement, now the time slows down. I’ve come to recognize this as the side-effect of the purest type of adrenaline that even the drugs can’t reach. It’s when every fiber of my being senses danger, alerting me to it long before my brain gets to process it.
The hair on my arms pricks up just as the slightest hint of goosebumps appears on my skin. My hands clench into fists, my muscles further tensing in preparation for an assault. My wolf is at the ready, only a call away.
Something’s wrong, my wolf warns me, sounding on edge about what we’re about to walk into.
The temperature has dropped several degrees, which is weird because our team doesn’t have Lafayette’s ice wielders with us. The air crackles with visible static as if the electricity’s running loose.
This isn’t right,my wolf says again, urging me to listen to him and do something.
Alyssa’s almost at the top of the stairwell, three more stairs separating her from the door. Blaine’s body moves to the side enough that I get a glimpse of the door, noticing a weird flash of light around the handle. It’s gone too fast for me to be certain if it even happened, but there’s one thing I know for sure.
“Don’t touch it,” I hiss, willing Alyssa to heed my warning before it’s too late.
She abruptly turns around, and I don’t even care that she did it only to glare at me. I use the opportunity and push past Blaine, then gently pull her away from the door. Alyssa resists, probably more out of habit than anything else, but in the next moment, she relents and lets me pass.
I lift my hand toward the handle but don’t touch it. Instead, I focus on the shadows around me, calling for them to form a thick shadow hand that I guide to open the door. As soon as the shadow makes contact with the handle, a small bolt of lightning flashes, but there’s nothing solid for it to burn or electrocute.
“They’re ready for us,” I whisper a second before opening the door and bracing myself to possibly unleash hell.
Alyssa’s the first to run through it, and I want to follow but get pushed behind by Blaine who gives me a passing growl as he moves past me. The sudden noise of battle that comes from the inside helps me deal with the desire to put Blaine in his place. There’ll be time for that later.
I exit the stairwell with the rest of the wolves following close behind. I use the shadows to help me track Alyssa and Blaine’s movements, while I quickly take in the surroundings to gather myself.
At first glance, I conclude that I’m in a hallway that leads to several different offices. Since we didn’t find any sign of witches on the floors below, at least judging by the lack of sounds of fighting, it’s safe to assume that they’re all hiding on the second floor. My wolf did mention seeing movement, after all.
There’s only nine of us, which means we have to stick together and clear room by room. It will be much easier and safer when Malia, Gavin, and Jenkins join us, but until then, we have to act like a well-oiled killing machine.
Alyssa and Blaine position themselves on each side of the nearest door. I don’t need to be told to know what they’re waiting for me to do. Using the same shadow hand trick I improvised before, I open the door into what looks like an office of sorts.
Even though the room’s empty at first sight, Alyssa and Blaine rush in, their bodies ready for a fight. I stand at the doorway with the other wolves on guard for any threat that might make their way down the hallway.
The desk and two chairs are covered with a thick layer of dust. The papers are carelessly thrown across the desk, looking old and meaningless. Despite the convincing presentation of the scene being untouched, Alyssa still makes her way around the desk and looks underneath to make sure no one’s hiding. Blaine follows her lead and checks behind the door.
When they’re satisfied that there’s no one in the first room, we proceed to the second one, following the same plan. We clear that one too as well as the one next to it, which leaves us with a door at the far end of the hall.
Is it possible that there’s no one here?my wolf asks, giving words to my own thoughts. Are we too late?
As we cross the distance to the last door, the other three Alphas join us with their wolves. The realization settles over us that this is it. With all other nooks and corners cleared, this is the last room.
They’re here, I tell my wolf with a certain conviction. Someone had to put that electric lightning on the door.
Gavin uses his higher ranking to get ahead, but Jenkins silently insists on seniority. Not even Gavin can argue with that, so he allows the Alpha of the Lafayette pack at the front of the line to face whatever hides behind the door first.
That’s when the proverbial shit hits the fan.
Gavin assists Alpha Jenkins with his shadow hand to press on the handle and the moment the doors open, Alpha Jenkins rushes through it and into the immediate death. In his eagerness to pull rank and showcase his balls, he didn’t even hesitate before entering the room.
The sudden burst of orange and yellow light reached me before the immense heat that followed. My eyes didn’t have the time to adjust from the Night Vision, the unexpected and strong flash burning my retinas through and through.
Focus on your other senses, my wolforders, already working hard to heal my eyes.
The last thing I saw was Alpha Jenkins running straight into a wall of fire so hot that his flesh melted off his bones. It was so sudden and powerful that none of us expected it.
Focus, my wolf growls when my breathing becomes faster and shallower.
When I don’t listen to him, Alpha Jenkins’ scream of agony too loud in my ears, my wolf picks a different tactic. He buries his phantom claws deep into my thigh. Though it’s not real, it certainly feels like it. I sink down on one knee, a scream caught in my throat.
Focus your senses, my wolf orders, his voice now louder and clearer.
My eyes still closed, I take a deep breath and do as he says. The wolves that haven’t been in the direct view of the light have run inside to fight the enemy while we recover. While I’m not the only one left outside, I’m fairly certain that Gavin and Alyssa are already in.
I try to open my eyes but quickly change my mind. The skin around them is sore as if the light itself burned through it.
Use the Darkness, my wolf says, his voice calmer now that I’ve gotten a grip on myself.
An idea occurs to me, although I’m not sure that’s what he meant. I clench my hands into fists, needing an anchor to help me focus as I channel my dark friends. The shadows answer immediately, slithering their way up my arms like snakes. They settle themselves around my eyes like a caress, offering them pitch-black protection like a blindfold. Their cold presence soothes the sore burn and allows me to open my eyes. Since the shadows throw a curtain over my eyes that’s as black as the darkest night, the Night Vision activates itself, allowing me to see without being affected even by the light that the Lightbringers are manipulating against the witches.
Pulling myself to my full height, I finally enter the room to join the fight. Not wanting to be easy prey, I have a thin shield of shadows around me, ready to thicken upon impact.
I’ve walked into chaos.
Wolves are fighting wolves. Witches are fighting wolves.
While Graham was right about the enemy’s numbers, he was wrong about them being only witches. It looks like that Hekate managed to lure even more rogue wolves to join her.
The chants of spells fill my ears. Screams of the injured pierce the air. Cries of the dying strengthen our resolve to fight.
The fireballs, gusts of wind, and ice storms rage between those four walls of a mostly open space floor. Light penetrates the darkness, creating shadows for us to manipulate. Ice and fire collide, determining the survivors based on their brute strength and stamina.
Those are the rogue wolves that Gavin’s been hunting, my wolf recognizes them, connecting the dots with the fact that they have more than one ability. Gavin warned us that Felix and his followers have sold themselves to the witches in return for more powers.
“Alyssa,” I mutter under my breath when I finally find her, fighting at the far end of the room.
The magnetic pull demands that I cross the distance. My heart says the same, so I won’t even bother to resist.
As I take the first step toward the belly of the beast, I’m finally noticed. It’s one of the rogue wolves that comes my way, and though he stands tall, his eyes are wide with fear.
Time slows down as I tilt my head to the side, forcing myself to give him my attention. The wolf isn’t much older than Graham, but I shouldn’t underestimate him and what the witches did to him.
I lift my hand with my palm up, then bend my fingers in the universal gesture of invitation. I’m only going to give him one chance to make his move and even then, I’ll only do it because I’m not sure what to expect from a mutt like him.
The rogue wolf must’ve seen my gesture as disrespectful and insulting because the fear disappears from his eyes and instead, they narrow to thin slits. He opens his mouth wide, showcasing his sharp fangs, and lets out a loud, piercing roar with enough spit to water a garden.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter under my breath, my face contorting with disgust.
Thanks to his heightened senses, the rogue wolf catches every word as well as seeing my expression. It’s as if this was the last straw for him because, at that moment, he pushes himself off the floor into a jump and comes half-flying my way.
His fury has blinded his mind and made him want to release his pent-up anger through physical means, getting it out blow after blow. Though I didn’t plan for him to react that way, I certainly don’t mean to throw away the advantage he’s given me.
With a swift flick of my wrist, I call on the shadows nearest to me and wrap them around the rogue wolf’s ankles while he’s still in the air, then yank him downward fast and hard. He crashes against the floor with so much force that his eyes roll back into his head, all the anger extinguished from them.
Finish him, my wolf growls, sending enough angry darkness over me to blind me from right and wrong. Even if he hadn’t done that, I doubt I’d hesitate to deliver the final blow.
Pulling my hand back, I lower just enough to allow the newly extended claws to graze the rogue wolf’s neck. I don’t wait for him to die. The wound is too deep for his wolf to be able to heal it before he bleeds out.
As a soldier on a mission, I focus my senses on Alyssa again. She’s still fighting in the corner, using Darkness to counter the witches’ spells. Blaine’s by her side, doing a good job of covering her back.
Stepping over the dying wolf’s body, I don’t make a lot of progress before I sink to my knees, my throat constricting as if being squeezed with brute physical strength. As the air gets cut off from my lungs, I lift my hands to my neck, but there’s no enemy to be fought. It’s the worst kind of witchery.
On your left, my wolf warns, following the trail of magic toward the grey-haired witch twice my age.
The witch’s eyes are locked on me, unblinking and unwavering as her lips move in the rhythm of the spell that she’s casting on me. I need to break her eye contact before I lose consciousness.
The high-pitched ringing in my ears makes it hard to concentrate and the dark, tunnel vision isn’t doing me any favors about focusing on her, especially since I momentarily lose her out of sight whenever I blink.
Even though it goes against the basic instinct to let go of the neck while it’s under attack and hurting, I force myself to overpower the primal urge and reach with my hand toward the witch. My vision has gotten so bad that I’m not sure I’m taking aim straight at her, so I’ll have to spread wider with my one and only move, my last Hail Mary.
Together, my wolf says with a barely audible tone as he’s getting weaker with me.
He sends me a burst of his own energy, reviving my senses long enough to make a desperate attempt to call on the shadows. Because I don’t know where the witch is, I try to thicken the darkness around her, hoping that any part of her body will be in the shadows.
The old witch screams, her lips stop chanting the spell and her eyes break contact with me. A gust of air fills my lungs, reviving both me and my wolf. I don’t wait to see if I’m hurt. Relying on the shot of adrenaline that’s pumping through my veins to keep me standing, I stagger toward the witch. My knees wobble for the first two steps, but then the strength slowly returns to me, and I walk up to her on steadier feet.
Her ankles were in the shadows, and my thickening of them crushes her bones into dust.
Now she’s sprawled on the floor, her mouth open in a silent cry of agony.
Finish her, my wolf urges, although this time I don’t need his encouragement the way I sort of did before.
It would be probably safer to kill her from afar, to use the Darkness to end her, but I can’t be sure how much of it I might need later. My claws are at the ready and as I lean down to trail them across her neck. I do it with no regret or remorse.
The life in the witch’s eyes extinguishes faster than the rogue wolf’s. The age probably has something to do with it as well as her not having the healing powers of our species.
My attention gets yanked back toward the other side of the room when Alyssa cries out in frustration. Her fingers clench and unclench as she tries to get the shadows to answer her call, but she’s been fighting too many for too long. She’s spent.
She needs us,my wolf says, pointing out the obvious.
The urge to get to her intensifies to an overwhelming degree, and there’s nothing and no one stopping me from crossing that room. While I haven’t properly mastered the Shadow Camouflage yet, I have no choice but to try using the ability now. It’s the only way for me to get to Alyssa uninterrupted.
With a low groan, I whip the shadows into place, wearing them like an invisible robe, hoping that they make me unseen despite the occasional burst of light and fire blazing through the room. Worst case scenario, I’ll look to everyone like a figure donned in armor of shadows thick enough that they won’t bother trying to stop me.
I take a step forward and something unexpected happens. All of a sudden, I’m next to Alyssa and with no memory of crossing the room. If I hadn’t known better I might’ve thought that I’d somehow teleported through the darkness and its shadows.
Umbrageous Teleportation is extremely rare and incredibly dangerous, my wolf says, but he sounds just as shocked as I am at the turn of events.
“What are you waiting for? Grab her, Garren!” Alyssa yells, breaking me out of my dazed reverie.
My eyes follow the direction she’s looking and settle on the young witch with bleached blonde hair. Her small, thin body is carefully surrounded by other witches, which can only mean one thing.
“Hekate!” I call to get her attention.
Hekate turns her head my way, her green eyes locking onto mine. A distant part of me urges me to break the connection, but there’s something so strange and cold about her that I can’t. As if time has slowed down, her lips curl up into a small, emotionless smile, and she slightly bows her head in a mocking gesture.
Shake it off, my wolf growls, his words cutting through the cord that Hekate managed to hook around me with only a smile.
Only now that I’m free of her influence, do I realize that my body has been filling with a feeling of emptiness and despair. The sudden return of warmth makes me subconsciously bring a hand to my chest and rub it.
“She’s getting away!” Alyssa calls, the sound of her voice the last key to unlock the invisible shackles.
My body reacts before my mind does, which is mostly thanks to my wolf who got tired of seeing me being played for a fool. Without shifting but only through the power of sheer will and my temporary disconnection due to a spell, he doesn’t have much trouble controlling us. Calling the shadows as a shield around us, he rushes head forward into the danger that is the semi-circle of witches that have formed around Hekate.
We either kill her or we’ll die trying, my wolf growls, his rage blinding all common sense.
Like a dark hurricane, we close the distance to the witches and even allow ourselves a small, triumphant smile. We’ll break through the barrier of witches. We’ll stop the young leader before she manages to have even more of our packs killed.
What happens next feels like a lot longer, but in reality, it lasted less than two seconds. The protective circle of witches looks at me as one entity and weaves a spell. While, for once, it doesn’t target me directly, it still prevents me from getting to Hekate.
With the whole force and momentum of my body, I crash against an invisible wall that’s being held up by a small group of witches that must’ve been handpicked by Hekate as her personal security team.
My wolf lets out a low whine, sounding rather dazed by the impact. Since he had the majority of control over us, he suffered the effects of the crash more than I did.
My senses return to me just in time to see Hekate and her group of guards escaping through the window. Without thinking, I turn on my heel and sprint toward the way we came. Alyssa does the opposite and goes to the window instead. I don’t bother to check if she succeeded and only focus on getting down the stairs as fast as I can.
They’re in the back, my wolf says, still recovering from the hit. Trusting his gut, I take a turn toward the back door where we came in, which was also the same side from where we saw the movement on the second floor. It must’ve been that same window that they used to escape.
I come out of the building just in time to see the red lights on the back of the car as it disappears down the road. They’ve gotten away.
I curse under my breath and kick the trash bin, sending it flying down the street. Alyssa’s the first one to join me outside, jumping through the second-floor window as soon as the witches are too far away to hold up the spell.
“They’re gone,” I tell her, reigning in my anger as much as I can.
“It’s okay,” she replies, sounding surprisingly calm.
“We’ve come here for nothing. We’ve lost good wolves for nothing. They’re gone, and she’s alive. It was all for nothing,” I snap, then angrily kick another trash bin, sending it flying after the first one.
Alyssa comes up to me and puts her hands on my cheeks, forcing me to look her in the eyes. Her brown ones are shining with a silent triumph that I don’t understand.
“It wasn’t all for nothing,” she insists with a mix of determination and conviction. “As far as I can tell, we’ve delivered a fatal blow to their plans. If those are all the wolves that were on their side, then they have none left, and I’m pretty sure that the witches we’ve slayed were all coven leaders or high up in their hierarchy. It will take them forever to recover if that’s even possible. We did really good.”
Now that I think about it, the witch that attacked me wasn’t the only old one. If they were truly leaders of their own covens, it made sense that they didn’t know how to work together and attack us as one. It’s like too many different packs working together without knowing much about the other’s style of fighting.
Maybe our desire to exterminate our makers once and for all was misguided. Maybe we just needed to show them that we wouldn’t be pushed around without consequences. Maybe while they’re recovering, they’ll realize that if they leave us alone, we will do the same for them.
Maybe, just maybe, we haven’t failed.
Alyssa takes my hand in hers, our fingers intertwining. “Let’s go home.”