Chapter 23 - Thane
A tormented howl rings out, and my eyelids fly open, alert, my instincts snapping into gear when the howl doesn't stop.
I snap my head to the side, momentary relief washing over me when I find Willow on the bed beside me.
My worst nightmare of losing her isn't playing out, but the howl from the mountain is too painful to ignore.
Willow's eyes flutter open, her brows knitting.
“Who is that?”
“I don't know,” I respond as I kick my legs off the bed, padding quickly to the window and noticing the lights of other houses waking up.
“Thane! We need you!” Dawson's voice bursts through the mind link, and I spin toward Willow.
“Something happened! I'm going out!” I tell her urgently, grabbing my pants and pulling them over my legs as quickly as I can.
When the howl rings out, louder now, I recognize the tone.
It's Elias.
“Shit! Something happened to Elias!”
“Emile has been taken.”
Those words cut through me like the sharpest blade, my heart lurching and dropping to the soles of my feet.
Staring at Willow with dread, I repeat the words Dawson said through the mind link, and her face pales with horror.
“I'm coming with you!” She’s out of bed in no time, racing to the bathroom.
My heart pounds with dread as I reach the door, and Willow is close behind me as we race toward Elias's house.
The others have already gathered there, the sub-alphas calling out commands to the soldiers while the betas appeal to the residents to stay indoors.
“Willow!” Rissa races toward us, her face streaked with tears.
“What happened?” Willow whelps. “How was he taken?”
“Demons. The stench is all over the room.”
Frowning because it doesn't make any sense that demons could have come through the traps and protective spells cast by the witches, I turn to the sub-alphas as they come jogging toward us. Brooks throws me a rifle, our gear already prepped for the hunt. But this feels like preparing for war.
“Brief me,” I say in an authoritative tone, my logical mind already working out a strategy to find the main luna and Emile.
“Aurora woke up from a frightening vision and went to check on Emile in his bedroom, but he wasn't there,” Dawson informs me. “It was definitely demons. Their stench is strong in Emile's room, and they left a gaping hole in the wall.”
“How?”
“It doesn't make sense,” Brooks says, panicked. “The demons aren't supposed to breach the traps or spells.”
“It sounds like they're getting smarter.” I turn and frown when I can't hear Elias anymore. “Where's Elias?”
“I'm here!” Elias calls out, his eyes filled with agony.
“Elias!”
The group rushes over to the main Alpha of Snehvolk just as he drops to his knees in defeat.
“I—I couldn't keep him safe!” he roars with the pain strangling his throat, staring at his palms defeatedly. “He's gone! My son is gone!”
The women find Aurora emerging from the woods, drained, eyes lifeless though they're filled with tears, dragging her feet forward.
They huddle around her just as she collapses to her knees, and I crouch on the ground beside my friend, my brother, trying to console him, but he shrugs my hand away.
His body trembles with rage that can be felt in the air, his hands curled into tight fists on his thighs.
My heart aches for the main alpha, sensing his pain, his suffering, his hopelessness, because that's how I felt earlier tonight. Except that he has every right to feel this way and more now, and we need to do something.
“We need to find Emile!” I yell out, and we're all preparing to shift into our wolf forms when Connor, Dawson's beta, sends an alarming, panicked cry through the mind link.
“Breach! South perimeter!”
I’m already running, my heart pounding as my brothers race on my heels. The protective barrier that had been cast to keep the demons out crackles with violet light across the forest line, flaring and sputtering as if something enormous presses against it from the other side.
Then it shatters.
The force ripples through the ground, a pulse that knocks me back a step. Sparks rain down like fireflies dying midair as the seal spell is broken. Through the haze of flickering light, I see dark, smoke-bodied shapes emerging, eyes burning ember-red.
Demons. Dozens of them.
And not the ones we've fought before in the woods.
These are organized.
Coordinated.
This is war.
“Hold the line!” I bark out an order to the soldiers closest to the border line, shifting mid-sprint as I throw myself forward, my bones snapping and fur tearing through my skin as I land on four paws.
The other alphas follow suit, our wolves thundering side by side into the clearing. Behind us, Willow, Rissa, and Yvonne are running with us, Aurora pushing forward behind them, their voices belting plans on how to tackle this fight.
I charge forward as the swarm of demons attacks the first line of defense, racing forward into the line of fire, my fellow alphas with me.
When the first demon lunges toward me, I meet it midair, my jaws closing around its neck. The creature dissolves, but it reforms seconds later, its horrendous laughter low and echoing through the trees.
“They’re adapting!” Dawson snarls, his wolf staggering backward as claws rake across his flank, blood steaming on the snow.
Yvonne blasts the demon that attacked her mate with her magic, and Willow follows with a lightning bolt of gold magic that turns the demon to ashes.
Rissa calls out, “They’re siphoning energy from the traps! We can’t contain them this way anymore!”
The ground erupts as one of the traps on the ground implodes, light scattering like shattered glass. A column of fire shoots skyward, and Rissa throws up a shield just in time to deflect the debris. The demons pour through the gap like spilled black ink.
“Fall back to the east line!” I shout as I switch back to human form, my rifle swinging from my shoulder.
Silver rounds whistle through the air, cutting through three demons to hold them off before a massive shadow blocks my aim.
The largest demon I've ever seen steps forward like the leader of them all, twice my size, molten veins crawling beneath its black skin. Its grin is pure malice.
It doesn’t flinch when I shoot it.
It absorbs the bullet.
Before I can react by shifting into wolf form, its clawed hand swings out, catching me square in the chest. The world flips, pain slicing my ribs as I crash through a pine trunk. I hit the snow hard, lungs screaming for air.
“Thane!” Willow's voice beats through the ringing in my eardrums. A blinding flash of gold light fizzles through the air, furious and unforgiving.
Her power arcs through the clearing, colliding with the malevolent demon and sending it crashing backward.
But it rises again, smoke curling over its wounds.
Willow gasps, her face paling with horror. The clearing is littered with fighting—werewolves battling it out with demons and falling as they fail.
They're failing.
We are failing.
My head snaps in the direction of the large demon, the most menacing one we've ever faced, watching in horror as it stalks toward Willow.
“Run, Willow! Magic won't work on this one!” I belt out at the top of my lungs, meeting Willow's terrified eyes.
“I'm sorry, Thane!”
“Get out of here, Willow!” I shout as I push through the pain, throwing my rifle out of my hand and leaping forward to plant myself in the snow between my mate and the treacherous creature.
I glance over my shoulder, relieved when I see Willow running back toward Elias's house across the field, hair wild, eyes wide with panic.
At least she didn't fight me, and my consolation in this disaster is knowing that my mate will be safe, even when the terrifying beast charges toward me.
I fight hard to dodge its attacks, trying my best to hold it off until we can devise some kind of plan.
“Any ideas, guys?” I call out through the mind link. “Willow's magic is no match for this one. If I'm not careful, it's gonna rip me to shreds.”
“We got you, Thane!” Brooks calls out, growling as he and Dawson come to my aid.
Elias is charging forward, too, but stops in his tracks when a child's muffled cries can be heard in the air, echoing like a scream for help.
Aurora cries out for her child, pained, tortured, dropping to her knees mid-battle.
When Rissa blasts the demon, I'm trying to hold off with green bolts of magic, I turn to see baby Emile suspended midair by a demon. He's covered in whiffs of moving black smoke that hold him up like a menacing embrace.
Yvonne plants both palms to the earth, her voice trembling from the strain. “We can’t hold them much longer!”
“Then we don’t hold,” Elias growls beside me, his wolf bleeding from the shoulder. “We fight!” His determination is reignited by the sight of his mate and their son suspended in the air.
The forest becomes a blur of fur, flame, and magic. Wolves tear through the horde of demons, while witches summon storms of color that split the dark in ribbons of emerald and silver. But every victory is temporary, the demons reforming, mutating, adapting.
I drive my claws through one’s chest, its body turning to vapor even as another takes its place. The smell of old oil fills the air, the snow turning black beneath our feet.
The chanting behind me stops me mid-attack, earning me a thunderous slash to the shoulder that sends me spiraling toward Willow. I crash at her feet with a whimper, but she doesn't tear her golden and blue gaze from the battlefield.
She continues chanting in an ancient tone, a language only our ancestors could speak, wielding magic in her hands where she's holding a vial of the white potion in one, and the alpha blood in the other.
I can smell my blood in the vial, mixed with the others, and I know she'd found a way to take it.
My heart lodges in my throat as I shift into human form on the ground, realization dawning on me, and I try reaching out for Willow's ankle to stop her when she floats forward.
“No!” I rasp, trying to stand, but Willow presses on toward the raging battle, repeating the words of the ritual. I can’t get to her with the demons closing in around me, not with the witches drawing all focus to the eastern front.
I watch Willow lift the potion and drop the blood inside, quickly fusing with the white liquid, making it crackle like a small fire between her fingers. She tips the vial to her lips, her head thrown back as she drinks the potion.
“No! Willow!”
But it's too late.
The potion covers Willow in fiery, crimson light, and the ground ripples beneath her feet and cracks open.
The demons stop attacking, and every head turns toward the sound of the ground grunting when it swallows Willow.
“Willow! No!” I wail, dropping to my knees and shifting into wolf form, fighting through the pain of my dislocated and broken shoulder. I stumble forward pathetically, then use my front paw to pull myself forward through the snow.
The gaping hole in the ground sparks with the awakening of a different kind of power, the ground rumbling as an energy crackles in the air.
The magic is familiar, but stronger and mightier than anything I've felt before.
It's Willow in a cloak of golden flames, floating upward, suspended in the air as if she's not her body anymore, but an energy source that covers the meadow in brilliant yet menacing gold light.
And as the wind howls through the burning trees, I realize this battle is only the beginning for me.
Once, I thought I shared the same fate as my fellow alphas, but there is something different.
Something different about Willow's powers and the role she plays in combating the demons.
Something different about my ending.
It's not supposed to be a happy one. I'm meant to watch my mate sacrifice herself so that everyone else can be happy.