Chapter 36
Aidan
The first claw hooked over the cliff edge, black and wet and sharp, talons digging furrows into the stone.
The lycans had brought the battle to us.
“Down!” I barked, already moving, but the lycan was faster than anything that size had a right to be. It hauled itself up in one fluid lurch. Its eyes burned sickly yellow, its teeth bared in a grin too human to stomach.
Sera gasped behind me.
That was enough.
My shirt tore open as the shift ripped through me, bones stretching, muscles thickening, fur bursting out with a heat like fire. The wolf came fast, brutal, leaving the man behind in fractions of a second. My claws slammed into the rock, my jaws opening wide.
Beside me, Declan roared as he shifted too, the sound tearing from his chest like an explosion.
Logan followed, black as a shadow, his eyes like embers in the storm light.
Edward shifted with the concentration of a soldier falling into formation, lean and deadly.
Jamie was a blur as he shifted too, fur the sandy shade of the dunes, faster than a strike of lightning.
Five wolves. One pack.
We circled Sera and Tamsin. Humans in the middle, wolves at the edge, teeth bared at the nightmare crawling over the cliff.
The lycan lunged.
I went low, sinking my teeth into its thigh, tasting rot and iron. It shrieked and swung wide, but Declan was already there, barreling into its flank. Logan slammed into its chest, a streak of black fur and muscle, jaws clamping on its throat.
Edward was the one who finished it, his weight landing on the beast’s back, his jaws closing at the base of its skull. The lycan dropped, twitching once, twice, then stilled.
Then the sea roared again, and more claws were already dragging up over the edge.
Five, ten, twenty—bodies were boiling up the cliff side like ants. Their howls rose, a chorus of madness that rattled the stone under my paws.
We closed tighter around the women, but Sera was the reason I tore into the next lycan that cleared the edge, ripping its arm clean off and hurling it back into the surf.
Jamie was everywhere all at once, faster than the lycans could track, slashing, taunting, and leading them directly into our jaws and claws.
Declan was pure fury, golden eyes wild, his claws carving through one throat after another.
Logan was a wall of shadow, unmovable, cutting down anything that tried to push past us.
Edward fought like a tactician, making each efficient kill count.
Behind us, Tamsin and her men fired their pistols, shots cracking loudly into the roar, every bullet finding a skull. Crouching defensively, Sera clutched a blade scavenged from somewhere inside, landing cut after cut, her fierce confidence burning bright even as the world fell to chaos.
They kept climbing and we kept tearing into them. The cliffs shook with the madness of it.
Everywhere I turned, there were claws, snapping jaws, bodies black and slick from the sea.
The lycans swarmed over one another to climb, heedless of their own dead.
I tore one’s throat out and hurled the corpse down only for three more to scramble over it.
My jaws dripped gore, my paws slipped in blood, and still they came.
Declan’s eyes blazed like fire through the blood spray, his fangs buried in the chest of a brute twice his size.
Logan’s black wolf slammed shoulder-first into two at once, his weight alone breaking bones.
Edward used his whole body like a weapon, silent, exact, each kill a soldier’s strike.
Jamie was a darting streak of death, sandy fur blurring in and out, hitting the pack’s blind spots, keeping them off Sera and Tamsin.
We held the circle tight, teeth snapping, claws raking.
Behind us, Sera’s blade hissed through the air, her face set hard even as her body trembled with exhaustion.
Tamsin fired shot after shot, every bullet finding its mark, her expression cold and steady even as the magazine ran dry and she pushed in a new one without a flinch.
And still they came.
The howling suddenly stilled into a guttural thrum that vibrated through my bones. The lycans peeled back, their yellow eyes gleaming rabidly, forming a ragged corridor down the cliff side.
And he stepped into view.
The Elder Lycan.
Bigger than the rest by a head and a half, his fur was shot through with silver streaks that caught the sunlight. His body was all wrong, hulking, sinew and scar, yet too human in the way he moved, in the way his eyes burned with devious intelligence.
The other lycans shrank back from him, snarling low, but yielding.
Tamsin’s breath caught, sharp in the roar of battle. “God help us. He’s here.”
Sera’s hand tightened on her blade, her voice breaking. “That’s him. That’s the Elder Lycan.”
The Elder Lycan straightened. His gaze swept toward the cliffs where we stood our ground, over me, over Logan, Declan, Edward, Jamie, and then it lingered on Sera. His lips curled upward, baring teeth too white, and far too sharp.
The pack bristled as one, fur raised, snarls ripping from our throats.
You will not have her.
The Elder Lycan tilted his head, like he understood. Then he smiled. A human smile. Cold and knowing.
And with a united roar that sounded like thunder, the lycans surged again.