Chapter 18
DECLAN
The grey wolf lunges for Eliza.
She doesn't flinch. Doesn't hesitate. She steps forward to meet him, and I watch my mate drive a salt-iron nail straight into the wolf's eye socket. The nail punches through bone and brain. He drops mid-leap, dead before he hits the ground.
Pride surges through me, but there's no time. Connor's forces crash into ours like a wave breaking against rocks. The standing stones erupt into chaos.
Sixty shifters on our side. Forty on Connor's. A hundred bodies tearing into each other with fang and claw and raw desperation. The air fills with snarls, screams, the wet sound of flesh rending. Blood spatters ancient stone.
Jax hits the line first, his grey wolf a blur of controlled violence.
He fights like he always has: cold, precise, lethal.
No wasted movement. Every strike calculated for maximum damage.
A brown wolf lunges for his throat. Jax sidesteps, lets the momentum carry his opponent past, then tears into the exposed belly.
The wolf goes down screaming. Jax spins, catches a second attacker mid-leap, and they roll together across the stones. When they separate, only Jax gets up.
Three of Connor's wolves down in the first thirty seconds.
Finn roars past me in his full dragon form, scales gleaming crimson in the storm light.
He's smaller than legends tell, maybe fifteen feet nose to tail, but what he lacks in size he makes up for in fury.
Fire erupts from his jaws, scattering a coordinated pack of five wolves.
Our people pour into the gap. Finn wheels overhead, his tail whipping out to catch a wolf mid-leap, sending it tumbling into the stones with bone-breaking force.
"Flanking left!" His voice carries over the chaos, dragons able to speak even in shifted form. "Jax, three coming at your six!"
Grayson charges through the center, his massive bear form absorbing hits that would drop a lesser shifter.
Two wolves latch onto his back, tearing at the bandages from his western cove injuries.
He doesn't slow. Doesn't even seem to notice.
His paw swipes out and catches one attacker across the face.
The impact sounds like a hammer hitting meat.
The wolf flies backward, neck clearly broken.
Grayson rears up on his hind legs, eight hundred pounds of raw power, and comes down on the second wolf with crushing force.
Connor's remaining wolves break around him like water around a boulder.
Kian moves through the shadows despite his broken leg, his tiger form compensating with upper body strength and vicious efficiency.
He's protecting the weaker fighters, the defectors who came to our side but aren't warriors.
A rust-colored wolf breaks through, going for the non-combatants.
Kian intercepts with blinding speed, claws raking across the wolf's face, blinding him.
The wolf stumbles, and Kian's jaws close on the throat.
Quick. Merciful, even in the middle of this butchery.
Another wolf comes from a different angle.
Kian pivots despite his injury, his powerful shoulders doing the work his damaged leg can't. Four parallel slashes across the throat, severing arteries. The wolf drops without a sound.
Rafe moves through the chaos in his black panther form, sleek and lethal despite the gash across his ribs that must be screaming with every movement.
He's not the biggest fighter here, but he's one of the deadliest. A wolf breaks from Connor's line, trying to circle behind our formation.
Rafe intercepts, silent as a shadow, and takes the wolf down before it can cry out.
He fights with precision, targeting weak points, exploiting openings.
Always thinking, always calculating, using his panther's natural stealth and power to devastating effect.
I call upon the power of the storm and it responds instantly, thunder rolling with my snarl. Lightning forks across the sky.
Connor's wolves are well-trained. Professional. They fight in coordinated packs, trying to separate us, to break our formation. These aren't idealistic young wolves who don't know better. These are mercenaries who understood exactly what they signed up for.
I tear into them anyway.
A brown wolf comes at me. I catch his shoulder in my teeth.
Twist. Break. The shoulder joint separates with a wet pop.
He collapses howling. Before he hits the ground, I'm already targeting the next threat.
A black wolf circles for my hindquarters.
I sense him through the storm's awareness—the rain tells me where he is, the wind carries his scent.
I pivot, catch his snout in my jaws, and slam his head into the stone ground.
Once. Twice. On the third impact, he stops struggling.
Because somewhere in this chaos, Connor is moving toward Eliza.
Through the press of bodies, I see Eliza fighting with silver and salt.
She goes low, targeting weak points wolves don't expect from someone her size.
A wolf charges—she sidesteps, drives a salt-iron nail into its throat.
It convulses and drops. Another lunges. She punches a nail through its eye socket.
A third circles behind her. The silver knife catches it across the belly.
She holds her ground near the hostages Connor brought—bound figures huddled against the stones, including an elderly woman.
But Connor's circling. Using his loyalists as shields, as distractions. Herding us into positions. This isn't just a battle. It's a strategy. He's moving pieces on a board I can't quite see.
Lightning strikes close enough to make my fur stand on end. But it's not my lightning. The storm is acting strangely, responding to something other than my will. The convergence point, maybe. Ancient magic bleeding into natural forces.
A massive grey wolf slams into my flank. I roll with the impact, come up snarling. It's Graeme's second, a wolf I sparred with years ago. One of the wolves who came with Graeme when he pledged loyalty. His eyes hold something I can't read. Regret, maybe. Doesn't matter.
He's attacking me.
Not all of Graeme's wolves came in good faith. Some were Connor's plants all along.
But there's no time to process it. He lunges, and I meet him with everything I have.
We collide in a tangle of fur and fury. He goes for my throat.
I twist, take the bite on my shoulder instead.
Pain flares hot and immediate. I've had worse.
I find his foreleg, clamp down, and pull.
He jerks back, but I'm stronger. The bone cracks under the pressure.
He tries for my ear, my face, anything to make me let go.
I hold on until the bone breaks completely, then release and go for his throat.
He submits before I can kill him. Belly exposed, throat bared.
I don't kill him. Not worth it—he was Connor's tool, not Graeme's choice. But I make sure he understands the cost. My jaws close just enough to draw blood, to make him feel how close death came. He whimpers, and I throw him aside hard enough that he slides across the wet stone.
More of Graeme's pack are turning against us.
Not all of them—maybe half. The other half look as shocked and horrified as we are, fighting their own packmates who were Connor's loyalists all along.
Enough traitors to throw our formations into chaos.
One of Elena's wolves goes down to a supposed ally's attack, her scream cutting through the battle noise.
Connor planned this. The defection was partially a trap. He had wolves infiltrate Graeme's pack, used Graeme's genuine pledge as cover to get his own people inside our guard.
Tessa's voice crackles through the radio on my collar.
"Declan, some of Graeme's wolves just turned.
Connor's plants. The real Northshore wolves are holding, but we've got chaos.
Adjusting positions. Pulling Elena's wolves to shore up the gaps.
" Her voice tightens. "Connor's moving on Eliza's position. "
Packmate against packmate now. The loyal Northshore wolves fighting Connor's infiltrators who pretended to pledge with Graeme. I see two wolves who fought together just minutes ago now tearing at each other, both bleeding, both crying out in betrayal.
I push forward, fighting through Connor's wolves and the traitors alike.
My storm-power crackles across my fur. Lightning responds.
Every strike I make is backed by thunder.
A wolf tackles me from the side. Lightning forks down, not quite hitting him but close enough that the electricity arcs across his wet fur.
He convulses and drops. I don't know if he's dead or stunned. Don't have time to check.
Where is Connor? Where is—
There. At the edge of the circle, his massive wolf form circling toward where Eliza fights. He's not engaging anyone. Just moving with predatory patience, waiting for the perfect moment. His coat is pale grey, almost silver in the storm light, and there's something wrong about the way he moves.
I launch myself toward him, but Connor's second—a rust-colored wolf with scars across his face and shoulders—intercepts me.
We crash together, rolling across the slick stone.
He's strong, vicious, willing to die to give Connor time.
His jaws snap at my throat. I block with my foreleg, feel teeth tear through muscle. More pain.
We grapple, neither gaining advantage. He's good. Strong enough and skilled enough to actually match me despite the difference in our power. But he's fighting for ideology. For Connor's twisted vision of the old world.
I'm fighting for Eliza.
There's no comparison.