Claimed by the Pack

Make me.

I was who I was.

36

DAMIEN

I reached the long chamber just as Christophe leapt. There was no avoiding it. No escaping him, four legs to only two…

Tucking myself into a ball, I covered my head. The huge grey wolf glanced off me from behind, raking my arms, tearing them open from elbow to wrist. Pain ripped through me as blood splattered the floor, big warm droplets in a fan-like pattern.

No sooner had Christophe landed than he was jumped by something else. By someone else.

Broderick.

My wolf-brother hit him in the side, so hard I could hear the dull, sickening crunch of several ribs snapping in two. Christophe yelped — something I always thought funny — and his now-diagonal momentum sent him skidding hard into the opposite wall.

I backed up. Kept moving. I could hear voices now from the other end of the hall — feminine voices, speaking in sinister tones. Voices that belonged to Serena… and Karessa, too.

Broderick’s ears went up, and I sensed peripheral movement off to one side. Rather than turn to look, I transfered hands and swung Boone’s club in a great arc over my left shoulder. It connected solidly and satisfyingly with Lionel’s mouth…

CRACK!

The strike was so hard it jarred the baseball bat out of my hand. For Lionel though, it was worse. An ugly red line split his snout all the way to the nose. Several of his teeth were suddenly missing, including his canines, and he was spitting up frothy pink blood through his big black nostrils.

“Broderick!” I shouted. “Serena!”

I pointed to the far end of the corridor, crimson droplets raining from the ends of my fingertips. I was bleeding badly, from both of my forearms. Still, he nodded in recognition and bolted off in the right direction.

Christophe was recovering. He was limping terribly though, and favoring one side.

“Come on!” I cried loudly, trying to startle him. “You wanted to fight me?”

I kept my eye on the two of them, while slowly stepping in the direction of my club. I hoped they wouldn’t notice.

“Look at yourselves!” I shouted. “Think she even cares about you? And yet you’re still doing this, all for her?”

The wolf that was Christophe hung his head low. He stopped growling long enough to swing a glance at Lionel, who kept sneezing blood, uncontrollably. It was like he couldn’t stop.

In that instant, I grabbed the bat.

“She’d leave you here to die,” I said, “either one of you, if it meant getting Broderick back.” I jerked my head. “And now he’s going to her. And you’re both stuck here, all alone, licking your wounds.”

I really couldn’t talk. My own wounds were in need of a dire licking. I was feeling woozy now, even lightheaded. But I couldn’t let them see that.

“This pack is finished,” I said, keeping up the command in my voice. “We all know it. We’ve known it since—”

Lionel finally stopped sneezing. He shook himself off, backed toward the chamber’s entrance… and then slunk away.

Christophe’s entire expression changed as we both turned to watch him go.

“Good choice,” I called after him. “Now… about you…”

I whipped my head back around to face Christophe, but there was just one problem.

He was already gone.

37