“I’m not yours,” Gavin snarled at him. “I never was. I am pack. I am mate. I am Bennett.”
The grip around my head tightened. I could hear the quiet whisper of my skull groaning under the pressure.
“You take from me,” Livingstone rumbled. “I will take everything from you.”
The pressure increased. I felt like I was floating away even as my eyes bulged from their sockets. The skin on the back of my head split and blood poured down my back.
And then it all faded away as another voice rang out.
It growled, “Let him go.”
And I knew it.
I knew it very well.
The bonds that stretched between us all vibrated.
The hand around my head opened.
I fell to the ground, legs buckling underneath me.
Gavin knelt next to me, saying, “Carter, Carter, look at me, look at me.”
My mother stood above me, her legs on either side of me as she growled at Livingstone.
But he paid us no mind.
His attention was elsewhere.
I turned my head.
There, standing on the road above the bodies of dead wolves, was Oxnard Matheson.
He dropped the wolf he’d been holding by the throat. It landed on the ground and did not rise.
Ox, eyes red and violet, took a step toward Livingstone.
Three wolves appeared at his side.
Kelly.
Joe.
Robbie.
Behind them stood more wolves, all their ears blinking with lights. Dozens of them. They gathered behind Ox, hackles raised.
Caswell.
Joe’s pack.
They’d come.
Livingstone roared at them. I grimaced as Gavin bent over me, covering my ears.
Ox cocked his head.
He said, “You were never going to win.”