“The girl,” he said. “She’ll die. The rest of this town will die. What remains of your pack will die.”
I snorted. “The wards will hold. You can’t touch them. The pack. Or this town.”
“Ox, what the hell is this?” Jessie asked, voice high and wavering.
“For how long?” the wolf asked. “Mistakes will be made. You can only stay in there for so long. I can stay out here forever. And anytime a person leaves this place, I will be there to kill them. One by one.”
“You should have told me your name,” I said. “That’s all I asked for.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t know who you’re—”
“I gave you the option,” I said, finally letting my anger show. My voice deepened and I felt something surging along the pack bonds. “To let this go. To walk away. Or even crawl. Now, I don’t know if any of that is an option.”
BrotherPackLoveSonFriend
They were there. All of them.
Those of us that remained.
Because regardless of those that were missing, we were a pack. We lived as one, we ate together as one.
We trained as one.
Ever since that day when Elizabeth had shifted back, things had been different. Since Tanner and Chris. Since Rico and Robbie. They’d come when we were alone and made us something more again. Maybe not whole, but we were held together. There were doubts, yes, mostly mine, because of the things I couldn’t let go. The anger of betrayal. The loss of my family. The fractured pieces Joe and the others had left behind.
But we weren’t down. Not completely.
I had my pack.
And my pack had me.
“In a minute,” I told the Omegas, “there’s going to be yelling. Probably some screaming. Things are going to get confusing. Blood will be spilled. I want you to remember something for me when that happens. All I wanted to know was your name.”
There were ten of them.
There were seven of us.
But they didn’t know that.
The wolf holding Jessie took a step forward.
They came then. To my side.
The wolves first. Teeth bared and snarling at the intruders who dared to come into our territory, who dared to try this again.
Elizabeth and Mark stood to my right. Robbie came to my left. They brushed against me, coiled muscle and bristled hair.
The others followed. Tanner and Rico stood next to Robbie. Both held guns loaded with silver bullets, something Gordo had made sure I’d always saved in case of an emergency. A year ago, Rico had never even held a gun before. Now he was the better of the two.
Chris came to stand between Elizabeth and Mark. He flexed his wrists, and spring-loaded knives infused with silver shot out. He’d made them himself with materials and tools from the shop. Said he’d found the schematics online. He rocked his head back and forth, neck popping loudly in the silence.
“What is this—” the wolf started.
But that was as far as he got.
Even before he’d finished the hard end to the first word, we were moving. No sound was made aside from our feet in the dirt. I didn’t even think they were aware of what was happening until it was almost too late for them.
Jessie saw us coming and didn’t wait to be rescued. She brought her right foot up at an angle, her thigh pressing up against her stomach. Then just as quickly, she kicked her foot down into the wolf’s knee, knocking his sideways, the bones cracking wetly as they broke.