My heart pummels against my ribcage. I swivel my head as the four Ash Wolves dart toward the white blurs that burst out of the nearby woods with extraordinary agility. They clash tremendously and all chaos breaks loose.
The crowd is screaming and cheering, while Mad’s bellowing commands fall on deaf ears.
And if there was ever a time for me to break free, this is it.
Wriggling my hands in the rope proves harder than I hoped. Fighting the tightness, I struggle to curl my hands enough to fit through the knotted binds.
Frustration suffocates me, and I growl under my breath, rage flaring through me. But I won’t stop.
Anger and retaliation float to the surface. I draw on those to fight the ties. I glance up to the spectators watching me from the fence, and it must be clear what I’m doing, but no one says a word. They cheer me on with their gazes, their desperation painted on their faces like war paint.
I suck in each rapid breath, sweat dripping down the side of my face. Every few seconds, I check on the undead. They are mostly out of the shadows now, but more seem to be swaying deeper into the woods coming this way, no doubt drawn by the booming sounds.
My arms tremble, every part of me aching.
Whimpers and cries pierce the air behind me to a resolute ending that one side has lost.
Suddenly, a burst of gasps and oohs rise out of the crowd. I strain to look around, but barely a second later, there’s a flush of cool air against my back.
The cords instantly slacken and fall away from my wrists and ankles. I stumble free from the pole, rubbing the red marks from where my skin is rubbed raw. I shake the rest of the ropes from my ankles and pivot to find four massive white wolves roaming impatiently at the clearing farther up the hill, staring at me. Blood stains their faces, lips peeling back over razor-sharp teeth stained in blood. Ash Wolves lie torn apart near the woods, their bodies already shifting back to their human forms.
The first few zombies are already throwing themselves at the corpses, gorging on their bodies.
The crowds are screaming for me to run away, and I don’t need to be told twice.
Mad is shouting orders at his guards, who are pulling away from him, stricken with fear. My idiot stepbrother shoves one man down off the fence, then another.
“Get the fuck down there and finish them!”
Except his followers are backing away.
I whip around, my heart banging in my chest, when several feet away, the first undead lurches my way.
A phantom hand squeezes my lungs to the point where I can’t breathe.
There’s no time to wait or think, but I run up in the same direction my saviors dart to save myself.
They aren’t stupid and they run.
Behind me, there is shouting, including Mad calling for the guns. And that right there is what is wrong with him. He never thinks anything through. He attracted zombies close to the compound but didn’t arrange to have the snipers ready just in case.
Yet I know the bastard. He would have rushed to tie me up right after discovering he had Meira. No thought process, just hurry and move on. This is why everything he’s ever touched went to shit, why so many times I’ve had to cover for him.
A mistake I will never make again.
Thundering as fast as possible before the bullets start flying, I glance back to the masses of zombies piling over the two men Mad pushed off the fence.
The screams ring through the air while the sirens flatline.
But escape is all I care for now… along with darting back into the compound to rescue Meira.
Up ahead near the edge of the compound, the white wolves pause. They all snap in unison to something out of my view and growl, then lunge to attack whatever it is.
More zombies or Ash Wolves waiting in ambush? My skin crawls. I’m surrounded by enemies already.
Running, I finally careen around the far corner of the fence and slow down, having no intention of barging into something blindly.
Except tremors wrack my body at the sight before me.
Four white wolves in attack pose, low, fur bristled, are facing Bardhyl and Lucien in wolf form.
But between them stands Meira, her arms out wide, as if her mere presence is stopping these two powerhouses from colliding and ripping each other apart.
A deep guttural growl tears from my throat and I charge, ready to battle to the end to protect my family.
Chapter 16
Meira
“Stop! Neither of you are the enemy.” My voice streams over the guttural growls, slicing through the thick air filled with Alpha testosterone and dominance.
I remain trapped between two opposing parties, arms stretched toward each to stand in their way of colliding into a bloody battle. Four monstrous white wolves from the northern regions snarl from my right and two men who own my heart on my left. Lucien and Bardhyl. Yet my pulse rages desperately in my veins. The moment we jumped over the fence, we encountered these damn northerners instead of darting around the corner to rescue Dušan. And time is running away from us.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
A growl spills from my throat. “Enough of this. We don’t have time to waste.”
Gunshots and screams sound in the distance. I flinch with each pop, my nerves like shattered glass.
Frantically, I scan the lofty fence farther in the distance to my left. When we’d climbed earlier we found no guards… but how long before they return?
And where the hell is Jae?
I want to scream and shake sense into all these males. Tremors wrack my body, every inch of me clenching.
The threatening growls from each party send out alarm bells in my head, a warning that I’ll just get crushed once they attack one another. Except there’re two against four, and I’ve seen the way these northerners fight in the woods. It’s terrifying, and I can’t bear to have my two wolves taken out. One on one, I have no doubt they’d be equal opponents, but this match is just unfair.
Agony hits me square in the chest when I think of the massacre this can lead to. Desperation clings to me.
“Jae!” I shout. “If you’re nearby, get your freaking butt out here now!” I figure if I have someone else at my back, it might help diffuse this situation quicker. I turn to the northern wolves. “Please, Nikos, stand down. These are my pack members and they won’t harm you.”
Bardhyl’s and Lucien’s threatening snarls fuel the tension, not helping my cause. But turning my back to the northerners is asking for peril. I may have spent most of my life hidden in the woods, but even I know to never look away from danger.
The scents of sweat and aggression taste sour on the back of my throat.
A sudden figure emerges from around the corner of the lofty fence.
I jerk my head in that direction, and my mind races, initially picturing a Shadow Monster, but it isn’t long before my eyes make sense of who’s joining us, sprinting across the open ground.
“Dušan,” I bellow, all the anguish and dread melting. He’s alive! The earlier darkness crowding around me softens. Exhilaration floods me as I realize that somehow he escaped Mad’s clutches before we got to him. Whatever is responsible for the miracle, I thank with every fiber of my being.
I grab on to him once he reaches my side. “How did you get free?” I keep looking over his shoulder, half-expecting Ash Wolves and the undead to come running after him.