“We need to hide now,” Lucien whispers, his hand on my back.
That’s when I spot the wave of the soulless emerging from the shadows. Several dozen at least. Fright shakes me to the core to be out here with so many of them.
I turn and follow Lucien’s choice of a tree with low-hanging branches. Bardhyl is already up there. I jump up and snatch one, then swing myself up. Hastily, I make my way to a thick, sturdy branch to easily take my weight. Close to fifteen feet off the ground, I sit close to the trunk with a clear vantage point of the grounds below.
Lucien is above me, while Bardhyl is on a branch facing me.
“If this works, how do we get all the zombies into the compound?” Bardhyl asks. “It’s not like we can ask Kinley to not mind us while we drag dozens of zombies through her home. She’ll die of fright.”
“Plus,” Lucien adds, “it might cause a bottleneck once others spot zombies coming out of her house and start shooting at them.”
The thoughts plague my mind. “The only option I see is getting them through one of the main entries to the compound.”
I turn my attention to Meira. She’s already taken down three creatures, but as I watch her calculate every move on whom to attack next, worry creeps across my mind. She hesitates as she looks around, and I sigh. She’s still holding on to her wolf, instead of giving it free rein. Dammit, Meira.
This makes her slower to kill these while battling her own chaotic war in her mind.
Coldness seeps into my bones at the thought that I didn’t realize earlier how much she struggled with her wolf. She will forever lose the ability to control her wolf if she keeps pushing it away.
I tense, fingers clenching the branch beneath me, and I pray to the moon the damage she’s done to herself so far isn’t too far gone.
But as those thoughts tumble through my mind, a tsunami of zombies breach the shadows of the forest.
Next thing I know, there are close to a hundred of them pouring out.
My heart slams into my ribcage as I wrench my gaze from them and to Meira, who leaves a bloody trail in her path.
Fuck! Please don’t let me have made a mistake by letting her handle this alone.
Chapter 20
Lucien
“Go to the right,” Dušan bellows in my direction. “She’s coming your way.” He’s in human form, hoping Meira seeing him this way will help her fight harder and gain power over her wolf.
Bardhyl and I run in our wolf forms to cover ground faster.
My heart pounding wildly, I careen around a tree and pivot to go back the other way. We’ve been chasing down Meira for the last twenty minutes at least. Since she butchered every last zombie from the herd, she’s gone wild. My chest squeezes to see her frantically darting right and left in the woods, lost and confused.
Dušan told us she hasn’t given her wolf full trust yet, and this shit happens as a result. I’m fucking kicking myself now that I never asked her. I assumed it happened on her first change like it does for everyone, and I’m damn pissed that I didn’t check with her.
No matter what we do, we can’t seem to catch a break. And more than anything, Meira is our priority.
Stop her, then bring her back.
My insides clench with dread that her wolf is too far gone to be controlled again. It tears me apart to know she’ll live with that her entire life. I just pray by some miracle it’s not too late.
I charge faster, leaping over logs, darting after her.
Bardhyl steamrolls up ahead of her, but she’s too busy glancing back at me closing in, Dušan flanking in from the right.
She swings left, like I knew she would, and I leap diagonally to meet her, to cut her off.
Fast paws carry me over the ground, and I scramble toward her, spearing through the forest.
She lunges over a log as I reach her, and I use that moment to throw myself at her from the edge.
I crash my shoulder into her, knocking her over.
Her desperate snarls slice through the air. We both slam down to the foliage-covered ground. With the momentum, we roll, tangled together in a furious mess of growls and kicking up dirt.
My head spins. The ground is hard and unforgiving, but it’s her I’m worried about.
The moment we come to a pause, I scramble up to my feet, as does Meira, a growl rolling over her throat.
She backs away from me, her lips peeled back, ears flat against her head. I search for my mate in her eyes, but all I see is a feral wolf.
A phantom hand grips my heart, squeezing it.
Bardhyl suddenly leaps out of the shadows. He’s in his human form already. He lands on her other side.
She bolts from him, but I’m on her in seconds when Bardhyl runs and jumps across her back.
His weight brings her down fast. She growls a warning to back away, a desperate and terrified sound that rips me apart on the inside.
Bardhyl doesn’t wait a second, still straddling her, grabbing hold of her head, pressing her cheek to the ground so she doesn’t bite him.
I call to my swift change as Dušan bursts past the shrubs and joins us. He throws himself to his knees so she can see him. I’m at her rear in seconds, grabbing her kicking back legs, holding her down as Bardhyl shuffles to kneel behind her, his large hands pushing down on her torso.
As cruel as this seems, it’s the only way. If she escapes, Meira will struggle to come out. And by the time her wolf is exhausted and she does emerge, who knows where her wolf will have taken her?
But the more I look at her body bucking, hearing her distress, the more my heart shatters at the thought that maybe we’re too late to have saved her wolf. Her strength is extraordinary. She attacked over a hundred zombies and the three of us still wrestle to keep her down, but what good is that if she can’t bond with her animal?
“Meira,” Dušan begins. “Listen to my voice. Focus on me, and pull yourself out. You are in charge. You are the wolf.” He never stops encouraging her, letting her hear his voice.
She’s been alone so long in her life that it makes me wonder if her wolf has assumed a lone wolf approach. I’ve heard it said that while our wolves may not emerge until we hit puberty, they can sense and experience the emotions we do.
Meira bucks harder against us, and I glance up. “It’s not working. You need to dominate her,” I demand.
“He’s right,” Bardhyl adds. “It’s the only way if she hasn’t calmed down yet. Her wolf is too wild.”
Dušan is grief-stricken, and I don’t blame him. He pushed her to do this. But in truth, we’re all just as responsible. Each one of us owes her for putting her in this position. Salvation of the pack drove her to the edge and never once did we ask if she was really ready.
I grind my back teeth, fury lashing through me.
Dušan gives a single nod, and instantly, a charge of electricity threads through the air.
His thunderous growl rises through him and covers even me in goosebumps from the power he exudes. Some wolves are born to be leaders; their wolves carry tremendous power. Their presence alone can drive other wolves into submission, and Dušan is one such Alpha.
With a sudden shake of his head, his lips peel back, and he unleashes a deep, gravelly growl. The corded muscles in his neck flex, the sound earthy, carrying a deadly warning.