The wolves of the Mountain Coast pack crouched in wolf form waiting for the rogues, tension in the air. Ava’s heart raced, her haunches tensed and her breaths came rapidly, clouding the air in front of her.
Her mate was fighting at the borders, she didn’t know how exactly he was faring because she was afraid to slip into his head again. Afraid of what she would see when she did. Their bond was still securely fixed to her so she knew he was still alive.
She didn’t know for how long more. Fear gripped her so much so that she couldn’t speak even if she could. So instead, she focused on this fight. The one thing she could control. She would protect the people of her pack.
She looked around spotting Gabrielle’s brown wolf with distinctive white patches, her father’s more advanced and experienced wolf stood next to hers, a solid brown safe from a solid white running from his brow to his snout reflecting his age.
She had made sure her mother stayed indoors despite her vigorous protests. All her family would not be sacrificed in this attack.
Then they heard the sound of running paws hitting the ground. It was about to begin.
The sounds of snarls and howls accompanied the rogues. Ava and her wolves stood ready. Then the first rogue wolf crossed the threshold and the fight began.
Despite the fact that they had built traps all around the safe house since its construction, the number of rogues they were fielding was unexpected. Ava let her instincts guide her as she moved in sync with her people.
She jumped and bit an attacking wolf at his neck, she bit down hard, her claws striking out to disembowel the wolf. She moved to slash at the sides of a wolf attacking one of her women, distracting the wolf long enough for the she-wolf to finish him off.
Then a rogue leapt in her back scratching her. She rolled, throwing him off her. The wolf rolled to its feet and growled before throwing itself at her. She went low for its feet as it went high. She tore at it and they tangled up in a mass of fur, claws and teeth.
Then he was off her, she looked up at her father whose snout was wet with rogue blood nudging her to get up quickly as another wave of rogues attacked. She and her father separated again and she couldn’t even see Gabrielle from her vantage.
The moments blended and melded into one, the endless fighting, injuries both acquired and dispensed, the slashes, bites and blood. Wolves were falling on either side and weariness climbed like a deadly enemy on her shoulder. She was tiring out.
They wouldn’t be able to face them for very long. They needed reinforcements but they were the reinforcement. Adrian and the wolves at the border needed help so there was no way they could come to their defence.
Then she made a mistake. Overreaching where she should have retracted and a rogue was on her tearing into her hind foot making her release a pained howl.
The rogue growled crazed and reached for her again about to bite her neck despite her struggles when he was suddenly lifted off her and thrown several feet into the air.
Ava saw the thick black coat of Adrian’s wolf and almost cried in relief. He muzzled her, brushing their pelts against each other as he nudged her to her feet.
The rogues were pincered between the fighting force in front of the safe house and the rest of their fighting force that Adrian led.
Ava wanted to ask Adrian how he had gotten rid of the wolves at the border but they had more pressing issues, as they fought she could have sworn she saw Adelaide’s characteristic red fur.
Between the two fighting forces, they decimated the rogues, sending them off in retreat. While some wolves chased after them, Adrian stood by her side so obviously worried about the injury on her leg.
Ava shifted back to human form and embraced Adrian who had just shifted as well.
“You came back.”
Adrian said something in return but she missed it as she passed out leaning on him.
“We have a mole.”
This was not how Ava had envisioned being woken up while recovering from a rather violent attack that had just barely been salvaged by the emergence of unlikely allies.
It turned out that Zinora had called on the Primo pack to assist them. That was the reason why Ava had been unable to locate her at the safe house.
Adelaide had then gone on to invite some other neighbouring packs to help them pay their blood debt to the Mountain Coast pack. Between that and forgiving Adrian for Shawn, they were pretty much even at this point.
Adrian had gone on to allow Calvin to go for the recon. It turned out that before the attack he had volunteered for it. If he had been allowed to leave earlier, this entire fiasco could have been avoided. The deaths, injuries and losses.
Ava considered her family lucky to have left the battle with little more than injuries.
“A mole?” Ava echoed.
What mole? How was that even relevant to what had happened? No one could have known that was how it was going to turn out.
Adrian looked enraged and Ava sat upright in her bed.
“The rogues knew exactly where the safe house was and attacked during a break in the routine. They could have simply watched us enough to know our routine but Calvin changes the routine every day. The safe house’s location is only known by pack members. I had to show the Primo pack where it was.”
Ava rubbed her head feeling a headache coming on. She moved her leg and winced, reaching out for her glass of water.
Adrian got it for her and as she sipped marvelling at how nice her mate was, she was bothered though sidetracking her mind from getting on the Adrian is amazing train.
The thought of a mole being in the pack made her anxious. With everything they had been through as a pack, how could someone just turn around to betray them?
“Must you?”
The question dropped unbidden from her lips. Yeah, she knew the person had done something wrong but she couldn’t help but feel like there was something she was missing.
“It’s well beyond my hands now. The council found out first and an investigation has commenced. They wish to find the culprit before we burn our dead.”
Ava sat still and Adrian settled in next to her and dropped a list on her forehead and she melted against him.
Fine. If the elders wanted to investigate, it was no problem of hers.