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The yard is a battlefield, Maddox and I stare around at the grisly scene. Wolf after wolf keeps coming as we get back to the pack house, and worse yet, these are my men. Killing them is my last resort, but keeping them back while keeping them alive is a lesson in futility.
Andrei is relentless, we have been stuck outside the pack house for over an hour now, I can’t get in without opening the shutters, which was no longer an option.
Maddox grows weary, yet Andrei keeps coming, his wolf completely crazed by her scent. I have known Andrei for a while, and I know he will feel like shit tomorrow for trying to mate with my mate. He can be a right prick when he wants to be and has no issues causing me grief, yet he isn’t as sadistic as he appears.
“Behind you, Maddox,” I warn, and he pivots just in time to see Nicolas has awoken and caught up to us. His claws rip down our side as Andrei sinks his canines into my other side. Losing our breath in a wheeze, my lung collapses, and my ribs breaking from the pressure.
We can’t keep this up, Maddox won’t last much longer, and our ability to heal slows with each attack.
Mathias and Jasmine are shooting each dart with precision, taking down our patrols, while I am being torn apart by two Alphas.
“She’s not mine.” It’s a desperate chant through the mind link, but focusing on it is distracting Maddox and me. Both Maddox and I have to come to the conclusion that, whatever happens, happens, Mateo is stuck with her because we told him to leave his room. We knew what risk that posed, Mateo, is unmated and in love with Kat. Yet, if it is between her dying and the risk of him mating her, we would rather her be alive.
Ares can’t be held accountable for giving into instinct, and neither can Mateo. It doesn’t mean we want that, but we can’t blame him either. Nicolas buries his teeth into our front shoulder. His fangs sink bone deep and he jerks his head, taking a chunk of our flesh with it.
I am done for, can see my death as I try to protect her as they both attack at the same time. Our flesh is being torn apart, and teeth sink into the soft parts of our torso.
“Mateo will keep her safe,” Maddox says to me, even though he knows this is how we will die, as my back leg is dislocated with the snap of Nicolas’s jaws.
So many injuries, not enough time to heal before the next one comes. Andrei and Nicolas, are both trying to rip me to pieces. Their crazed wolves will finish me off, then they’d fight each other, all in an attempt to lay claim to my mate.
Andrei lunges at my throat and I prepare for my final struggle. In the middle of the air, he’s struck by something and the attack knocks him into Nicolas, who is still chomping on my leg. Both are tossed away from me and onto the hard ground.
“Get to my daughter!” Rings through the link, before I spot her sandy wolf.
Shirley attacked them.
Andrei springs up from the Alpha pile, and he glances between us before running full tilt at her. She doesn’t back down, she waits for him, facing an Alpha as if she has no fear.
He springs, aiming for her throat, but she dances out of the way and dives for his back paw, crushing it beneath her powerful teeth. She dives back before his powerful jaws can get a hold of her and bites into his ear, tearing it into bloody ribbons. One of his back claws sinks into her soft flesh and she growls and bites his muzzle.
Normally that would have been the end of it, our flesh there is sensitive. But instead of retreating, the craze in his blood sent Andrei forward. He grabs her by the scruff of her neck and shakes her, trying to break her hold on him.
She refuses to let go. If anything, her teeth sink deeper, and blood wells from her fangs that are buried in his snout.
Nicholas appears out of nowhere and launches himself bodily into her. Once she’s on the ground, his teeth are around her neck, and she shifts back to avoid the killing blow.
Shirley rolls out of the way as a human, her throat is bleeding, but nothing too deep.
Fuck. I hate this, but there’s no way I can turn my back. “I can’t leave her,” I tell Maddox, and surprisingly he’s not fighting my decision. Maybe he understands Kat will hate us if we just leave her mom to die. Maddox lunges to his feet, staggering forward on his three good legs, while Shirley fights.
Even as a human, she’s a sight to behold. I have to give her credit, with blood streaming from her wound, she dances around the attacking Alphas. She slams her palms into the ribs of Andrei one moment, and the next she kicks Nicholas in the forehead, which considering he is in wolf-form, is dangerous as hell.
I take a step toward her, and a big gray wolf erupts from the brush and slams into Andrei. He snarls in a warning to the Alpha before biting into his side viciously. Derrick is here, and he’s defending his mate.
Shirley doesn’t take the opportunity to get to safety, instead she kicks the attacking wolf in the face, before whirling around and dropping under Nicolas’s attack. The edge of her palm slams into his windpipe and the wolf makes a strangled gurgling nose. She hadn’t done serious damage to him, but he is going to be hurting until at least he shifts back and heals. Even as a heat-crazed wolf, that is going to sting.
Her reputation for being the best female warrior in history is well deserved. Even injured, she is poetry in motion, she takes them on one after the other, fearless, even in her weaker form.