And you’ll eat, but let them do the kill. We’re on their land. That bear’s theirs to kill.
His explanation didn’t smother my hunger, but at least I understood why he was making me recede. I shot my gaze up to the creature that had reached the trunk. One of the wolves leaped and latched onto the bear’s back paw. The bear released a guttural yap and kicked at the wolf’s head, sending the ball of brown fur tumbling and rolling. Another brown wolf scampered toward the collapsed wolf, licking at a weeping gash on her packmate’s head.
The wolf whined, and even though the growls and howls had grown in volume in the forest, I heard the wolf tending to the fallen one whimper, Poppy.
Poppy didn’t stir.
The other wolf-I imagined one of her sisters . . . her twin perhaps?-yelped, and Zack snapped his attention off his ravenous pack.
The River Alpha bounded toward his daughter, and then he headbutted the thin brown wolf aside to have access to the immobile one. I strained to catch the beat of her pulse over the thundering hearts surrounding me.
She had to be alive. Werewolves didn’t die so easily. When she still hadn’t moved, I peered into Liam’s alarmed face.
That could’ve been you, he said through the mind-link.
My stomach contracted with a mix of dread and hunger brought on by the bear’s fatty flesh.
After releasing a raspy bark, Zack whipped his face toward his pack. He must’ve spoken into their minds, because his wolves halted their attack, reluctantly turning away from the cornered bear.
The animal huffed warily as it scrambled higher.
It wasn’t my place to go to Poppy, so I stayed shoulder to shoulder-or rather shoulder to belly-with Liam.
Zack nudged the lump of brown fur at his paws.
Can we die of an animal attack? I enquired.
If the bear sectioned her artery, yes, he answered.
After a minute of terrible stillness, the brown lump emitted a whimper as faint as the patter of rain, so faint I wondered if I’d made it up, but then, through the trellis of furred legs, I saw Poppy lift her head. It glistened with dark blood which Zack and another wolf began to lick animatedly.
The River Alpha let out a keening howl, which every wolf in his pack reciprocated. A branch snapped overhead. I craned my neck and locked eyes on the creature that had almost stolen another daughter from the Rivers. My wolf longed to lunge up at it and devour its flesh for the pain it had caused my kind, but the human in me rooted for it to climb higher, because we’d lashed out first.
I’d never considered myself a predator before tonight, but the combination of wolf and human made us the most lethal kind.
Poppy rose to her feet like a newborn foal, struggling to stay upright.
I’ll take her back, the wolf who’d cleaned her said. I recognized her mother’s voice.
My heart pinched at the sight of the two females. Not only did Poppy still have her mother, but her mother was a shifter. I envied what they shared. How I wished my mother had been a wolf too. Cancer wouldn’t have taken her from me if she had been.
As I stared at them, I imagined myself standing protectively next to my own pup someday, and a maternal instinct I didn’t even know I possessed rose within me.
Looming larger than the other wolves in his pack, Zack waded toward Liam and me. Alpha, you desire an alliance? Kill the bear that attacked my daughter, and for as long as you lead your pack, the Rivers will be your allies.
You want Liam to bring down the bear? I yelped, wanting to add that the bear hadn’t even attacked his daughter, that she’d attacked it, but I bit back my observation.
You may help him. You are his Second after all.
No. I’ll do it alone, Liam said.
Liam-
He fixed me with his glowing yellow eyes, and through the mind-link, he added, Not risking your life over a bear. To Zack, he said, Order your shifters back.
While Zack bellowed for his pack to retreat, I turned on Liam and hissed, You’re not a squirrel, Liam. You can’t climb trees.
He snorted in amusement, or maybe it was annoyance, then flicked his ears. Get back, too.
Like I was going to let him face off with a bear on his own.
When I still hadn’t moved, he growled at me and shoved his head into my belly.
Don’t you dare growl at me, you overgrown furball. I’m your Second, so I’m staying. Now, tell me your plan.
He blinked at me.
What’s your plan? Besides biting my head off for trying to help you? When he still hadn’t said anything, I added, You do have a plan, don’t you?
He looked at me, then at the bear, then back at me. My plan was not involving you.
Then you need a new plan.
He blew out a long, annoyed breath that ruffled the fur atop my ears. Squirrel . . .
I smirked, even though the situation was far from funny. Zack’s test may not have been an impossible one, but it held its fair share of risk.
Liam’s eyes flashed with an idea. When the bear hits the ground, corral him, okay?
My brow felt as though it was puckering-maybe it was. Are you planning on gnawing on the trunk until it tips the bear out?
He smiled, and then his rubbery lips retracted and his teeth shortened and the fur on his body became fine hair.
I yipped, Are you crazy? He wouldn’t understand me now that he was back in skin. I shoved my head into his shins to make him back up.
He was going to face off with a bear in skin?
I shouldered him again.
Ness! Stop.
I froze, momentarily baffled by the fact that he could speak into my mind even though we were in different forms. Taking advantage of my bewilderment, he stalked around me toward the trunk under the watchful gaze of the River pack, which had retreated so far back all I could see were lambent eyes and moonlit forms.
The sound of bark scraping had me gaping back at the tree. Muscles twisted underneath Liam’s dirt-flecked thighs. He proved agile, and soon, he’d reached the first large branch. He balanced on it, then reached over and broke off a smaller one. The bear barked.
Because he’d apparently not read the same nature guides I had, Liam decided it would be a good idea to poke the massive animal. The bear’s bark turned into a blood-curdling growl. Liam poked him again. This time the bear flipped around and caught the branch between his fangs before shaking his head until he’d ripped the stick from Liam’s grasp.
Liam reached for another branch at the same time as the bear unhooked his paws from the trunk and launched himself on Liam, sharp teeth bared.