Carlo’s reaction was swift, his eyes clouding as he mind-linked the rest of the pack. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, not yet fully initiated into the pack myself. Carlo and I had agreed to wait until after my Showdown for the ceremony. We had waited a moment too long.
Chaos erupted all around as fear took hold. Parents snatched their children, racing away from the rogues as fast as they could. Already, blood began to seep into the grass, and I felt my muscles threaten to freeze in terror.
But not this time. My gaze swept across the families-the children, the parents, the elders. This wasn’t about me anymore; it was about them. I had a choice: I could run for safety, abandon everything I had fought for, or I could stand and fight, unleashing the anger that had been building inside me for so long-since before my mother died. Since Leonardo’s rejection, that anger had simmered, and now it was ready to boil over.
The decision surged through me like a tremor, and without hesitation, I began to shift. Pain radiated through my body, but I pushed it aside. I had endured worse-countless bruises from training, fire that had seared my skin, coursing through my veins in agonizing waves. A shift was nothing in comparison.
Bones snapped and realigned, brown fur sprouting across my skin. In seconds, I stood on four legs, fully merged with Blue. For a brief moment, my eyes met Carlo’s, now in his wolf form as well. No words were needed. We were in sync: distract the rogues, kill as many as possible. Protect the fleeing innocents.
There was no time to question how the rogues breached our territory or where the other warriors were. Every contestant from the tournaments had already shifted, doing what they could to shield their people.
I may not have been a formal member of this pack, but I would defend it as if it were my own.
Sofia, Enrico, Chiara, and Vito had shifted too, charging into battle as soon as their paws touched the ground. I threw myself at the nearest rogue, its fur a dull shade of red. Its eyes gleamed with malice as it set its sights on a young boy, no older than nine. Blood stained its muzzle, and a growl tore from my throat as I slammed into it with enough force to shake my skull. The rogue snapped and twisted, trying to get a grip on my throat, but I was quicker. My teeth sank into its flesh with a sickening crunch, and I hurled the body aside.
I nudged the trembling child with my nose, urging him to run, to flee as far from this blood-soaked battlefield as possible. Then I turned, muscles burning, adrenaline surging through my veins, ready for the next rogue.
After my third kill, I spotted Chiara struggling against an attacker. She limped on one leg, the rogue gaining on her.
Not again. I refused to lose another person I cared about.
Any fear I had left vanished, replaced by an unstoppable wave of fury and determination. Blue and I lunged forward, slamming into the rogue with a force that sent pain shooting through my ribs. Chiara took advantage of the distraction, sinking her teeth into the rogue’s side. I couldn’t speak to her, but her eyes told me everything-she was fighting for her family, for her little brother who adored her. I couldn’t let her die, couldn’t watch her family crumble the way mine had.
More rogues poured from the woods, but most of the children and elderly had escaped. I refused to think about those who hadn’t made it or the parents who had lost everything today.
The battle raged on, with regular pack members and seasoned warriors alike. The rogues were too many. Carlo had no doubt summoned reinforcements, warriors stationed in a nearby town, but I prayed they would arrive in time.
Chiara rushed to help Sofia fend off two rogues, and I found myself facing two of my own. I swung my body over one, using my hind legs to kick the other off balance. In the few seconds that gave me, I latched onto the throat of the first rogue, prepared to end its life, when pain-searing, blinding pain-shot through me.
“No!” I gasped as my jaw slackened, and fiery poison flooded my veins. I knew this pain. I had felt it before. It was Leonardo-my mate, the one who had rejected me. Even from hundreds of miles away, he could still hurt me, and I realized with brutal clarity that he might be my undoing.
My body collapsed, consumed by the fire that burned hotter in wolf form. The connection between Leonardo and me was stronger now, and I writhed on the ground, unable to fight the agony. The rogues quickly regrouped, moving in on me as I lay helpless.
“Stop!” I screamed, my howl rising above the chaos. “Leonardo, please, stop!”
To my shock, the fire ceased. Carlo’s massive wolf charged forward, tearing into the rogues with brutal efficiency. As I lay gasping for air, I could still feel the remnants of Leonardo’s presence as though he were standing beside me, as though he had heard me.
But there was no time to dwell on that. Carlo nudged me to my feet, concern burning in his eyes. I nodded at him, brushing my snout against his fur as we prepared to continue the fight.
A new wave of wolves surged from the forest, but these were not rogues. Their fur wasn’t matted with blood, and they didn’t carry the stench of death. Carlo’s warriors had arrived, cutting through the rogues with lethal precision. Together, we fought, lost in the blood and pain, driven by instinct.
By the time the battle was over, the ground was littered with bodies, both rogue and pack. Tents lay trampled, and debris was scattered everywhere. My mind was a blur, and I hardly registered that the fight had ended until I saw the stillness. We had won, but at a heavy cost.
The sight of a child’s body among the dead turned my stomach, and I fled to the woods, shifting back into human form as I retched at the base of a tree. So much life lost, and for what? How could anything be worth the death of children?
Carlo found me curled against the tree, offering a small pile of clothes. He dressed me in silence, his eyes never leaving my face. “It’s okay,” he whispered, but the truth hung heavy between us. Nothing about this was okay.
They’d torn through the pack’s defenses like they were nothing, their numbers somehow tripled in just a few months. It defied everything we knew. Rogues didn’t organize like this-they traveled in small groups, never in a force like this.
“We have to keep going, Isabella,” Blue’s voice was gentle but heavy with grief. “We can’t let this break us, not now.”
I buried the pain, the guilt, the nausea, shoving it all down into a place so deep it might never resurface. I didn’t want to feel any of it. I didn’t want to feel anything.
With Carlo beside me, his arm wrapped around my waist, I forced myself forward. His warmth bled into my cold skin as I followed him out of the forest. But I couldn’t stop my eyes from grazing over the bodies scattered across the ground. Every glance sent sharp jabs of agony through me, like little knives twisting in my gut.
Chiara, Sofia, Enrico, Vito, and Carlo stood there, all in human form. Chiara and Sofia were passing out clothes to the warriors-most of them a few sizes too small, but anything was better than standing there exposed.
Around us, nearly a thousand warriors had gathered. Some dragged the bodies of rogues toward the forest, where they’d be burned. Others carefully carried away our own, out of sight.
I couldn’t help but think of how their families would receive them in a pine box, silent and lifeless. They’d never hear their laughter again, never see their smiles. And the children we lost today…how did you survive losing a child? How did anyone?
Don’t think about it. I couldn’t do this to myself. I wouldn’t. I forced those thoughts down, replacing them with one task after another. It became a mantra, driving me forward and drowning out the pain. I dragged rogues to the edge of the forest, handed out clothes, passed around bottles of water, and bandaged wounds where I could.
“Alpha!” A voice rang out from the woods, loud and commanding.
A warrior emerged, his basketball shorts at least two sizes too small, dragging someone behind him-a girl. His fist was clenched in her filthy shirt, streaked with mud. Her long, dark hair hung in front of her face like a curtain of night.
She was about my age, painfully thin, her knees jutting out like sharp bones, her arms nothing more than fragile sticks. But what struck me most was the absence of wildness in her eyes. She didn’t have the feral look of a rogue. She hadn’t fought back at all; she’d let the warrior take her without resistance.
She collapsed to the ground, her hair falling away to reveal a delicate face and wide eyes filled with terror. Big brown pools, trembling with the fear of what was about to happen. I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy. She wasn’t a rogue. She hadn’t fought. She was scared, timid-a prisoner in every sense.
I noticed it before anyone else because I’d felt it too. Carlo’s body went rigid beside me, his eyes fixed on the girl, wide and full of something I hadn’t seen in them before. The bond snapped into place, so loud in the silence it was almost tangible.
“Mate,” his voice echoed in my head, filling the hollow ache in my chest.