“I’ll take him back.” Cullen took two steps forward and looked at Tristan. “Come, my Alpha, it’s not safe yet. There are still miscreant wolves all over the place.”
Cullen was right. Michael could hear the pack fighting. Tristan had to leave and Michael needed to go help them.
“Tristan, they need to be trained. Tomorrow might be too late.” And so help him he wasn’t losing any more of them to his father because they didn’t know what they were doing.
“You’re right. We start tonight. Let’s round up what wolves we can and then Cullen—you take them out back and start the procedures.”
Cullen nodded. “Yes, my Alpha.”
Tristan staggered backward and Michael lunged forward. What was wrong?
“Tristan?”
“It’s the women, they’ve broken through the defenses to the women.”
Without another word, Michael shifted into his wolf form and took off running. He’d thought Scarlett safe. Opening up the telepathic link he’d closed off, he moved as fast as he could through the woods.
Blocking his path was one of his father’s wolves. Growling, he tore into it, ending its life in a matter of seconds as he continued to run.
“Scarlett?” He called through their telepathic link.
“Michael, oh gods. Michael, they’re here.”
Pushing himself even faster, he bounded out of the trees into the open path that would lead to their home.
“I’m coming. We’re all coming.”
Her voice laced with fear. “Faith and Summer are fighting them back. They keep coming for the children. Ashlee and I have them. We can’t let them get to the children.”
“Just hold on, I’m coming.”
She didn’t answer him and his heart fell to his stomach. Roaring, he tried to move even faster. His legs burned and his breath came out in gasps. His wolf had never moved this fast.
He tried to reassure himself that he would know if she was dead. He would know, because he would suddenly want to die too and would, in fact, follow her immediately.
Tristan would have to win this war without him. Scarlett held half of his soul. He loved her and he would go wherever she went.
Pushing away the morose thoughts, he plunged through the door of the main house.
He would know if she was dead, but hurt was another issue. Bounding down the entranceway to the stairs, he took them four at a time as he made his way to the safe room.
So much for thinking it could not be breached. It might be fireproof, but the rest of it was going to have to be reevaluated. Storming through the door, the room was in chaos.
The women fought alongside the men. Summer growled, taking down a wolf with two long slashes of a sword. Where was Scarlett? Too much noise assaulted his ears. He couldn’t hear her. It was time to follow his nose.
Pushing his nose to the floor, he ran in the direction of her scent. She was in the corner of the room. His niece, Virginia, hung onto her leg as she fought back a wolf still in her human form.
He gasped as he watched her pick up a chair over her head and smash it down on top of the wolf that attacked them. Pride filled his veins. That was his woman and she was doing a hell of a job improvising. Leaping forward, he took down her attacker quickly and efficiently. Turning back to view the room, he saw the miscreant wolves were all being subdued. Most were dead and Azriel was rounding up the survivors for testing.
Michael looked at Scarlett. In her tiny arms, she held his three-year-old niece.
Murmuring reassuring words to the child, she looked down at him and smiled.
“Thank you for getting here so fast.”
“I’m not sure you needed me.” He called the shift onto himself, returning to his human form. “That was a great move with the chair.”
“I had to make do.”
She seemed calm as she held the still crying Virginia, but he could tell from her eyes as they darted back and forth that she hung on to her demeanor by a tiny thread.
“Let me take her.” Michael held out his arms and let Scarlett hand him Virginia. The child was a perfect combination of Tristan and Ashlee with her red hair and Tristan’s former brown eye color. But then again he thought all of the babies born to the pack were perfect. The child sniffled as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Uncle Mike’s got you.”
With his free hand, he pulled Scarlett up against his side. “I bet you never thought you could fight back.”
“When they came at the children, all of a sudden I was capable.”
He nodded. “Even the Beta wolves step up when the little ones are threatened. You did well. You should be proud of yourself.”
“When I stop shaking, I will be. Thanks.”
For his part, he might never sleep again thinking of how close he had come to losing her to one of his father’s creations, but he wasn’t going to mention that to her.
Across the room, Faith shifted back, having finished off the last wolf. Jumping from foot to foot, she hollered with delight. “I got it. Did you see that, Theo? Did you see how quickly I took it down?”
Theo raised an eye at Faith. “I saw it, dearest. Now if you could have managed to do it without giving me three different kinds of heart attacks, I might have preferred it.”
Faith laughed, which made Michael snicker. “Sheesh, you’re getting old.”
Doing a quick headcount, he was relieved to see everyone was there. Everyone but one, actually. Walking toward Ashlee, he handed her Virginia as he smiled at Elizabeth and Braden. They were shaken up but, he hated to admit it, the children had actually gotten used to the attacks.
With each incident, they bounced back faster to their usual jovial moods.
His wolf spoke to him. They’ll get their wolves early. Already, their canines want to protect them.
Michael nodded. He’d never been entirely sure how the magic that gave them the wolves worked and if he asked his wolf, he got strange answers he couldn’t follow.
Maybe that was part of it, maybe he’d never know. Still, he needed to ask one more question on the subject.
When Todd died, did his wolf go with him? Or did he go to someone else?
His wolf snorted and lay down to go to sleep. Apparently, he wasn’t going to be informed on that subject today.
Kissing the top of Scarlett’s head, he knew he was a very lucky man. He still had to tell her what had happened and he couldn’t promise her it would never happen again.
“Todd died in the woods helping us get Tristan back.”
She gasped as her eyes filled up with tears. “Not when he’d finally learned what being a wolf shifter truly meant.”
“It’s awful.” There weren’t words for his level of sadness. Still, there was something he had to do. “Come with me.” Squeezing her hand, he pulled her from the room. Tristan was going to want to have a meeting to go over what happened and the conversation he needed to have with Scarlett would determine if he went.
Finally, finding a quiet spot, he stopped walking and leaned down to kiss her. She was soft and smelled so much like home to him some of the tension he’d been holding lessened in his shoulders. He couldn’t relax completely, not yet. Not until they talked.
“What just happened happens a lot these days. Dad has raged a full-on assault against us. Probably because we took the fight to him a few too many times.”
She nodded, her eyebrows slanting downwards as if she was confused by what he spoke about.