Needing to hold onto something, Cydney grabbed Wulfric’s tail, clinging to it for dear life. A sword appeared in his hand, and with one thrust to the chest, he put an end to the werewolf he fought.
The sound of a howl accompanied by Dolf’s shout of denial had Cydney’s gaze focusing on the center of the cavern. He stalked a man who held Maggie in front of him as a shield. Cydney bit back a cry at seeing how traumatized her friend looked. Her eyes were round with fear. Dirt streaked her face and her lip bled from where it had split.
The man who held Maggie said, “I’m walking out of here, mate.”
Dolf stalked closer, his sword held menacingly. “Give me the woman.”
“It seems I got lucky and picked the right one,” the man said with a sneer. “You want her, that sword of yours disappears, or I sink my teeth into her. Then she’ll be mine, not yours.”
The man shifted to his werewolf form and dragged Maggie in front of him as he continued to back toward the tunnel that led to the farmhouse above. All the warriors closed in on the three in the center, Wulfric pulling Cydney along with him, since she’d yet to let go of his tail.
One of the warriors, she couldn’t tell which one, tried to sneak up behind the werewolf. Dolf yelled at him to stop when a sharp-clawed hand yanked Maggie’s head to the side, and equally sharp teeth hovered mere inches over the vulnerable side of her neck. Once the warrior shifted out of the way, the werewolf continued his backward steps, never moving his teeth away from his human shield.
At the entrance to the cavern, the werewolf shoved Maggie into Dolf who caught her against him. As Maggie’s screams filled the chamber, her captor swung around and took off in a run, almost too fast for Cyndey to track, into the tunnel.
Letting go of Wulfric’s tail, Cydney rushed over to Dolf and Maggie as her friend continued to scream and fight his hold. “Maggie! Maggie, it’s all right. You’re safe now.”
Her friend stopped her struggles, and when she turned her gaze toward her, she asked warily, “Cydney? Is that really you?”
“It’s me.”
“How?”
“I came with the good guys to rescue you.”
As Wulfric came to stand at Cydney’s side and put his arm around her shoulders, her friend’s eyes widened even more. “You know about these…things?”
Maggie sucked in a sharp breath as if she would scream once more.
“It’s all right, Maggie.” She stepped out from under the heavy arm around her.
When Wulfric tried to pull her back, she turned and snapped, “Wulfric, back off.”
“That’s Wulfric?” Maggie asked, a tremor in her voice.
Cydney nodded. “Remember how I mentioned his best friend to you, Dolf? Well, he’s the one holding you.”
Maggie turned to look up at Dolf as if she just remembered who held her in his arms. She whimpered and violently shoved at Dolf’s chest. “Let me go! Let me go!”
Dolf only seemed to hold onto Maggie tighter, which upset her friend even more.
Before Cydney could do something, Wulfric shifted to his human form and smacked Dolf on his muzzle. “Shift, you wanker. You’re scaring Maggie. Let her go to Cydney.”
Dolf shifted, but still hadn’t released Maggie. “She’s mine. I have to protect her.”
Wulfric nodded. “I know, but she’s terrified. Look at her.”
Cydney watched Dolf try to calm himself down as he looked at Maggie. He reluctantly dropped his arms, and Cydney clutched a trembling Maggie to her.
“I’m sorry,” Dolf said in a gruff voice. “I didn’t mean to scare her.”
“It’s all right,” Cydney reassured him. “Let’s get out of here.”
As she slowly walked Maggie, who clung to her, toward the entrance to the tunnel, Cydney tried not to look at the werewolf bodies that littered the cavern’s floor.
Once they were out of the farmhouse and out in the early morning light, Cydney breathed a sigh of relief. Wulfric and Dolf hovered nearby.
She had no idea what the other warriors did in the den, but it was a few minutes before they joined them outside. Once they did, their group backtracked across the field to where the cars were parked.
Settled into the backseat of Raed’s car with Maggie clinging to her still, Cydney stared out the window, feeling the last of her energy drain away. Seeing the manor house come into view, she didn’t complain as Wulfric ushered her and Maggie inside once they pulled out front. Shown to the spare room, Cydney urged Maggie into the bed and climbed in next to her. Too exhausted to keep her eyes open any longer, she fell into a dreamless sleep.
Chapter Ten
Cydney came awake with a start. She sat up and looked around the room, her gaze latching onto the man who sat on the floor with his back against the wall a short distance from the bed. She then looked at the spot next to her and found it empty.
“Where’s Maggie?” she asked.
Wulfric stood, crossed over to her and sat on the bed. “She’s with Lexi, Kamryn and Nika. She’s fine. They’ve gotten her calmed down finally, though they had to send Dolf away to manage it. They’re also explaining everything to Maggie.”
“Oh, good. What about her parents? Did anyone call them to let them know we found her?”
“Raed did, shortly after we arrived at the manor. I think he gave them some excuse about car trouble and Maggie running into an old friend she hadn’t seen in a while, or something like that. Whatever he told them, they accepted, and that you and Maggie would be sleeping here.”
“I’m glad. Other than a split lip, is Maggie physically fine?”
Wulfric nodded. “Apparently, Stephen—it was the pack leader who’d taken her—had wanted to wait until the rest of the pack had returned before he had his ‘fun’ with her. He told her if she didn’t cooperate he’d throw her to the wolves, literally. If we’d shown up later, I don’t know what we would have found.”
Cydney didn’t want to think about it. “Does Maggie know about her being Dolf’s mate?”
“That’s one of the things the women are explaining to her. I have a feeling she’s not going to take the news well. After what she went through, she’s still terrified of him, of us. Every time Dolf tries to go near her, she almost has a panic attack. Only with the women does she settle.”
“I should go to her.” Cydney shifted as if to get off the bed, but Wulfric stopped her by placing his hand on her arm.
“She’s fine. You and I have things to work out ourselves.”
“Then talk.”
“You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?” Wulfric let go of her arm and ran his fingers through his hair. “You now know what I am.”
“But I don’t know how you got to be that.”
“Okay, I’ll start from the beginning. I was born in 583 A.D., here in East Anglia. I was a warrior who served under my king, Raedwald—Raed. After Tiw, the Sky Father, came to him and chose him to protect mortals from those werewolves sired by Fenris the wolf, we, his highest ranking warriors, agreed to take up the cause with him.
“Who is Fenris?”
“I’ll give you the short version. Fenris is the eldest child of the god Loki and a giantess. Even though he had been born as a wolf, unable to shift to human form, he’s no ordinary wolf. He had grown so large, the other gods of Asgard had worried he would turn on them. To protect themselves, they bound Fenris. The one time he managed to free himself, he'd escaped to the mortal realm, to East Anglia, where the very first werewolf was sired. Tiw had managed to capture Fenris, but the damage had already been done. A single bite from one of Fenris' get is all it takes to turn a mortal into a werewolf. So this is where we come in. We’re charged to bring down the beasts to stop the spread. It’s an on-going battle we’ve fought for centuries.”