Where are you? he thought and braced himself for what had always been an answering contact, the whisper-soft brush against his skin. Yet there was no light weight against the back of his neck, no tender pressure against his chest over the steady thrum of his heart. His wolf seemed to mourn the absence, as if it were a kind of loss, and the unfamiliar and unexplainable emotions caught him off guard. Emory was in danger and his focus should have been entirely on his brother, not the maddening touches of an entity that he had created in his mind as a way to steel his soul against a lifetime alone.
His cell phone vibrated and he pulled it from his back pocket. Glancing down at the screen, he read the simple text.
It’s time.
He cleared the screen with the flick of a button, slid the phone back into his pocket and ordered, “Get ready.”
The pack shuffled around him, crouched at his sides. Their growls, while low, carried on the wind that suddenly rose and surrounded them, causing the branches above to stir.
“Don’t kill them all,” Diskant growled in a voice as rough as asphalt. “We need one alive.”
Murmurs of assent were garbled by the change. Several of the pack allowed the wolf to rise. Their claws escaped their fingers and their teeth no longer resembled anything human.
When the vehicles were within yards of their hiding spot, Aldon appeared in the center of the road, creating a roadblock. Diskant moved and the pack spread outward to form an inescapable barrier, over a dozen of them ready to show their enemy why it was wise to steer clear of their city, their domain and one of their own. Despite Emory’s failings, the pack was his family, his blood, and they would kill anyone who threatened him.
“No matter what happens, keep one of them breathing.” Trey reiterated Diskant’s order, pumped for the thrill of battle but eager to secure Emory’s safety. “Have your fun but take one alive.”
Aldon stood unmoving in his black, long, flowing trench coat, his white-blond hair stark against the collar as the rising moon shone down. The vans didn’t slow, coming at the lone figure in the middle of the road at a hard seventy miles an hour or more. Unfazed, he lifted a pale hand and brought his palm upright. The coat flared around him as his hair lifted into the air, the blond strands and flaps of leather rippling as if electrically charged. The heady oppressiveness of magic crossed the distance, coating the air from his position in the middle of the isolated stretch of highway until steady growls and snarls from of the pack breached the stillness of the night.
Trey’s fingers raked into dirt as his claws extended. As an Alpha he had natural protection from magic. However he wasn’t entirely unaffected by the darkness which called to his beast. Diskant’s influence overrode the compulsion to change that came from the essence of mystical energy lingering in the air, nullifying the madness that arose as a direct result, creating a wave of serenity in a chaotic maelstrom.
Tires squealed as rubber skidded against concrete, creating clouds of smoke. The vans veered from side to side—left first and then right—until they jerked onto the shoulder of the road. Aldon brought his hand to the side, rotating his wrist. The vehicles jerked left, returned to the proper lane and began coasting.
“Now,” Diskant snarled.
The wolves revealed themselves as they barreled from the dense shelter of trees, moving faster than a man but slower than a wolf. Two Shepherds leapt from the front of the first van, covered from chest to thigh with holstered weapons, guns in hand. The pack made it to the open road and Aldon vanished. The message from the vampire was clear—his obligation was done and he wasn’t sticking around for the show.
Bullets soared across the distance before hitting or missing intended targets as the Shepherds moved to the front of the vehicles. The scent of blood didn’t stop the pack, it enraged them, driving them forward as the Shepherds threw away the empty weapons and replaced them with ones strapped to their bodies.
Trey made it to the shooter nearest him and took two shots to the chest before he disarmed the Shepherd with a quick swipe of his claws that severed the man’s hand at the wrist. The Shepherd screamed and Trey snagged him by the back of his neck, grasped his uninjured arm and shoved him into the ground.
One of the pack leapt over Trey and his prize, completed his shift to wolf and jumped into the open door of the van. The vehicle rattled from side to side as the crazed beast searched for danger inside. Within moments the wolf reappeared. While Trey’s pack mate couldn’t convey the absence of others in the van through words, he managed to do so with impressions and feelings.
Another scream ripped through the night, only this one was followed by the distinct gurgles of a death rattle. Trey lowered his head and glanced to the right, watching in satisfaction as his pack mates tore into the body with lethal teeth and claws, shredding the Shepherd to pieces.
Then an unexpected yelp of pain—one that could only come from a shifter in animal form—came from behind him.
“Brian!” Trey called to the closest half-shifted werewolf, grasped the Shepherd with the missing hand and thrust the staggering man to his pack mate. “Take him!”
Trey had pivoted toward the sounds of combat when a fully shifted wolf flew through the air and collapsed in a heap on the ground. The wolf struggled to find his feet, legs unsteady as he rose. Trey stepped past his pack mate just in time to see Diskant arrive on the scene. The Omega hadn’t shifted, though his eyes changed colors, flickering like a miniature rainbow.
“Time to dance,” Diskant growled and advanced on the man who stood near the back of the van, covered in black leather.
“Bring it, bitch.”
Trey turned toward the massive motherfucker who embraced his own death and was standing to the left, legs apart, hands held up. His face was heavily shadowed with bristles, harsh lines and a wicked-looking scar that ran along his chin. Clenched in each fist were curved daggers, the blade on one side serrated, the other smooth. If the foul language, unusual attire and facial piercings—in his nose, brow and ears—weren’t a dead giveaway that they weren’t dealing with a Shepherd, the sleeve tattoos running up each arm were a testament to it.
Diskant lunged and the man moved in a graceful arc to avoid collision, gliding out of the way as he brought the dagger within inches of the Omega’s departing back. He spun in a motion that looked oddly coordinated considering his size and stood ready once again in the exact same position.
The crisp melody of glass shattering captured Trey’s attention. He watched pack members as they took out the windows to get inside the second van, which had stopped several yards away from the first. Gunshots sounded when one went through each window, creating more frenzied snarls, and the van started to rock.
“Son of a bitch!” Diskant thundered and Trey returned his focus to the fight taking place in front of him.
Diskant was standing with a hand clasped to his chest as he gazed down at the bloody gash over his heart. The man with the knives was standing across from them grinning from ear to ear.
“Is that the best you got?” the man taunted but remained as he was: still, focused and alert.
Diskant didn’t respond as he lifted his head and sized up his opponent. Slowly Diskant started to move to the left. The distinct scent of tiger tickled Trey’s nose, informing him Diskant was well and truly pissed. The wolf lived to track with a pack. Not so the lone, hunting cat.
Once the man slipped, Diskant would rip his throat out.