Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
A wolf lunged out of the shadows. My wolf turned quickly, snarling at the attacker. Teeth tore into our shoulder before my wolf had her in his grip; he ripped into the side of her neck and pushed her to the ground. There, he finished the job, blood dripping from his muzzle.
The bond lit up with new information. The enemy had indeed run in from the sides and at the back. Nova was fighting, taking on two enemy wolves with the courage of a champion. Another member of her team rushed in to help her, the rest spreading out a bit more to cover more distance.
Still, my wolf and I tracked Alexander’s scent. As alpha of this attack, he was the main target. As torturer of my true mate, he was now just waiting to die. Slowly. Gruesomely. Painfully.
I just had to catch him.
His scent wafted through the trees and floated around the reaching branches. Enemy wolves ran ahead of me, two breaking apart to run in opposite directions. Their fear was starting to get to them, was scrambling their decision-making abilities. My wolf reached for their bonds as we ran by, scrabbling to hold on.
“Leave it,” I said, wishing I was in control. “They’re nothing. The pack can handle them easily. Go after Alexander.”
He didn’t need convincing. He put on a burst of speed, catching a whiff here, a thread there. He couldn’t be close. Alexander was overseeing, nothing else.
Why wouldn’t he be going for the prize?
Another wolf broke toward Nova’s team. The first two wolves had been dispatched easily; our pack had no problem handling the third.
Shadows dashed behind a fat tree trunk, the detail lost to the night. My wolf darted in, recognizing the scent and chomping into the escaped prisoner it belonged to.
Then it occurred to me.
“We’ve recognized a lot of these scents,” I said as the enemy wolf stopped moving and my wolf stuck his blood-coated muzzle into the air. The scent was fainter now, though still traceable. My wolf took off in that direction, working around toward the back of the camp. “A couple have been escaped prisoners, a few were from the patrol in Granny’s village that evaded capture.”
“He’s sending them here to punish them while gathering information on how we work,” my wolf surmised.
“Exactly. They’re feeling us out. That’s probably what they were doing with the lurkers, as well. Getting information. They want to know who they are up against.”
“It’s what we would do.”
“It is.”
He followed the scent away from the camp for a little longer; there were no enemy wolves left in this area. A moment later, he lost track of Alexander altogether—he’d retreated.
Annoyed, my wolf turned back, monitoring the action. The enemy had scattered, some running into the camp and being taken down immediately, and some trying to flee. They knew they’d been beat.
“Alexander sent them here to die,” my wolf said.
“Most likely.”
“Well, we’d hate to disappoint him . . .” He gave the command to our pack to follow the enemy and take them out, their leadership having clearly withdrawn, the pack’s ability to stay in formation without it nonexistent. They wouldn’t be a challenge.
“Alexander would’ve felt you rip away that bond,” I said as my wolf ran toward camp. He gave the order for the captured enemy wolves, those whose bonds we held that hadn’t been killed, to follow us in. We’d see what they knew before sending them to the gods.
“We don’t even know if he had them bonded,” my wolf said. “I could barely grab the enemy bond and reel it in; there’s no way I could feel if someone had established one before me.”
“He must have. His people are running wild. He had to have been keeping them unified before he left.”
My wolf huffed, acceding the point. Alexander would know a strong alpha held his prize. Given he was testing my pack, he couldn’t have known exactly who we were. He didn’t know of my involvement, or that of the dragons by association. That was damn good news.
The enemy wolves we’d captured—five left alive—had been gathered near the fire. My wolf left them there and carried on, aiming for our true mate, hopefully still tucked away where we’d left her.
The action within the trees slowed, a few pack members chasing the remaining enemy wolves running for their lives and the rest watchful of more to come. Alexander’s scent was still absent. He didn’t curve back around or change locations or directions without us knowing, not in any way that would matter. It seemed like the skirmish was over.
And that’s all it was—a skirmish. Alexander had been protecting himself here. Learning. The next time he stuck his neck out, it would be with stronger wolves and with a better plan. Next time, he’d be aiming to take his prize.