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My cries are muffled by the mouthful of dirt I just ate. I whip around the moment weight lifts off my back and swing my blade, catching the unsuspecting bearded man across the gut. It’s not deep, but it’s enough to draw blood and distract him.
I kick him hard in the shin, and as he bowls over, I run to get out of there. Choosing a different tree to simply escape this asshole, I skid around the battle and finally climb up a perfect one with enormous high branches and lots of foliage.
My hands grasp the lower branch as my legs quickly swing up and around, when a sudden sharpness bites into my ankle and tugs down on me. But I hold on desperately and kick wildly. I look down to the gray wolf latched on to my leg, and another coming closer. I kick him aggressively in the nose, and with a whimper, he releases me.
Hastily, I scamper up the tree, shoving past the prickly branches ladened heavily with round, deep green leaves. The bark on this trunk scratches the hell out of my skin.
From up here, I scan the area.
The wolves battle. Teeth and fur and growls.
The aggressive sounds they emit leave my skin crawling. I don’t know if I can ever fight that way.
A growl sounds below me. I look down, and the damn bearded man is back, his eyes as gray as his stormy skin, his upper lip sitting at an odd angle from an old injury. I shake with anger.
I tuck my knife into my boot and reach up to grab a thinner branch with spiky offshoots. With both hands, I yank down on it, the wood cracking and snapping free. Lurching backward from the motion, I fling out a hand and snatch the trunk to steady myself.
“No use hiding, bitch,” he snarls.
I sidestep to stand on a branch directly above him. He’s not so skilled at getting up here, luckily. So I haul the branch, shoving a shoulder against the tree for balance. My feet spread over a platform of crisscrossing branches, and I spear my weapon downward.
It jams right into his head and scrapes down the side of his face. He cries out from the shock, his hands cartwheeling as he falls and hits the ground hard. His face is bloody, andouch, I did a lot more damage than I thought. Fuck, yeah.
Lucien was onto something in telling me to hide up here.
The torturous sounds from the battle have me twisting around toward other wolves who are rushing my way. I clutch onto my branch, my insides wound so tightly, I might be sick.
They snarl at the base of the tree while the bearded man gets up. I shove the weapon at him, but the dick grabs it and wrenches it away with unimaginable strength, taking me with it as I lose my footing.
My death flashes before my eyes as the ground flies up toward me. A shrub breaks my fall, poking and stabbing me. I groan, as every inch of me feels like it’s on fire. I keep expecting teeth to tear into me and rip me apart.
Strong hands grab my ankles, and I’m wrenched across the ground. I cry out and reach for anything to use as a weapon. Fistfuls of dried leaves aren’t going to help me.
I spin on my side, thrashing against the bearded asshole who’s smirking at me with blood-stained teeth from where I’d hurt him. He deserves a hundred times worse.
“Let me go.” I toss everything I can grab at him and attempt to push myself up to reach my boot for my blade, but it’s impossible. He yanks me so fast, I have leaves and twigs rushing up on the inside of my top.
I keep thrashing and wriggling against him, screaming out while two of the enemy wolves follow close behind. When he finally drops my legs, I can’t see my Alphas or the battle.
I reach for the knife in my boot as wolves snarl in my ear and the guy in front of me unbuckles his belt.
“I smell your slick,” he mutters, and suddenly, I’m going to be sick.
Darkness spirals around me, and bile hits the back of my throat. My fingers grasp the knife.
I’m shaking horrendously, because if we lose this fight, I’ll slice my own throat before I let these monsters touch me.
Before he can even push his pants down, I lunge at him, blade poised. The asshole pivots out of my path, lashing out and grabbing my blade-wielding hand, squeezing until I cry with pain.
The weapon drops from my grasp and he snatches my throat. “You will be fun to break, wild bitch.”
“Fuck you.” I spit in his face.
He raises a hand and strikes me hard across the cheek, the pain reverberating up the side of my skull. White stars dance behind my eyes as the world tilts on its axis.
One second he’s there, the next he’s ripped away, and I’m stumbling to catch my balance.
Growls and shouts deafen me. Panic crashes into me as I rub my eyes to see clearly again. Air buffets against me from the commotion. The wolves behind me whimper, and they’re gone in seconds. I lower my hand from my face where it still burns, and in front of me stands Dušan in wolf form, blood dripping from his mouth. At his feet lies the bearded man, unmoving, with a gaping hole in his chest, like Dušan has broken right through his ribs to tear out his heart.
