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“Do you not smell it, Cole?”Ryder asks, slowly walking around him as they pace each other in a wide circle.“The death and rot in this holy place, on your land. Do you claim this atrocity?”
Ryder leaps at Cole, and he dodges with a vicious snarl, water droplets trickling over his serrated muzzle.
“I smell a wasted life, and I too mourn for a pup taken too soon. This is not by our hand, I swear it,”Cole snarls, skirting another attack by Ryder as Jax and I growl and wait for our Alpha’s word.
“Take responsibility! My brother trespasses and you nearly let him die, now this?”Ryder roars.“An innocent pup? Did your people enjoy torturing him for information? Do you relish this kind of cruelty? Who truly retains the lineage of Raul!”
Ryder knows this accusation will burn, and denying their righteous lineage sends Cole into a blind rage. I grin, lowering myself into a crouch. Jax is mine. I get to kill the bastard after all. My mind flashes to his hands on her, touching her, touching what’s mine.
As one, Ryder and I attack, both dashing down at the feet of our enemy and biting their legs out from underneath them before they can react. Cole rears back, but Jax doesn’t lose momentum even as he’s knocked off course. He clamps his jaws on my shoulder as he takes me with him.
We tumble down the slope, ripping and tearing at each other's fur as blood sprays the melting snow with every bite. The coppery scent fills my lungs and I relish it.
“I stole nothing, she’s mine, my mate!”I roar.
“Witchcraft, deception, she would never accept someone such as you otherwise!”Jax slashes with his rear legs, narrowly missing my underside.
I snap at his muzzle as we come to a stop.“She accepted me alright, every last inch!”
I go for his neck, biting and tearing as he thrashes and kicks me, denial raging through his mind and distracting him in the heat of battle. It’s his undoing.
Not that he would’ve won. I wasn’t fighting for my life.
I was fighting for my mate.
Jax falls limp and I tower over him, his blood pouring from my jaws as he whimpers beneath me in defeat. My mind is clouded with rage, I imagine ripping his throat out whether or not he’s surrendered. He’s touched my mate, intended to have her. For that, he shall pay.
My jaws close, my mouth fills with blood. My nostrils flare, my ears twitch, ready to taste his death. To hear his neck snap.
I’m struck in the side and struck down.
I roll in the snow and land on my feet, shaking my fur and standing, ready to kill whoever knocked me away from my rightful revenge. Rachel stands between me and Jax, her head held high as she looks down at me, her red tinted fur almost black in the dim lighting and pouring rain. She won’t let me kill him, won’t let me do more damage now that he’s down and bleeding as he surrenders. It’s over.
Around me, my entire pack slips out of the darkness of the forest and surrounds the cabin.
I climb the hill with Rachel, letting Jax claw his way, bleeding and wounded behind us. In front of the cabin Cole and Ryder stand, panting, jaws and coats bloodstained. Cole looks around at the pack and down at his injured Beta. He knows the fight is over, even as his muscles twitch to finish it.
“I will not kill you, Cole Richardson,Ryder growls.“Go back to your pack, defeated, find who has done this, and surrender them to the Dark Moon for justice and retribution.”
Before Cole can move, the pack parts to let Grace through. She looks so small, her gray coat shuddering as she steps closer. She’s wracked with grief and she falls in a heap in front of the cabin and screams as only a mother can, her howl piercing the hearts and souls of everyone in the clearing.
Cole nods, and not another word is shared as he helps Jax to his paws and they slowly disappear into the woods. This rivalry isn’t over.
We’ve won the battle but not the war.
Thunder rolls so loudly the whole pack cowers. In a succession of cracks, lightning strikes in a circle around Raina’s cabin, sounding like cannon fire. The neon white blinds us. The burning air echoing the burning in our hearts.
The ancestors mourn with us. Blood was spilled on one of our most sacred of places, and even as Rachel lays down with Grace to comfort her, we all know this is just the beginning. An end to Brody’s wasted life, but the beginning of the greatest battle since Raina and Raul.
History has come full circle, and once more, the bloodlines are called to fight.
Chapter12
Ruby
Ibolt upright in bed, hardly able to breathe. My heart’s pounding out of control and outside lighting strikes and thunder rolls as a massive storm overtakes the land. I walk to the floor to ceiling windows in my room and place my hands on the glass, staring in shock at the scene below me. Silver Dawn wolves scramble every which way, and howls in the distance make my blood run cold.
We’re at war.
