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“Our ancestors agree, it’s time to end this!” my mother shouts, raising her hands to the sky as thunder rolls. More lightning spears to the ground, dazzling and electric.
From across the clearing I see Chase through the crowd. He’s bloody again, but he’s not lost to anyone. He stands tall, circling the Alpha’s and coming to my side. He licks my muzzle as he moves to Mother’s other side and sits beside her. Cole growls, rolling to his feet and wrinkling his nose at Chase. Ryder rounds him, ready to attack again if Cole lunges.
Tension hangs in the air, stretching tight as choices are considered. Decisions are made. As the future of our packs hangs in the balance.
A loud crashing sound from the woods around the house has everyone turning to look. There's something coming through the trees, something huge. A few wolves hunch down to attack whatever’s coming.
Discovering they never could have imaged what appears.
A great black monster explodes out of the forest, standing at least eight feet tall. I watch in horror as it grabs wolves and throws them away with a terrifying strength. The creature looks like what a man and a wolf would be if they were smashed together. The chest of a man with the legs of a beast, arms of a human but long claws of some sort of rabid animal. On his shoulders sit a furless wolf’s head, snarling and snapping with human eyes as it attacks viciously.
The huge monstrosity doesn’t care which pack it’s attacking. It claws and bites randomly, pushing its way through the two packs, sending a wave of bodies every which way. The Alpha’s stare in horrified shock, unsure of what to do as the monster makes its way to them. It roars at the sky with its arms stretched wide and hands clenched into fists. The sound it makes isn’t a howl, not a scream, but somehow a mixture of both.
It stands still, chest heaving as it scans the crowd. Its body is covered in scars both old and new, and the mane that grows down its back looks like a mixture of a man's gray hair and a wolf’s tattered coat. When the eerily human eyes stop on my mother, I hear myself scream before I feel it coming out of me. It just found a new target. The creature attacks, tossing Cole and Ryder into the air as if they were nothing more than paper planes.
A wolf jumps, launching itself at the monstrosity, only to be caught in its claws. The thing stares at the wolf, human eyes scanning it, before it clenches its fist and the sound of cracking bone rips through the air. The wolf, dying, shifts slowly back to her human form. I watch in horror as the beast opens its jaws too wide, lowering over the head of the now human.
Moira looks up and screams just as the massive creature bites down on her head, ripping it from her shoulders and swallowing it whole before he throws her limp body to the side. I’m frozen as I stand beside my mother. The monster’s walking towards us now, tossing attackers away like flies, and she stands there like a deer in the headlights, too terrified to move.
The beast is too fast, too big. When he reaches out and grabs my mother, I bite and attack, using my terror to fuel me. But I’m as much of a threat anyone else has been. It tosses me aside like all the others, stomping on Chase as he runs to my defense.
With the same preternatural speed the monster turns and runs, holding my mother to its chest and making that horrible scream as it flees.
Chapter19
Chase
Ilay on the ground breathless, feeling as if I’ve just been hit by a truck. My eyes dart desperately back and forth until I find my woman and I crawl to her side. The packs are going crazy around us, screaming and howling, both human and wolf alike. I collapse beside Ruby and lick her face until her eyes open. She shifts underneath me and wraps her arms around my scruff and cries into my chest. I shift too, pulling her into my lap and holding her while her body trembles.
Everyone is running every which way, like someone kicked an ant’s nest, but in the midst of it all Ryder and Cole stand face to face, serious expressions darkening their features. They aren’t fighting. Not anymore.
I stand, cradling Ruby to my chest and join them. “What was that thing?” I gasp.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, it was a fucking monster!” Ryder shouts, waving his arm at the direction it fled.
“It took our mother,” Cole gasps. He looks lost and alone, even now surrounded by both packs. He takes a wavering step back and almost loses his balance but Ryder grabs his shoulder and holds him steady.
“We’ll find her, Cole,” he states flatly.
“It ate Moira!” Ruby whimpers, and I set her on her feet. She looks just as lost as Cole, and when he reaches for her I let her go to him. He holds her and they both cry, even as his eyes turn fierce as he looks at me.
“Redeem yourself, Chase. Our tracker is dead. Track that thing, find our mother!” He takes a deep steadying breath and his eyes soften and show his desperation. “I’m…begging you…” he finishes.
I look at Ryder. This is a pack decision. He nods to me as he turns to address the others.
“Silver Dawn! An elder, your Luna, has been captured. In Dark Moon, our elders are revered and protected. My Tracker will find her, I call upon all of you—Dark Moon and Silver Dawn—put aside our differences. We must find her!”
Growls and shouts puncture the air as he turns serious eyes on me. The command has been made.
The monster will be found.
I shift in place, rubbing against Ruby’s backside. She reaches down and clutches my fur. Her eyes say everything, her desperation, her fear.
I won’t let her down.
In one swift move, the packs have gone from enemies to fighting for a single cause. To fighting a common enemy. I feel the pack dynamics shift behind me, friend and foe alike are at my heels and we move as one pack into the trees. The moment is so powerful, so momentous, and my senses almost fail me as I’m filled with pride.
The path of the creature is an easy one to follow, and for many miles we run at a breakneck pace. Then the damage to the woods stops as if the creature flew away, and where the clawed feet of the monster once left prints, a human’s footprints replace it. I stop, scenting the path, the creature seems to have changed, walking over hard ground and rocks to evade my tracking.
