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Ruby
“No!” I scream as the monster grabs my mate by the throat and raises him towards the sky.
I see Moira dying again in my mind’s eye, see the terror in her eyes, and I lose my mind. Standing up, I hack and slash at the monster's legs, trying to do anything to distract him and make him drop my mate, but it’s as if he can’t even feel what I’m doing. I know it’s futile, but I can’t stop, even as he turns and swats me away as if I’m just a mild irritant. I slam against a boulder behind me, the breath knocked out of my chest, and watch as my whole world hangs in the balance.
Wolves are attacking this beast left and right, but it just stares at Chase as if it has a personal vendetta against him. My chest feels like it’s caving in, my struggle for breath making my vision go dark. I see my brother and Ryder in the corner of my eye, their heads are close and they seem to be mentally communicating, then they both disappear into the woods. I want to scream, to call them out as the cowards they are, but when I do catch my breath again the fit of coughing stops me from doing anything.
My mother stirs, waking to the horror all around her, and she screams. Wild eyes scan the crowd, her usually perfectly coiffed white hair flying every which way until her eyes land on me. She crawls out from under the beast as it slams Chase to the ground, over and over, bashing the life out of him.
“Chase!” I cry, both mentally and out loud, my throat raw from coughing.
Either he can’t hear me or he can’t respond, and my mother wraps her arms around me and tries to shield me from watching him die.
“Don’t look, baby, don't look...” she shushes me, her body trembling with fear as much as mine. Chase looks like a rag doll in the monster’s hands, flailing up and down as he crashes to the ground. He must have lost consciousness, he can't be dead!
Killian jumps forward, his sleek silver frame fast but not nearly fast enough. The creature catches him in his jaws mid jump and chomps. Killian falls to the ground, one arm short, and shifts automatically back to human as he screams in agony. Wolves come and help him away, and I see Rachel at the edge of clearing doing her best to heal injured wolves. Instantly her attention is on Killian and stopping the bleeding.
The monster, on the other hand, is momentarily distracted as it eats Killian's appendage, bones and all. After that, everything happens so fast. I see Ryder appear as if out of nowhere, ramming into the creature’s legs and knocking him off balance. A flash of black darkens the sky over my mother and I, blocking out the light in the storm. I watch in awe as Cole lands on the monster's back and digs his teeth into the thing's neck.
The two Alphas work together in a coordinated attack. Ryder pulls the legs out from under the beast, making it crash to the ground, pulling it one direction while my brother clamps on to the thing’s neck and pulls in the other direction. The beast drops Chase in a panic, tossing him across the field where he falls limp on the ground. Wolves collect him like they did Killian, and my eyes go back to the Alphas.
Blood is spurting from the monster’s neck like a geyser. It tries to claw at my brother but Jax is there next, pulling the thing’s hand the other way. I launch myself, pushing my mother aside and shifting midair, I grab the monster’s other hand. The foul taste of its blood floods my mouth and I gag around the flesh. I bite off digits, my teeth shredding the hand until I’m pulling on nothing but a bloody stump.
The creature weakens, a lake of blood forming around it as we attack it, a single unit, communicating with our minds. Ryder leaves the legs, jumping on the creature's stomach and ripping and scratching at its midsection until its entrails are exposed. With a shuddering breath and an almost human scream the creature goes still. To our horror it begins to shift, changing back into a man, and we all stand back. Shifting back to human, Cole runs to me and my mother joins us. He wraps his arms around us both as we watch in terror to see who, or what, this monster is.
Another scream echoes in my ear, so shrill and desperate, a mourning like I’ve only heard when Grace was told her son was dead. Startled, I jump when Mother throws herself from our embrace and lands on the monster. Her screaming doesn’t stop, she’s holding the creature’s face as it finishes transforming, and rests a hand on his chest where a handprint appears…
Tears fill my eyes as I clap a hand over my mouth and scream with her. I fall to my knees, head in my hands, as Cole takes wavering steps forward. “Father…” he mutters, before collapsing beside our mother.
“No, no! This can’t be!” Mother screams, desperately trying to stop the bleeding from his neck.
Our father looks up at her, his own eyes filled with tears. He’s completely changed, every inch of his body tattooed and scarred. He looks like he’s been tortured just like the boys. I crawl forward as he tries to touch his mate’s face but only his stump is left. I take that stump in my hand and sob, guilt joining the grief.
He looks at me and tries to smile, but he coughs up blood.
“I didn’t want to do this… I had no choice…”As my father speaks in all our minds his lips move, but the only sound that comes out is a gurgling death rattle.“He won’t stop. He’ll never stop… not…safe…”
Suddenly, his eyes change from those of my father to the demon he was and he snarls, lunging up at mother to bite her with his human teeth. Cole and I leap, but Father’s eyes roll back in his head as his body starts to spasm. When he falls still again, he shivers one last time and the last breath of the elder Silver Dawn Alpha leaves his body.
Coal roars in fury, stumbling back and falling on the ground. He rolls to his knees with his head pressed to the earth as he screams again and punches the ground. Ryder goes to him, placing a hand on his shoulder as lighting cracks. It covers the sky with a brilliant flash of light, like a spiderweb, and crashes down around Ryder and Cole in a circle.
“This is fate,”I hear in my mind, a voice both male and female.“The challenges you will face now require both packs, both must work together or all will die. Our descendants will all die… you must work together… You must… You must…”
As the voices fade I notice every wolf is looking at the sky. Every wolf in human form shudders, we all heard it. We all heard Cassian and Raina as one, shouting a warning directly into our minds. I struggle to my feet, wavering as I walk away from my screaming mother to find Chase. Rachel runs out in the field to meet me, holding me close as she guides me to him.
She doesn’t say a word, only holds me. She doesn’t ask any questions or make any assumptions, and in that moment I know I love her. We’ll be close, like sisters, and I know I’ll never be able to live without her now. If Chase is dead…
Shelters have been set up made of branches ripped from trees and tied up with destroyed clothes. Cookie runs this way and that, her short pixie cut sticking up in every direction. I briefly wonder how she got here, why she’s here in the middle of a werewolf battle, but when she kneels beside a man and drips water from a wet rag into his mouth, I’m forever thankful.
She’s caring for Chase.
I collapse beside her, my hands hovering over Chase as I watch his chest rise and fall. He’s unconscious, his body almost one entire bruise, but he’s alive. Rachel kneels beside me, muttering in Latin as she touches him. I stare at her in awe, she’s speaking the same words of my mother. The same cadence, tone, everything. She is to Dark Moon what my mother is to Silver Dawn.
But she’s not strong enough.
Chase’s body convulses, his back arching off the ground as he seizes. His eyes fly open and he looks at me, scared and in pain. I grab his hand, bending over him, my tears falling on his chest. “Don’t fight the healing, I know it hurts, but you have to let it happen. Let Rachel heal you so you can be with me, so you can raise our baby with me, please!” I’m sobbing as I beg him to live, my heart pounding so hard in my chest I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack.
I see white out of the corner of my eye and my eyes fly to my mother. She walks like a ghost, her eyes focused on something in the distance as she kneels at Chase’s head. She puts her bloodstained hands on either side of his face and joins Rachel’s chanting word for word.
