AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And it’s not only his mate I must ensure safe passage for. The McMars brought the fae princess, and while I’ve no doubt she could defend herself, I can’t take a chance of us being the clan accused of attacking her. More than three dozen of my males are unaccounted for and are presumably with Dan. If he’s gone rogue with that many lycans, there’s no telling what he’ll do.
Since they’re driven by revenge and feel that the McMars owe them lycan lives, the possibility that they’re convinced an attack on the convoy would be justified is high. I can’t allow Dan to jeopardize the peace his brother died for.
Doug never wanted a war. He just wanted an omega. That’s the rub. His brother was a friend, and I mourn his passing every span.
The forests seems busy.
My lycans on patrol are howling as I’m running in wolf with the half dozen males who followed me from the settlement. We can’t speak, but we communicate via howling, and the patrol lycans are telling me that they’re seeing activity in the woods.
On all fours, as I sprint, the trees blur. My destination is the lake, more specifically the bridge over the wide lake, because that’s what I would take: the fastest route back into the safety of my own territory.
The scent of many wolves is fresh and strong here, and my upper lip lifts when the scent of markings on the trees hits me. Someone else pissed on my trees. While wolves urinate in nature, only a challenger would mark the territory in this specific way, telling me that he’s claiming it.
Dan.
It must be Dan. If I weren’t in such a rush, I’d stop and sniff and let my nose confirm.
If Dan is marking the trees knowing I would smell it, it means he’s issuing a challenge and has indeed gone rogue. Before, Dan and I danced around the issue of revenge, and I avoided confrontation, hoping that with time, he’d move on. When I brought in a McMar breeder, I thought he might let it go, but now I’m sure that if I see him, I’ll fight him.
In a lycan challenge for dominance, there can be only one victor. It’s rare that an alpha lycan spares a challenger. He could, but he rarely does. While fighting, adrenaline runs high and the survival instinct drives the choice. Mercy is a choice.
Besides, I have a breeder in the clan now. I must end him, for he will come after her if I don’t.
Almost at the lake, I smell the stale water of the lake along with the deer shite here and there. There’s not much wildlife out now, and certainly not when the lycans are this active.
The sound of Lenox’s convoy is clear here.
We’re almost at their heels. His wolves who are running at the back of the convoy won’t like that we’re coming from behind so I steer east of the convoy, and that’s where I catch a glimpse of a male in his werewolf form hopping from tree trunk to tree trunk. Because of the type of forest we have up here, mainly the flexible strong evergreens that grow only in our territory, tree hopping is more common in my clan than in the McMars’s, so I know the male is one of mine, if his pale gray fur hadn’t given him away already.
In wolf form, I leap for the tree, magic exploding around me, shifting my body into its werewolf form, my warrior form. I tree hop behind the male, aware there are at least four more werewolves tree hopping alongside the moving McMar convoy. They’re scaring the reindeer, herding them in a way. I think they’ll intercept at the bridge, frightening the reindeer off the path and into the lake below, sinking the cargo.
Seeing as how the cargo are two females, one of whom is a pregnant lycan mate, this is not an option.
The male in the lead, the pale-gray-furred wolf I now recognize as Tarner, bends the tree and uses the elastic property of the trunk to propel himself through the air, aiming for the bridge. If I intercept the convoy, Lenox will attack me, thinking it’s a sign of my aggression. So I intercept my male.
Using my position and the nearby tree, I bend it and use the flexible trunk as a springboard. I fly and tackle Tarner just before he lands. Not expecting a hit, Tarner cries out at the same time that the convoy reaches the bridge.
The reindeer are sprinting now, hooves clattering as they cross the wooden bridge, making haste for the McMar territory. Tarner and I fall down the tree while I listen for the hooves.
I use his body to soften my fall, and he hits the ground hard. Stays there. Still alive under me, he doesn’t move. Wise male who wants to live. Upper lip lifted in warning, I snap my head up to make sure the convoy crossed the bridge, when another lycan tackles me.
We roll until my back hits a tree. It’s Dan, a white-furred werewolf with a patch of black fur over his left ear. His dominant scent and aggression roll off him in waves, penetrate my senses, and threaten to send me into a killing spree. But my breath’s knocked out of me, and my lungs are struggling.
Dan lifts his hand and prepares to slice just as the air finally reaches my lungs. I kick out, sending him flying at the tree. Dan slams into it, then shakes his head, trying to clear it from the impact. The blood pouring out of his nose tells me he might have a concussion. I use the moment of his weakness and start after him, but he shifts into a male and shouts, “Retreat!”
Quickly, he flees.
In werewolf, Dan was poised to strike me before I regained my strength, and if he thought he had the advantage, he’d have tried to take me out now. While I welcome his challenge, I won’t let him start an intraclan war. There are three separate fights already happening around us, and if more of my lycans join and engage with Dan’s rogues, this will become a bloodbath.
Many of my males will die.
The only way I can spare the males who joined him is if I whistle. And so when the rogues start running, I whistle a note that tells my males to let them go, fully aware I’m leaving Dan and the rogues to plan an attack for another span.
I won’t maim a lycan retreating from the battlefield as a male and not a werewolf. Running away is cowardice on his part, but he’s not the Alpha. I am. And so I must show restraint.
Still, I’m putting off the inevitable.
16
