Page 21 of Brutal Alpha

“Then I pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss your bride.”

The crowd before us jeered, and it was becoming harder and harder to appear unbothered by it. I managed to keep myhead high just long enough for Ethan to lean in and touch his lips to mine. The kiss was dry and quick and utterly without feeling. Of course it was. This whole thing was only a ploy to get me away from here, to get me home. It shouldn’t leave me feeling hollow and humiliated. I was already naked and chained in front of a room full of humans and too many Arbor hunters, yet somehow the utter disinterest of his kiss left me feeling more exposed, more vulnerable than anything else.

I pushed the feeling away—we were so close to getting out of here, and that was what I ought to be concentrating on. All we needed was for the hunters to release me, and for the pair of us to get out of this godforsaken cave. Axton was saying something to Ethan, whose jaw was twitching with every passing second, when I felt a hand around my ankle. One of the hunters was kneeling at my feet, inserting a key into the lock on my right leg.

It fell to the floor with a metallic clank. Ethan flinched, barely pretending to listen as Axton thanked him for his patronage. A second clank and I was free of my shackles. My stomach fluttered with anticipation: we were really going to make it. All we needed was for Ethan to nod politely, thank Axton, and take me out of there.

Then, of course, it all went to shit.

“Make sure you get some good use of this one, eh?” said the hunter as he got to his feet. He smirked in Ethan’s direction, landing a firm smack on my ass.

There was no time to stop it, no time to do damage control, no time to think. The sound didn’t even have time to echo before a ferocious growl ripped itself from Ethan’s chest, his canines lengthening as he bared his teeth at the hunter.

Voices rang through the cave. Orders from Axton warred with frightened and angry shouts from the humans, and allaround us, Arbor hunters were shedding their human skin. There was no way we were getting out alone—there had to be ten Arbor wolves between us and the exit, too many for even Ethan to take, and I wished I had any kind of useful magic. Alyssa could set things on fire, could push back any attacker with the force of her magic, but all I had was a neat little shadow puppet trick.

Beside me, Ethan roared as he shifted into his wolf form, causing another ripple to run through the crowd. Ethan was twice the size of any Arbor hunter, unmistakably an Alpha, and the split second of shock was all the time we had to make a run for it. Every crevice and corner of the cave was shrouded in dark shadow, and I took a deep breath as I reached into each of those places and pulled.

Darkness covered the cave like a heavy blanket, clinging to the shadows as I shifted into wolf form, making a frantic dash toward the fresh air beneath the musk of shifters and the heaviness of the humans’ false scent. Ethan was hot on my tail, and the humans instinctively scrambled out of our way, blind and panicked. It would have been an easy route to the exit if the Arbor shifters hadn’t adjusted to the darkness—they relied on more than just sight, navigating by sound and scent as one, two, three of them rammed into us. I crashed to the ground, losing my grasp on the shadows as they snapped back into place, and the room was once again filled with flickering torchlight.

No. I thought. We can’t fail now. The crack in the cave wall was mere feet away—we’d made it across most of the space in our first mad dash—and I was going to get out of here if it killed me. For a second, I thought it might, as the Arbor hunter who’d tackled me pressed his paws against my chest, mouth open, his teeth long and sharp and yellow. His jaws snapped closed inches from my neck, and he gave a startled yelp as he wasyanked backward and off of me, helpless in the jaws of Ethan’s enormous grey beast.

Ethan threw the hunter hard against the cave wall, nudging me back to my feet with his bloodstained muzzle, and as I slipped into the narrow passageway, Ethan close at my heels, I risked a glance back at the carnage we’d left in our wake. Axton was the only Arbor shifter who hadn’t given his skin over to his wolf, but the look on his face was far from human. He wasn’t going to let this lie, and the remaining hunters were already looking to him for the order to pursue. Ethan and I might have made it out of the cave by the skin of our teeth, but the chase had just begun.

Chapter 10 - Ethan

There was no time to appreciate the fresh air outside the cave or the warm rays of the early evening sun. The snapping and snarling of the Arbor hunters drowned out the lazy birdsong, and my own breath rushed in my ears. Julia was just ahead of me, and I nipped at her heels to urge her on. We had just enough of a lead that the Arbor hunters weren’t quite at our heels, but it wouldn’t be long before they caught up to us; they knew the terrain, and they didn’t earn their reputation as the best hunters in the Nightfire archipelago for nothing.

If nothing else, they’d chosen a location toward the north of the island for their auction, so it was a sprint rather than a marathon to get us to the Argent bridge. An hour, maybe less, to the bridge itself, and another half hour to cross, and we’d be home free. I could hear the hunters behind us, but they hadn’t moved to flank us, weren’t spreading out to cage us in, and I couldn’t tell if it was their mistake or if they simply had a different strategy in mind. I couldn’t afford to rely on them continuing to lag behind. We had to lose them.

Nipping at Julia’s left flank, I dove into the thickest part of the forest, hoping to lose our trail among the trees. It was hard going through the thickets and brambles, and it slowed us down, and I prayed I hadn’t made a mistake. I could no longer hear the Arbor hunters behind us, and maybe that meant we’d lost them, but maybe they knew exactly where to head us off.

It didn’t matter. I’d made the decision now, and we had to stick to it. We continued battling north through dense trees and thick undergrowth, and when we finally emerged, the bridge was in sight. The space between us was flat and exposed—a primitive road winding through the grass, with more vibrant green forestsurrounding it. Setting off at a sprint, we raced across the grass, panting, victorious, and so, so close.

A flash of white fur in the corner of my eye. A flash of brown. Shapes were emerging from the forest at the edge of the grass: one, two, three, four, five, six Arbor hunters converging between us and the bridge, hackles raised and teeth bared. If we wanted to get across the bridge, there was no option but to fight.

Putting on a burst of speed, I left Julia behind me—I couldn’t let her engage, even with her newfound magic, she was far too vulnerable for the kind of fight this was going to be—barreling toward the waiting hunters. I met them at the tree line, the first going down easily, caught between my jaws before he had time to dodge out of my path. I felt his bones crunch between my teeth, and I flung his body to the side.

My first attack may have lasted only a few seconds, but that was all the other hunters needed to prepare their own. A brown wolf charged straight at me, his muzzle scarred and teeth bared, while a pair of black beasts snapped at my back legs. I kicked out behind me, striking one in the face, before I dug in my back paws and leaped right over the brown wolf’s head, landing behind him just in time to turn and sink my teeth into his hind leg. The brown wolf yelped in pain, and I hurled him aside, ready to face a new attack.

This time, the remaining four stuck close together, coming at me in a great rush—the only way to bring down a wolf as big as I was. For every slash of my claws and snap of my teeth, there were two from my attackers, and it was all I could do to keep them at bay long enough to prevent them from sinking their teeth into my jugular.

My claws slashed across the muzzle of one of the black wolves just as a set of teeth sank into my right hind leg. Iwhipped around, sinking my own larger teeth into the offender’s flank—he released me with a yelp, and I released him for only as long as it took to reposition and bite down again on the side of his throat. This time, there was no yelp, only a gurgle as his legs gave out beneath him.

When I lifted my head, there were teeth inches from my face—and then they were gone, in a rush of black fur and a vicious snarl. The two wolves tumbled to the ground rolling over one another until the hunter was on his back with Julia above him. She had caught him at the joint of his forelimb, and he struggled to right himself as she slashed at his face and chest with bared claws.

Her wolf was like a force of nature, utterly without mercy, but there was a reason I hadn’t wanted her to fight. On her blind side, one of the two remaining hunters was coiling, ready to strike, and I wouldn’t reach them in time to save her the way she’d saved me. Even as I started forward, the final hunter sprang between us, blocking my path. I snapped for his throat, but he was fast, ducking low to avoid the sharp bite of my teeth.

I tried to leap over him, needing to reach Julia—she was on her back, desperately swiping up at the hunter looming over her—but the hunter beneath me was ready for it. He went for my underbelly, his claws raking long red lines down my torso. The cuts were shallow, but it was enough to slow me down, and he grabbed my back leg with his teeth as soon as I landed. Again, I whipped around to deliver a bite of my own, but he was too quick. Dropping my leg, he dodged out of range, turning to join his Packmate on top of Julia.

I couldn’t let that happen. With a ferocious snarl, I leaped after him, landing on his back with both my front paws. He crumpled beneath my weight—even as my claws dug into hisback, his legs were buckling and his ribcage cracking under my paws.

There was no victory in it: even as I felt the life leave the body beneath mine, I watched the last Arbor hunter pick up an already limp Julia in his jaws and throw her hard against a tree. The smack of her head against the trunk reverberated through me, and she shifted automatically as she slid, naked and bloodied, to the ground.

My vision went red. Lunging forward, I was nothing but a hurricane of claws and teeth, and when I was done with him, the final wolf barely resembled a wolf at all. My wolf was still baying for blood, but the Arbor hunters were all dead at my feet, and there were far more pressing matters to deal with.

Wrestling my skin back, I ran to where Julia was lying at the base of the tree, her dark hair covering her face, matted with dirt and blood.

“Julia. Julia, look at me,” I begged, cupping her face in my hands as I turned her face to mine. The side of her face was red with blood, her bright blue eye in stark and beautiful contrast as she blinked blearily up at me.

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