Page 33 of Alpha Wolf's Nanny
But she didn’t even have time to scream.
A streak of brown and muscle launched from the trees, hitting her with enough force to expel the air from her lungs. The world spun, sky, trees, ground, until she was slammed to the earth, pinned beneath a massive weight.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
Her eyes locked with golden ones, wild and sharp and utterly inhuman.
A wolf.
Not Felix.
Not one she recognized.
Panic clawed in her throat as the creature growled, low and sonorous, the vibrations rattling her very bones. Its muzzle pulled back, revealing glinting, sharp fangs and hot, bloodied breath.
Cassie sucked in a shallow, shaking breath. The weight pressing her down hadn’t crushed her, not quite, but it pinnedher like prey. Helpless, vulnerable. The wolf hovered above her, its golden eyes burning into hers. Intelligent eyes. Aware.
And not friendly.
In her haze of panic, she realized this must be someone from the pack, but she didn’t know who it was. She’d seen some of them in their wolf forms before, sure, but this one…this wasn’t one she recognized. Not Felix. Not Dane. Not anyone she could name.
She lay perfectly still, frozen beneath the sheer size of him, praying he wouldn’t snap. She couldn’t help a whimper that fell from her lips, and felt in that moment like a trapped deer, just waiting for the killing blow to land.
He sniffed again, lower this time, his nose pressing against her collarbone like he was trying to find something buried beneath her skin.
And then he growled.
A threat.
Cassie’s breath caught. Her fingers curled into the dirt, scrabbling, searching, hunting for anything that might help her—
A blur of motion exploded from the trees.
Another wolf hit the first like a thunderclap, so fast and hard that Cassie didn’t even see the impact, only the aftershock as both bodies tumbled into the underbrush in a snarl of teeth and claws. The air went white with fury. Branches cracked. Dirt and leaves flew.
Cassie scrambled backward, dragging herself out of reach on raw elbows, her heartbeat slamming like a drumbeat in her ears.
The two wolves clashed just feet away, massive, snarling, a brutal tangle of muscle and rage. The new wolf, darker, larger, clamped his jaws around the flank of the one that had pinned her and drove him to the ground.
She gasped, her hands shaking.
She didn’t know which of them was worse.
Didn’t know who was protecting her, if either of them was.
The brown wolf twisted, launching the darker one off of him. They crashed apart for a breathless second, then the dark wolf lunged again, taking the fight further into the trees.
Cassie didn’t move. Couldn’t.
Every nerve screamedrun, but her limbs were jelly. She pressed a hand to her chest, her telescope lying forgotten in the dirt. The clearing was empty now, but the sound of the fight carried, low snarls, thudding paws, the shattering crack of a trunk splitting under force.
It was savage.
Deadly.
And it was for her.
Whoever that darker wolf was, he’d attacked the first for her.
