Page 107 of Never Tamed
When my father found him.
“Hold,” I order. “They’re coming.”
He chokes on a laugh. “You feel it through your precious mate bond?”
Wolves run hot. Yet even the heat from my skin isn’t enough to melt the snow coming down and I stave off a shiver.
“Someone is jealous they don’t have a bond of their own? Maybe if you focus a little more on Andras instead of your lack, then we’ll actually get somewhere,” Torin barks out.
With this, I’m with him, but I keep the words to myself.
Worry for Ren and Noble blot out everything except the snow.
Let the two of them bicker if they want to waste precious energy.
Dax continues his frantic pacing. Torin might as well be made of ice. The flakes feather on his hair and the tips of his eyelashes but he’s unaffected.
His cool facade is only that. It’s a lie. He’s as worked up as we are because this is it. I feel it in my bones. We’ve reached the end and this final showdown is going to make or break us. The battle for our future ends tonight.
Then the mate bond goes tight. In the next breath, a slice of red separates from the snow and there’s Ren.
She falls into my arms, and the force of her sends me plowing back a step.
Boom. There they are. Ren is finally where she belongs and my arms ban around her automatically, my cold lips searching for hers. She lifts her head to meet them, and I steal a kiss, tasting her until she thaws my worry.
“We did it.” She’s breathless. “We did it. He’s coming.”
Those two words are a hammer blow to my head even when I anticipated them.
A glance over her head shows Noble and Torin clasping forearms. Even Dax stops, his face lifting and nostrils flaring, sniffing the air.
A howl fills the night from Andras and his people.
Much clearer than I thought.
Ren shivers against me.
He’s here.
Noble’s thought solidifies inside my head, and I turn to the trees they just came through. Although the storm obscures it, slowly shapes begin to separate from the shadows. The wolves prowl through the underbrush.
A surge of adrenaline spikes through me before my heart settles into a familiar rhythm. I’m an alpha. I’ve handled my pack for longer than these pups have been fighting and I come from a line of warriors.
This ends now.
And with the help of a silent goddess, hopefully no other pack will have to go through the hell mine did.
Ren pushes against my chest to keep me from moving, her body strained. “Wait, Mathis.”
There. A piece of darkness separates from the rest of the pack. The wolves stop at the edge of the clearing and Andras steps out, the only human among them. He holds his arms out to the sides with his cheeks pinked by the weather.
“This is a lovely welcoming committee y’all have here,” he says loudly. His southern accent sounds strange coming from him. “All of this for me?”
“The explosion, too,” Noble replies.
“I’m well aware of your little diversion. As far as tactics go, it was a cute touch.”
“We’re torching your empire to the ground and you call it cute.” Dax growls.
