Page 106 of Never Tamed
I have to wait for Andras to show himself and the wolf crushing my spine isn’t him.
Noble’s savage snarl splits the air as he barrels into the wolf on top of me. I roll out of the way to avoid their legs, gasping, snow plastered to my face, my body aching. My vision flickers with light, my power screaming at me to unleash it.
No, no, not yet. Not yet!
I’m up on my feet again and running as fast as I can toward the river, toward the waiting trap, all while praying it will work. Torin and Mathis and Dax are somewhere nearby and lost in the sideways sleets of ice. My lungs constrict, my stomach weighted and sick.
Hold steady, love. Torin’s hard voice is a lash, a reminder, in my head.
Bring them closer and we’ll take care of the rest, Mathis adds.Trust us.
We’re waiting for you, Torin finishes.
Keeping Noble with me was the best idea I’d had so far and I have to remind myself that this is what I asked for. Not the blizzard but the ambush. Andras is circling but this is my trap, not his.
He’s in for one hell of a surprise when I finally unleash myself on him. This ends today. No more playing around. My mates are here with me. Noble, injured, is here with me. No matter how many wolves Andras brought with him, they are all going to end up the same way and if the river runs red, then I’ll know I accomplished my goal.
Ithasto work. Because we all know that if it doesn’t, we’re all dead.
Chapter 27
Mathis
We never accounted for the snow.
It cuts sideways through the forest and blinds our sensitive eyesight until it’s impossible to see between the white and black spaces. The flakes are heavy and fat and stick to the ground.
It fucking figures.
I glance at Torin to find him deep in thought, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched against the gale.
The weather is getting worse, and no matter how I try to wrangle my mind into something resembling optimism, worry digs its hooks into me. It deepens with every frozen breath I drag into my shrunken lungs.
Squinting, I try to make out literally anything, but there is only snow; through it, the vague black outline of forest.
They’re closing in on us.
Torin’s thoughts take up space in my head, and I want to lash out at him. I want to cut him down to size to make myself feel better.
Not too far now, I add.
I never would have thought it possible but the odds have been against us from the start, and it feels too impossible to be real or natural.
Pain spikes in my head and I blink, seeing spots when I close my eyes.
Too long staring at the snow.
Dax growls, stalking back and forth, snow filling the furrows as quickly as he makes them. “This is fucking stupid.”
“We have to wait for them.”
“I’m not talking about the waiting, I’m talking about Andras. I’m talking about waiting for things to reach a head when we all know where this is going,” he clarifies.
His voice has the gravelly tone of half shifted muscles. He’s trapped somewhere between man and wolf without choosing one form or another.
It’s a dangerous place to be. If he’s not careful, he’ll be caught that way, or worse. We’ll lose him to the wolf again, and we won’t get him back in time for our final showdown.
Just like when he was a child.
