Page 26 of Do You Even Hex, Bro?
White-hot rage floods my system.
Someone is hunting what's ours.
Un-fucking-acceptable.
"She's heading for the pack house," Micah realizes, quickening his pace to match mine.
Our house sits at the edge of campus, an ancient Victorian monstrosity that's been in my family for generations. Technically campus housing now, though no one outside Lupe Tau has lived there in decades. The university rents it to the fraternity as "special accommodations" for us shifters.
Special code for "we don't want you in the dorms where you might eat someone when you get overstimulated on a full moon."
She can't know it's our territory. Must be coincidence. Or instinct leading Little Red straight to the big bad wolves' door.
"Who the fuck are they?" Sean growls beside me, his eyes already shifting to amber.
"Doesn't matter," I reply. "They're hunting on our territory. Time to stop playing human," I decide, pulling off my Henley as we reach the tree line. "Shift."
No arguments from my pack. Clothes are shed in seconds. The shift comes easily, fueled by protective rage and possessivehunger. Bones crack, skin stretches, fur erupts. Within moments, four massive wolves stand where men had just been.
My wolf form towers over the others, midnight black with ice-blue eyes that retain their human color. The pack alpha, unmistakable. Sean's sandy-brown bulk moves to my right, while Rowan's silver-gray form slips to my left. Micah, russet-furred and fastest of us all, takes point.
I lift my muzzle, drinking in scents multiplied tenfold by wolf senses. Hers stands out like a beacon—ancient magic, wild and untamed power—but now I catch more. Blood from scraped palms. Salt from dried tears. And something else, something that makes my hackles rise and a growl build in my chest.
Her fear has a distinct flavor. Not the sharp fear of being suddenly chased. This is older. Deeper. The terror of someone who's being hunted, who's been hunted before.
I project my thoughts through our pack bond, a telepathic link that only works when we're shifted.
Follow her scent. Don't engage unless I give the signal. I want to know what these fuckers want and if there are more of them coming for her before I rip their throats out.
She smells like fucking paradise,Sean's thoughts burst through, characteristically unfiltered.Like magic and thunderstorms and?—
Focus,Rowan cuts in.She's hurt. Moving northeast, toward the ravine.
Is she running from us or them?Micah wonders.
Does it matter?I respond.Someone's hunting what's ours.
We don't even know her name,Rowan points out, ever the voice of reason.
Don't need to,I reply, pushing deeper into the forest, paws almost silent on the leaf-strewn ground.She's pack now. She just doesn't know it yet.
We run as one unit, four predators moving with instinctive fluid coordination. Micah ranges ahead, the scout. Sean and Rowan flank me, watching for threats. I track the scents, sorting through layers of information.
The hunters aren't ordinary coven members. Their magic carries weight, authority. Old power, like hers but different. Hers is wild and raw. Theirs is disciplined, harnessed—and tainted with something I can't identify. Something that makes my fangs itch to tear them to shreds.
Fuck the dean's ultimatum.
Fuck the campus truce.
And fuck these sons of bitches who think they can take what's ours.
The witch belongs to us, and I'll burn down the entire forest before I let anyone take her from us.
Chapter
Seven
REGINA
