Page 85 of Pack Rage
Time stood still.
“Mom!” My scream seemed to go on for hours, Mom hanging in the air in front of my eyes, the sword jutting through her abdomen.She didn’t speak, though her mouth dropped open as the pain hit, but her eyes said everything.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
Pride and sorrow, pain and even joy—that she had been able to save me. It flickered there as she fell, her swords dropping from her hands. I lunged forward, catching one of them mid-air, spun, and sliced across the neck of the Enforcer who’d struck her. His own eyes went wide with shock as his body and head were separated in the suddenly bright moonlight.
I tried to catch Mom, too, before she hit the earth, but at that very instant, a rush of power electrified me from head to toe. I opened my mouth in a silent shout as connections to a thousand wolves rushed into me. No, it was two thousand, and each one was a shifter I knew. I’d trained with them, fought beside them, protected them.
It was my father’s power, the Alpha power of the Northern pack.
How was thispossible?I was a rogue. I’d abjured my pack. I’d left them…
An answer to my unspoken question flickered in my mind, a memory from one of the others, perhaps? Brand, or maybe Grigor. I wasn’t sure. Patrick had been declared the Heir, but the moon’s power had been blocked from this hellish place when Dad had spoken the words.
Somehow, I was Alpha. I fell to my knees, stunned, until a soft hand landed on my leg. Mom’s hand, the nails bloody and cracked, her fingers bruised and raw.
“Mom, be still.” She was alive, though the sword was still wedged in her body. I stooped lower, cradling her head in my hands, careful not to move her. The bonds kept rushing into me as I held her, and I trembled. I felt her, too, as part of the pack, inside me.
She smiled gently and mouthed the wordAlpha.Her vow bound her to me, her fading power connecting with mine as that one word served as her pledge.
Her love filled my mind in a way I’d never felt before. I didn’t just know she loved me without condition—I felt it in my marrow, in my blood.
Connections kept pouring into me, every shifter in Northern being tied to me, to my soul, and I shook under the intensity of it. “How?”
She mouthed the wordAlphaagain, her hand going slack, eyes closing.
“No!” I shouted, desperate to save her. “Don’t go to sleep, Mom,” I demanded, and a hint of Alpha command was in my voice.
Her breath rattled in her lungs, but she obeyed. No, her wolf did. She blinked up at me, dark irises glowing slightly, the full moon that sailed above reflected in her pupils.
Command her,my own wolf snarled.The pack needs her.
Command her to live? I could. I was her Alpha; she had made her pledge. I could command her to do anything, though I wasn’t certain she would forgive me for it.
We need her.
“Mom. Keep breathing,” I tried, but I didn’t have enough Alpha power yet to stave off death, and she was truly dying. A part of her wanted to go, to be with her mate.
But my wolf insisted.The pack needs her still.It wasn’t clear what pack he meant, but he howled at me to act.
“Breathe,” I shouted, but the light in her eyes, still fixed on me, was fading.
Shifters poured into the ring all around me, and I recognized their howls as they began to fight. Northern was here, or at least some of them. Mountain as well, their outsized wolves tearing into the guards who had circled me and Mom.
Bullets whined, and bones snapped. The screams and snarls of battle surrounded us.
I heard Patrick’s howl of agony as he encountered our dad’s fallen body, and felt his rage deep inside me, in our pack connection. Patrick was the one who should have been Alpha. I called his name, and he was there beside me, kneeling, shock coursing through him as he saw how badly Mom was injured.Our eyes met, and a whole conversation passed in an instant.
I didn’t mean to take your place, little brother.
His wolf snapped.Alpha, it was always yours. The moon doesn’t make mistakes.Out loud, he said, “Alpha, I am yours to command.”
The connection was instant, his strength flowing into me… and trickling to Mom. Her chest rose again, the light in her eyes flaring dimly.
I needed the pack. “Pledge!” I shouted. “Northern, to me. Give me your vows!”
Instantly, pack members began appearing, shouting their allegiance. “Alpha, I pledge!” “Alpha, I am yours!” “Alpha, you are mine!” They fought their way to me, some of them touching me with one hand, each contact like a defibrillator, shocking my body. Mom jolted, too, though, and blood gushed as the blade shifted inside her abdomen.
