Page 86 of Pack Rage
I turned my head toward Patrick, though I couldn’t focus my eyes. “Take the sword out.” He did so carefully, quickly staunching the blood with a cloth that appeared in his hand, given by one of the Eastern kitchen staff who dared to come close enough to help. In the distance, I could hear shrill screams as other girls and women were injured and attacked. They had to be cannon fodder, warm bodies that Aidan had brought to the fight, and he was most likely using them just now as that.
I felt Finn’s rage and knew he was fighting his own father, trying to wrest control of the pack from him, and save the girls—save all of us. He was surrounded by enemies, even though reinforcements had arrived.
But I had my own fight to win.
More Northern pack members appeared, giving their pledge before flinging themselves back into the melee, forming a protective circle around Mom, Patrick, and me. There were at least a few dozen, and a few of them had true mates back at Northern, though it didn’t seem to matter that they weren’t here in body. Those distant mates whispered their vows through the bonds, each new strand a stream of pure energy filling me.
The vows made the power that had entered me with the moon’s brilliance flow like a turbulent river in a spring thaw.It felt as if the power was destroying a part of me inside as I channeled it, funneled it into Mom, chanting, “Live, breathe, you will stay for the pack. I command it.” It was like reaching into a flood to pull her out by one hand, or her hair, and instead of rescuing her, I was drowning myself.
Dying, alongside her.
But suddenly Grigor was there, in my soul, anchoring me. Grigor, and then Luke, Brand, and Flor. Even Finn, who I had been so angry at, for hurting Flor, but whose soul I could feel was fully devoted to her.
All of them tethered me as I fought to withstand the pull of power, and death, and grief. I let them hold on and used every scrap of the Northern flood to push life into Mom, as Patrick held the cloth to her stomach.
“Live,” I commanded again, my voice a crack of thunder in the night. I set my hands next to Patrick’s on her chest, envisioning the power that I’d been given, even if I didn’t deserve it, flow into her. “Live for the pack.”
Her chest rose and fell once, twice. Then, in a flash, her eyes snapped open. “Alpha.” There was accusation and allegiance in her tone.
I knew why. She’d been close to joining Dad, almost in his arms again. But I knew how to force her to live. “Mom, they’re killing the girls, the servants. The women. They have no one to protect them. There are too many enemies, and not enough protectors.” The words felt cruel on my tongue as I spoke them, but I had to. “Get up, and protect the pack.”
She let out a rage-filled scream and rose, her face pale, the scar that stretched across it as silver as the glint in her light eyes. I blinked, wondering if her eyes were like Brand’s now. But then she’d turned her face away, swords retrieved from the ground, and was wiping her own blood from the blade that had eviscerated her on her trousers.
She snarled at my brother, who blinked up at her, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Defense, the way we trained with pups this fall. We need to get them together here, then take them… there.” She pointed to the edge of the ring, with two tall pines that had grown together. We all knew what she meant. The trees would act as protection from rear attacks, and if we formed a double circle, a shield of warriors, in front, the girls would be safe behind us as we traveled to that patch of relative safety. In the fall, Flor had worked with our youngest on climbing and hiding in the treetops. We all knew this drill.
Reaching into the pack bond, I sent a command out to Northern. “Protect the girls, the women. Gather the vulnerable. They are pack.” I pictured the twin trees and called out, “Follow the Alpha Mate.”
There was slight confusion as the wolves stumbled, unsure.Oh, shit.
Florwas the Alpha Mate now.
“My mother,” I repeated. “Go! Follow my mother!”
Someone shouted, “Alpha’s mother!” and the wolves all swiveled their heads to her.
Mom snarled again, like the phrase hurt her. I growled back. There was no time to argue. My pack members darted into the battle, then Patrick and his fighters whistled for Mountain troops to help. They began working in tandem to trip up the Easterners—and even some of the strangers—who had grabbed girls and were using them as shields. As soon as the fighters tripped, smaller shifters, dressed in ragged clothing, darted in and grabbed their fallen weapons. Even the guns.
“Tenebris! Tape the guns!” I knew that voice, though the order made no sense. I nearly smiled as I grabbed a fallen dagger. Sergeant was here, fighting with his Tenebris boys.
Well, fighting or doing a craft project. I watched one of the rogues peel up the end of a roll of duct tape he wore on oneskinny wrist, and wrap it around the gun a dozen times, until the weapon was useless, trapped in a ball of dull gray tape. While he did that, another two boys did the same thing around the fallen Enforcer’s ankles and wrists, ending the job with a solid strip of tape around the cursing Easterner’s mouth.
“Sergeant!” I called, but just as he turned to me, something punched me in the back once, twice, then a dozen times.
It was agony, but one I’d felt before, and with my newfound power, I wasn’t in any danger of falling. I screamed in anger and turned, knowing what I’d find: a shooter, standing close behind me.
I was wrong. It was a firing line, three Eastern Enforcers, holding their guns on me, still firing. Half the bullets were hitting me. The other half flew wide, peppering the Tenebris boys and even the crowd of girls who’d been huddled together.
The night split with fresh cries of pain from young throats.
The rogues flung their bodies over the girls, some taking the bullets in their backs, others grabbing the maids and running with them toward the trees. Then, as suddenly as they’d begun, the bullets stopped. A giant shadow fell over the gunmen, and another smaller, darker shadow appeared beside them, wrapping around their throats and slitting them all in the space of two seconds.
My brothers. They stepped up to me, each one placing a hand on one of my shoulders. I looked up. Brand was… changed. His skin was patched together like Frankenstein’s monster. I wasn’t sure how he’d survived what had been done to him, but then I saw the way Grigor gazed at him. Protective and with a warmth that was unusual and unexpected.
Brand’s silver eyes glowed so brightly, it almost hurt to look at them. Grigor’s were red as blood.Creepy little fuck.
“Little brother.”
“Hey, Joaquin,” I replied weakly, the silver inside me making me tremble. “Know any magic tricks for making silver disappear?”
