Scuffling fills the silence. A soft breeze filters into the bedroom from the broken window down the hallway, and with it comes the scent of wet dog and shifter.
“Not just any wolves,” Kian says stiffly. “Our pack.”
Eyes wide, I toss him a startled look. “Quinton found us? There’s a foot of snow on the ground! How the hell could he track us?”
Malix stalks toward the open bedroom door, where he presses up against the wall and listens for a moment to the scuffling. “I dunno. But he definitely found us. His minions did, at any rate.”
The click of toenails on expensive hardwood echo through the house. Dammit. How many are there?
I move toward Malix, staying quiet on my tiptoes as I repeat my question in a whisper. “How were they able to track us? You were in your shadow wolf forms.”
Kian pauses on the other side of the door, his expression hard and intent. “You were human. It’s possible even our shadow forms couldn’t keep your scent from detection.”
Shit. He’s right. And of course, I was in human form because I wasn’t fucking strong enough to keep going. I put us all in danger because I was weak. Frustration and guilt join the emotions warring inside me, but I shove it all down as deep as I possibly can. For one thing, I refuse to feel guilt over something I can’t control, nor do I want to fall prey to my own damn emotions when we’re on the verge of battle.
I straighten my spine, glancing at Kian. “What do we do?”
His gold-ringed gaze meets mine and he gives me a small, nearly imperceptible nod, agreeing to my unspoken words—to a momentary truce. “We fight our way out.”
Shadows begin the shift and form around his body, swirling like black smoke—only thicker, darker, more opaque than smoke. Malix and Frost begin to shift as well, and the combination of the three of them shifting turns the room darker. Their shadows rampage over their bodies, twisting and contorting them while the room grows colder. I notice, too, a hint of agony on Malix’s face as his bones begin to elongate, and I wonder if the process of shifting into that form hurts more because of the shadow magic.
I cling to the doorframe and watch them in awe. It’s the first time I’ve fully been able to watch them shift to these forms, and while it’s similar to the magic that brings out my own wolf, it’s also… different. Like their form is the dark to my light. Pain to my comfort.
Then a howl cuts through the eerily silent house.
Right. Game on.
I reach for my own magic and let it wash over me, contorting my body into that of a wolf. As soon as I’m on four paws, Kian growls and launches himself into the hallway with his brothers right behind him, all three of them moving like hulking, shifting black shadows.
My nails slip and skitter over the slippery floors as I follow the three of them down the hallway to the stairs. Kian bounds down four stairs at a time, launching from mid-staircase to the landing below with an earth-shattering shake. Malix and Frost follow suit, and by the time I hit the foyer, Quinton’s pack spills into the hall from the kitchen.
The shadow wolves plow into the oncoming attack, wading into the pack of smaller, less powerful wolves like their pack mates are nothing but water flowing around them. I count twenty of Quinton’s followers, maybe more, but it’s definitely not the whole pack. I take that to mean they split up to find us, which would explain how they actually did track us down despite the snow. Sheer manpower. Well, wolfpower, anyway.
Kian latches onto a wolf who leaps at him, then tosses her aside like a toy. Frost headbutts three in one go with a swing of his massive skull, while Malix holds two wolves down with his giant paws.
I’m distracted from watching them fight as a shaggy, red-furred wolf launches himself at me from the crowd. I duck his attack, darting under his front paws before he lands and putting my body behind him. Before he can turn around, I chomp down on his tail and yank, throwing him into the hallway wall. An expensive looking painting slides off its anchor and falls on top of him, the glass shattering from the impact.
I don’t have a chance to breathe before another wolf descends on me. Her jaws lock around my neck, and her sharp canines pierce my skin. I snarl and attempt to bite her snout without tearing my own neck out. Then Malix appears in my line of sight as he grabs onto the smaller wolf’s scruff. She yelps, and I take advantage of her momentary surprise to scrabble away from her open jaws. Malix lifts her off her paws and very deliberately slams her into the stairway railing, knocking her out.
As a matter of fact… I look around at the chaos and realize I don’t see any blood. No torn out throats, no dead, sightless eyes. My shadow wolf companions are holding back—going for incapacitation, not the kill.
I don’t quite know what to make of that. I got the impression they don’t have a great relationship with their own pack, but regardless, they obviously don’t want to hurt their pack mates.
Maybe they’re not as monstrous as they pretend to be.
I take down a larger white wolf as he attempts to catch Frost by surprise, slamming him into the hardwood and bouncing with my paws on his head until his eyes close and his body goes limp. The fight spills down the hallway and into the kitchen, seemingly pressed that way by Kian as he wades through the chaos.
I dodge fallen wolves and smashed furniture to race after them.
Late afternoon sunshine spills through the broken window over the sink. Shards of glass cover the counter and floor—clearly the place where the pack entered the cabin.
Frost slams a wolf to the floor, sending glass flying. Kian takes a blow from two wolves and loses his balance, smashing into the fridge and bending the expensive stainless steel.
The cabin’s owners are going to have a hell of a spectacle to see when they finally return.
Kian growls angrily and swipes at the two wolves, sending them flying into the counter. One of them sails over the edge and into the line of appliances beneath the cabinets. Everything smashes beneath his bulky weight, and the sizzle of electricity fills the air.
A moment later, flames begin to lick at the cabinets.
Shit.