by Maia Starr
That last comment must have struck a sour chord inside of him because his smile faded to an ugly sneer, and with two fingers, he motioned the rest of his crew forward. Seven in all appeared from hidden places just beyond the hill, each snickering or frowning as they made their way down to them both. “You don’t exactly have a choice, sweetheart,” Dean cooed. “We’re a perfect match, and I’m not about to let you slip through my fingers.”
The others moved to surround her, to cut off her means to escape.
Sam didn’t know how many of Brendan’s pack were around as well, as they didn’t want to inform her, but she hoped it would be enough to match Dean’s seven companions. “Where are the two shifters who were outside?” she asked hesitantly, backing up.
“Oh, you mean the two guarding you? Knocked out, I presume, after taking a fall while wandering these woods.” He shrugged innocently, grinning. “Silverwood Island can be a dangerous place if you’re in the wrong area, Samantha.”
Sam wanted to slap him, and for once she finally had the courage to act on it. In one, smooth and quick motion, she opened her palm and flew at his face. But her palm didn’t connect with the side of his cheek; he caught her wrist midair. Now his smile was completely gone, all sympathy with it. Dean squeezed her wrist so hard she gasped and sank to her knees.
“Your place is on the ground, Sam, remember that,” he said.
The other shifters snickered and chuckled, and while Dean’s nails dug into her skin, she pursed her lips and whistled.
It was a tiny sound, barely audible over the other’s laughing and chortling, but Dean understood its meaning instantly.
“Shift, now!” he shouted, letting go of Sam and darting back. The others were late to respond, though, as Brendan and about ten other shifters bolted out from behind the clinic and all around the forest. Howls ripped through the air, snarls and snapping jaws popping her ears, and the ground shook worse than some earthquakes Sam had experienced before. Amid the ensuing chaos, Sam tried to stand, watching as Dean shifted before her very eyes and was set upon by two smaller wolves. Brendan appeared at her side, circling her and snarling at the rest of the wolves, his thick, light brown fur shaking.
It was time, Sam knew, for Dean’s games to finally end, and for her own life to finally move forward.↡¶
Chapter Sixteen
Brendan
Brendan had never been a part of such a massive battle before. He’d been in skirmishes with Dean before, and the rest of his pack, but by far this was the biggest and most vicious battle.
The first thing he had heard before leaping out into the fray was Dean’s ugly, nasty voice. It was deep and wicked, with a hard edge that was practically unmistakable; it made Brendan’s ears itch. Brendan forced himself to lay in wait with the rest of his pack, listening as Dean besieged Sam. It took everything he had not to roar to life when Sam gasped and sank to her knees in front of the bulky shifter, her slender wrist in Dean’s claws.
But then Dean’s shifters began to laugh, and as Brendan’s heart pounded with rage and his adrenaline became white hot in his veins, Sam’s signal came. A small, shrill whistle, something no one else besides Dean might have noticed. Dean shouted desperate orders, and Brendan and the others sprang into the open, already shifting and gaining the advantage on the others. It was an instant bloodbath.
Dean’s shifters shifted as quickly as they could before being set upon by the snarling warriors under Brendan’s command. Wolves rolled, and specks of dirt flew into the air. The ground shook like thunder under Brendan’s feet as he charged and slid next to Sam, circling her to prevent any immediate threats from ailing her as she scrambled to her feet. Across the way, Dean howled, his massive black shape releasing itself into the grove; two of Brendan’s wolves shot past to tackle his rival alpha, the trio becoming entangled with each other as they slid and hacked at each other with wild fury.
Once Dean was occupied, Brendan looked around. His mind went wild, trying to keep everything straight as the rest of his eight wolves took on the seven rival pack members. The grove Sam’s clinic rested in became a sea of fur and dangerous howls. Sharp teeth glinted in the sunlight beginning to pour down from above, blinding Brendan for milliseconds while he blocked any entry to Sam.
One rival shifter managed to break away and charge at him and Sam, but another of Brendan’s pack was able to slam into the rival member, taking them both shooting off into a tree nearby.
While Brendan guarded her, Sam remained unmoving, awe-struck at the scene that had taken shape around her. To Brendan, she was a beacon in the chaos, a blonde enigma among the battling wolves. Every chance a rival pack members got, they tried to come after her, though Brendan’s pack as always there to block the way to her. More than once, Brendan tried to nudge her towards the clinic to try and find shelter within while Brendan and the others continued the fight, but she never got any traction. He could only imagine what must have been going through her mind; she knew this was bound to happen, but there was a difference between talking about something happening and then watching it unravel before one’s eyes. Even Brendan found himself straining to keep his mind focused on the myriad of things occurring within moments of each other.
One pair of wolves crashed into a nearby tree, causing it to cave inwards and groan like a withered old man; it fell swiftly once the wolves scampered out of the way, right on top of Sam.
Move! Brendan howled, darting to pick Sam up in his mouth as gently as he could and leap out of the way. The falling tree crashed heavily, startling many of the wolves, with many tripping over it and racing alongside it.
Brendan let Sam go, nudging her once again to the clinic. Finally, Sam nodded in understanding, running off to at least hide inside the doorway.
But things weren’t that simple.
Another dangerous howl ripped through the air, alarm bells beginning to spastically ring inside his head. Glancing away, he noticed another tree begin to topple directly in Sam’s path. Before Brendan could do anything, the tree smashed into the ground right in front of Sam’s front entrance, causing Sam to jump back and trip backward onto her butt. Wrath surged through Brendan at the sight of Sam nearly being crushed to death, and he whirled to spy Dean Mondego standing at the top of a small hill, next to a fresh stump, looking down on them both with a wicked grin. He seemed to cackle as he made his way down, leaving the two unmoving wolves of Brendan’s pack on the ground behind him. Brendan couldn’t make out how much of their blood was spilled, or if they were even still alive, but Dean’s muzzle was slick with shiny red blood, telling Brendan all he needed to know.
He wanted to charge ferociously, unabated, at his rival alpha, but with Sam’s only safe haven practically blocked, Brendan needed to hang back. As Dean approached, Brendan snarled and pawed at the ground, baring his fangs.
“Don’t worry about me!” Sam shouted from his side, nearly startling him. “I’ll be fine, just make sure to come out alive!”
Dean took the opportunity to shoot forward, faster than Brendan expected. Bracing himself, Brendan hunched down as Dean rushed towards him, allowing his rival to crash into him and bounce off his back. Mondego swiped Brendan’s back as he flew over, with Brendan gritting his teeth and turning to meet his rival midair. The two tangled and roared into each other’s faces, the heat of Dean’s breath fogging his vision. Despite the lapse in eyesight, Brendan managed to dodge a swipe at his head, and instead headbutted Dean away.
Once again, Brendan stood between Dean and Sam, eyeing his rival wearily as the beast rose to his feet and hit the ground in anger. He charged again, though this time he stayed low. Brendan waited, bracing once again to try and throw Dean to the side. All around him, he witnessed the chaos begin to favor his packmates. Connor and another wolf subdued their opponents and went to help the others. All Brendan needed to do was keep Dean at bay until the rest could surround him and force the shifter to admit defeat...or something like that.
But Dean wasn’t one to just let t
he tide turn against him. Remaining low, Dean darted towards Brendan’s front legs, trying to chomp down on one of them. Brendan leaped out of the way, only for Dean to push himself up and clamp down on Brendan's shoulder. Crying out in pain, the two collapsed on the ground, rolling and clawing at each other. Brendan’s whole body shivered and pulsed with the fresh pain, white-hot heat swelling where his blood began to flow freely outside his body. Dean tried to tear and pull at Brendan’s skin but instead received a few thwacks to the head for his efforts. To turn the tables, Brendan twisted his body to allow himself room to bite down on Dean’s front leg. The move surprised Dean, causing him to release Brendan and batter Brendan to get his rival to release his leg; Brendan fought through the hits, twirling to throw Dean into the hill he’d come down from.
At the sight of Dean flying through the air in painful howling, smashing into the earth with a sickening chorus of bones crunching, the other rival wolves began to hesitate. Brendan’s pack began to quickly dispatch the others, roaring in victory as wolves everywhere shifted back to their naked human forms on the ground, panting and unable to fight back anymore.
“Yes! Perfect!” Sam yelled, her bravery instilling a new wave of adrenaline into Brendan’s bloodstream. His whole body rippled with the ecstasy of winning and howled out shrilly into the open air. His pack followed suit, creating an awesome chorus. To strangers miles away, their howls were nothing more than the sound of wild animals, but to Brendan, Sam and the others, it was the final call on a long-awaited battle.
Though there’s one more obstacle to get over, Brendan thought as he gazed back at the hunkered Dean. The beast eyed Brendan angrily, snarling and turning to lope away. Dean ran silently, cowardly, leaving behind his fallen comrades. Some of the rival pack shifters reached out for him, but when they found out he had left without them, they scowled and swore between breaths.
Brendan made to go after his rival but stopped when Sam’s gentle hand touched his hip. He glanced back at her olive green eyes, wondering why her face was knitted so stoically. Quickly, Brendan shifted back, realizing that Dean had already vanished from sight.
“What’s wrong?” Brendan asked, rushing over to her and grabbing her wrist. He glared at the marks Dean left behind on her fair skin. “Are you bleeding? Look at these marks, their almost like slashes…”
“It’s nothing serious,” Sam said, breathing out. “I’m more thankful for not turning into a pancake under that tree that Dean toppled.”
“I’m glad he missed,” Brendan mused. “But I think he didn’t mean to actually kill you…” Glancing around, he spotted Connor and a few other of his shifters returning to their human forms to round up the rival pack members, while the rest stood guard just in case more appeared. The raucous noise from before had dissipated quickly, with the only sounds remaining of the sneering from the rival pack and the snarls from the wolves still loping around. Brendan motioned two of the wolves over once the rest of the rival pack members had been tied together in the middle of the grove. “You two, follow Dean and make sure not to lose him. We need to catch him now, or else this was all for nothing. I’ll follow behind shortly, okay?”
The two wolves didn’t respond, instead immediately darting off in the direction Dean had fled. He called Connor over as well. “Make sure this bunch doesn’t manage to free themselves. Have someone run back to the Bedrock with the news, and the rest stay here to guard these rival shifters.”
“Aye, aye!” Connor said, winking at him and turning to rush back. His voice resounded in the clearing.
Turning back to Sam, he kissed her on the lips without thinking, as if to reassure himself that she was still there and not whisked away by Dean. This wasn’t some dream Brendan had while sleeping, but reality. If Dean could be caught, or if push come to shove, killed, then everything would finally settle down. “I’m going after him. You stay here with the others, make sure you’re safe. Treat the wounded.”
Brendan turned to leave but found his arm stuck in her hands. Her lanky fingers gripped his forearm tightly, keeping him still. At first, he thought that she didn’t want him to go, that she was going to order him to wait so she could check his wounds. His wound still bled, and it inflamed after Brendan’s adrenaline thinned out, but other than that, he’d sustained no other serious injuries.
Sam didn’t look upon him with a worried expression, but with one that startled him. With furrowed brows and tight, thin lips, Sam stared him down. “I’m coming with you.”
“What?” Brendan found himself saying. “No way, Dean’s too dangerous. If, by chance, he manages to slip our grasp and snatches you away—”
“Then I’d be in the safest hands with you, right?” she said, cocking her head. “I’d venture to say that no one else here, besides possibly Connor, is your equal. You’re strong enough to not only hold off Dean but to overpower him. Brendan, if anything, my presence can help throw Dean off, make him think twice about every decision he’s making. Maybe I’ll just infuriate him even more.”
“Sam!” Brendan said, clutching her fingers and kissing the tops of her hands. “You’re my responsibility now. No mate of mine will be forced into danger while I’m around.”
“No one’s forcing me,” she said, stepping closer. Brendan’s heart thumped, his vision narrowing to the beautiful contour of her round head. Her eyelashes fluttered, and her lips parted. “I need to do this. If Dean’s going to go down, then I want to be part of whatever happens. He’s my demon too...so let me help finish this.”
Brendan stared thoughtfully into her eyes, witnessing the resolve behind her olive orbs. Sam continued to surprise him in so many ways. Most people would have wanted to run from the danger presented before her, but instead, Sam rose to the occasion, making him fall even harder for her.
“Fine,” Brendan growled. “But you need to stay back, and out of the way at first. An animal is at its most dangerous when it’s cornered, and Dean’s no different. We need to be incredibly careful.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Sighing, Brendan proceeded to shift into his wolf form, laying down for Sam to quickly and awkwardly climb onto his back.
“We’ll practice this later,” Sam said as her cheeks reddened right after nearly toppling over onto the dirt. Brendan rose, snorting, and loped up the hill and into the forest of Silverwood Island, hoping that his, and Sam’s, battle with Dean would finally end for good.↡¶
Chapter Seventeen
Sam
Never once did Dean allow Sam to ride on his back, back when she still thought of him as a decent boyfriend. She’d only seen his beastly side at a distance, only being able to let her hand drift across his soft fur once, when they were in a remote park far from their apartment. She never thought she’d come around to the idea of touching and brushing her slender fingers through a shifter’s fur, getting each tangled up in the myriad of tufts.
But now she had that chance again, and not only was she able to stroke Brendan’s back, but she had to hang on for dear life while he darted through the woods.
Sam was actually riding a shifter, like he were a prize-winning horse racing towards a finish line, though Brendan was much more agile and swift. He barreled through the forest with ease, jumping over spiny bushes and squeezing between trees and ducking under low branches; Sam was almost smacked in the face four times from low branches, every time just barely lowering her head enough to simply scrape some of the leaves. The thrill made her heart pound and whine for more excitement, at times forgetting about their intent to chase down Dean Mondego.
She never had these kinds of thrills with Dean, never thought it would be possible to experience anything other than fear when it came to wolf shifters, or any kind of shifters. It was incredible to feel her hair flow in the cool wind, turning her breath icy and cloudy as it drifted in clumps behind her.
As they fled, winding through the heavy trails left behind by both Dean and Brendan’s packmates, tiny white flakes began to descend from the sky.
/>
Snow, Sam thought, raising her palm to catch a few of the flakes, each liquifying immediately upon landing on her hot palms. Brendan must have noticed as well because he slowed to snort and walk briskly, careful not to slip on the newly wet ground. Sam watched as they came to a narrow path, trapped on either side by steep dirt ledges. A series of three pairs of giant paw prints were scattered all along the pathway, and in the distance, wolves howled. Along with broken tree branches and flattened long green grass, the path was clear to them both.
Brendan sped up once the hill rose and they exited the narrow pathway, finding their way closer and closer to the sounds of lapping waves. Sam quickly found herself lost in the landscape around her, seeing deer bolt from their presence, birds chirp and fly among the snow, little rabbits duck into burrows as Brendan raced along.
Soon enough, the grass started to become sandy, with it thinning until they broke through the treeline and slid to a stop on a rocky ledge. The ledge overlooked the Pacific Ocean, and Sam stared out at it in awe, suddenly picturing herself down on the beach, running happily along with Brendan, letting the cool waves crash against the shore and spray them both with cold droplets.
But that image faded as soon as she turned her head down to the beach, spotting the black wolf swiping and shoving aside one of the wolves Brendan had tasked with following Dean. One of the wolves darted to Dean’s blind side, but Dean was quicker and heftier, and with one lone swing of his free paw he cracked the wolf’s temple and sent him sprawling into the lapping waves. The other of Brendan’s wolves raced up to Dean in the meantime, aiming to chomp down on his hind leg, but Dean kicked out, swinging down with his foot to plant his opponent’s head into the sand. Seeing his chance, Dean spun and chomped down on the shifter’s neck, twisting it until the shifter went limp.