by J. L. Wilder
“We also have to assume that Damon has told them things about us,” Fiona said. “If he’s with them now, that means they’ll know how many of us there are. They’ll know we’re likely to be working together, and they’ll know we want to attack them before they can attack us.”
“If I were them,” Percy said, “I would try to turn the tables on us. I would try to attack first.”
“But they haven’t,” Angus said. “Why not?”
“It’s got to be the same reason we haven’t,” Fiona said. “They aren’t sure they can beat us. Even knowing how many of us there are, even having a bear on their side who can tell them exactly what the bears are capable of...they’re not sure.”
“That’s encouraging,” Owen said. “That makes it sound like we stand a chance.”
Fiona nodded. “I think we do,” she said. “I think if we stick to the original plan, if we bring the fight to them before they can bring it to us, the element of surprise will work to our advantage and we’ll be able to beat them. But we’re going to have to move quickly now. There’s no more time for screwing around. They may not be ready to face us, but you can bet they’re getting ready, and this is going to come down to who moves first.”
“Okay,” Owen said. “Okay.”
Fiona got to her feet. She felt powerful, commanding. What had happened between them sexually no longer mattered, she realized. They were on the brink of war, and in this moment, her authority was stronger than Owen’s. He might dominate her later, in other ways, but in this, she was in charge.”
“Let’s go around the room,” she said quietly. “Yes or no on whether you’re willing to fight the Feral Fangs. If your answer is no, nobody is going to force your hand. You’ll be permitted to sit the fight out. Percy?”
She held her breath. She was unsure of him. She had been unsure of him for months. It all came down to this moment. Would he stand with her, or would he turn away from her?”
“Yes,” he said. There was no hesitation. “I fight with my pack.”
She felt something inside her relax. With him on board, she knew she could get the rest of the Hell’s Wolves. “Wes?”
“Yes.”
“Leo?”
“Hell, yeah. I’m not missing this.”
“Carla?”
“Yes,” she said quietly.”
Fiona nodded. “That’s all of us, then,” she said, turning to Owen. “What about you?”
Owen looked from one of his people to the next. All of them were nodding, but it was Dusty who spoke. “They killed Joel,” he said quietly. “They killed our brother. That’s not something we can stand for. We’re bringing the war to them, and God help anyone who gets in the way.”
“Okay,” Fiona said. “There’s something we have to do before we can fight them, then.”
“What is it?” Owen asked.
“We have to run together,” she said. “All of us. We have to trust each other enough to shift together. We have to learn each other’s scents and appearances so we’ll know each other in the fight to come.”
Nobody spoke for a long minute.
“She’s right,” Percy said finally. “I’ll do it.”
“I’ll do it,” Dusty seconded.
One by one, the others agreed.
“Okay,” Fiona said. “Let’s go now, then. Tonight, we run. Tomorrow we fight.”
THE WOLVES WERE FASTER than the bears, but Fiona adjusted her pace to allow their new allies to keep up. Owen ran alongside her. He was massive. He towered over her. Part of her felt intimidated, and another part of her simply felt awed.
It was amazing—intimate and strange—to see her new friends in their animal state. She had never shifted in the presence of someone outside her own pack before. Tomorrow’s fight would have them in animal form with the Feral Fangs, which was terrifying and empowering at the same time. She couldn’t wait to get her claws into them.
She ran ahead, then ran back, feeling exuberant. The cool night air filled her lungs and ruffled her fur. She jostled her shoulder against Owen’s, knowing that she would have been afraid to provoke a bear like this in ordinary circumstances. But it was Owen, and she had no fear.
Behind them, the rest of the two packs beat a steady pace, sometimes fanning out to the left and right to chase down unfamiliar scents and sounds before reeling back in to follow their alphas. They had mingled together now. At the start of the run, all the wolves had clumped together in a tight bunch, and the bears had strung themselves out in a line one after the other. But now they were a blended group.
I could almost believe, if I didn’t know any better, that we were one pack.
And perhaps they were one pack. Maybe, for the next few days, until the threat was dealt with, they would be able to feel the unity that would help them defeat their adversaries. Maybe they would be able to think as one and act as one the way only a pack ever really could.
If we can do that, Fiona thought, I think we just might win.
It would be the one thing the Feral Fangs wouldn’t know, the one thing they wouldn’t be prepared for, because Damon couldn’t have told them and there was no way they could have guessed it. They would be expecting two separate packs working together, but they couldn’t possibly anticipate a blended group, a brotherhood.
Please, let this work. Let us win this fight. And whatever comes next—with me and Owen, with our baby—we’ll handle that once the threat is over. That will be easy, after this.
She wasn’t sure she was right about that. Asking two packs to come together temporarily and fight for their lives was one thing. Asking them to declare a permanent truce in peacetime was a whole other proposition.
But one way or another, she knew, it was one they would have to face.
As long as we live through this fight, that is.
Chapter Seventeen
OWEN
Owen was of the opinion that they ought to wait until nightfall to attack, that they would be safer moving under cover of darkness. But Fiona disagreed.
“They’re not going to be watching for us visually,” she said. “At least, not primarily so. They’ll have someone shifted at all times, waiting for our scent. It’s what I would do. They’ll know we’re coming that way before they see us.”
“What if you’re wrong?” he asked.
“If I’m wrong, we’ll be able to get a hell of a lot closer to them than I’m counting on without alerting them to our presence,” Fiona said. “Either way, it doesn’t matter what time we move. And I bet they’re expecting us to come at night. I bet they’re expecting us to worry about being seen.”
“You think you’ve outsmarted them.”
Her smile was all teeth. “I know I’ve outsmarted them.”
It was arrogant of her, Owen thought, and yet, didn’t it also make sense? And could you really call it arrogance if it was just accurate self-assessment? He felt a thrill of attraction course through him and wished, for an instant, that they had time to steal away together. The lines of her body, the quick, sure way she moved as she prepared for battle, the commanding tone in her voice—it all made him feel breathless.
I am so lucky, he thought, not for the first time. I am so beyond lucky to have fallen in love with an alpha.
There was that word again. Love. At some point, he and Fiona were going to have to have that conversation too. But not today. Today we have more pressing concerns. If we survive this, I’ll tell her.
It was a pretty big caveat, he knew.
“Okay,” Percy said. Fiona’s second in command had been pacing around the kitchen for the past hour. Owen wanted to tell him to sit down—he was stressful to watch—but he had no command over the other man, and he knew it. “So what’s the plan?”
“We ride north,” Fiona said. “We create a perimeter around the place where they’re staying. It should be easy enough to find by following the scent. Carla and...who’s your best mechanic?” she asked Owen.”
“Nova,” he said.
“Right. Carla
and Nova, you’ll go in and disable their bikes. Nothing dramatic. I want them to not work, but I want them to look like they’re going to work. And don’t draw any attention to yourselves. I don’t want you seen. When you’re finished, retreat to somewhere safe and wait for the rest of us.”
“We’re sitting out the action?” Nova looked unhappy.
“Think of yourselves as assassins,” Fiona said. “Your job is vital. It’s just not very eye-catching.”
“But what if you need us in the battle itself?” Carla asked.
“We won’t,” Fiona said. “You’re not a fighter, Carla. That’s not who you are. It’s all right. We’ll have all our muscle in the battle.” She turned to the others in the room. “Dusty, Angus, and Riley—the Feral Fangs will know we have bears on our side, and Damon will have prepared them to fight you. Be ready for that. Remember what you learned sparring with us. They’re likely to use the same techniques.”
The bears nodded.
“Okay,” Fiona said. “Leo, when I give the signal, you’re going to cause a distraction. I don’t care what it is, but you need to make some noise that lets them know we’ve arrived. And nothing that seems deliberate—you can’t just stand under their window and howl.”
“I’ll think of something,” Leo said.
“When Leo does what he does,” Fiona said, “I’m thinking the Fangs will come rushing out to confront us. Leo, you’ll have run off, so they’ll probably chase after you—but they won’t get far. Because that’s when the rest of us are going to attack.”
Around the room, the others were nodding. Most of them were smiling, as if they thought it was a good plan. But Owen frowned. “I don’t like it,” he said.
“What don’t you like?” she asked him.
“You’re putting yourself right in the middle of the fight, Fiona,” he said. Was she insane? “You’re taking one of the most dangerous jobs for yourself.”
“Of course I am.” She stared. “What did you expect?”
“You’re pregnant.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t fight.”
“You shouldn’t be anywhere near the Fangs. Why can’t you disable the motorcycles?”
“And what, put Carla in the battle? I’m the best fighter my pack has, Owen, and you know it from training with us. You can’t seriously think I’m going to bench myself in the eleventh hour.”
“I would have thought you’d want to protect our baby.”
She glared at him. “I’m doing this to protect our baby. Putting together the best offensive possible gives us the best chance of success. Having the best fighters on the front lines makes us more likely to win. It won’t matter that I kept myself out of harm’s way if we lose the fight.”
“You’re not going to make the difference between winning and losing,” Owen said.
“You don’t know what’s going to make the difference,” Fiona said. “Besides, you’re not in charge of what my pack does. This is the plan. Are you in or out?”
He hated it. He knew he wouldn’t be able to relax as long as she was in danger. But what choice did he have? “In.”
“Good,” Fiona said. “We’ll break for half an hour so that everyone can make their final preparations. Then we go.”
THEY HIT THE FERAL Fangs’ scent almost as soon as they were on the road. It had been a mistake, Owen thought, for the Fangs to come to the Hell’s Wolves’ home. They had left a trail.
Didn’t they think of that? Surely Damon must have thought of that. I would have thought he would be smart enough to realize what would happen.
But then, maybe it didn’t matter. Both sides had known that it would come to a fight. Maybe the Fangs were simply past worrying about trying to forestall it.
The scent was pungent and easy to follow. It smelled of sweat and dirt and whiskey, sour and unpleasant. Owen and Fiona ran side by side at the head of the blended pack. Wolf and bear.
He glanced over at her from time to time, marveling at the beauty of the woman he loved in this unfamiliar form. He had been so prejudiced against wolves for so long that he hadn’t been able to see the magnificence of them. Now, watching Fiona run, watching the way her muscles pulled across her long, lithe limbs, he was amazed at how graceful she was.
Almost too soon, they arrived at the motel where the scent was concentrated. It was a few miles outside the city, which was good—this would have been much harder if they’d had to do it surrounded by civilians. Fiona loped off into the woods to his left. Losing sight of her was painful. What if the Fangs are waiting over there? What if she’s attacked and I’m too far away to do anything about it?
He took a deep breath and forced himself to focus. It wasn’t going to help anybody—not Fiona, not his packmates, and not his unborn son or daughter—if he slipped up and failed in what he was supposed to do here because he was to distracted by his worry for her.
A loud bang rent the air, followed by the sound of a car alarm. Leo’s distraction. Owen tensed, waiting for the moment to be right.
And then a door on the second floor of the motel burst open and a rush of men ran out. Some of them were in leather jackets, others in jeans and completely shirtless. Owen forced himself to stay levelheaded and to count as they ran. One...two...three...four...five...six...seven.
Seven men.
Seven Feral Fangs against four bears and three wolves.
They were in this with a fighting chance.
And then he froze, his breath catching in his throat as the Fangs stopped running in the parking lot and stood looking around them for the source of the disturbance.
Damon.
There he stood, among them, one of them, indistinguishable in his human form from the rest. If Owen hadn’t known Damon, he would never have known what separated this man from all the others. He would never have known that he was looking at a traitor.
Fury burned through him. It’s your fault Joel is dead, he thought. He was so young, and all he ever wanted was your approval. Your respect. And you got him killed, because you couldn’t deal with someone other than yourself having power.
And now they were here, about to risk their lives, and the scales had been tipped against them because Damon had sold them out to the enemy. If another one of the Grizzlies was hurt tonight—God forbid, if Fiona was hurt tonight—it would be because Damon had given the Feral Fangs the information they needed to prepare for the fight.
He was so angry, suddenly, that the plan flew out of his mind. He knew that he was supposed to wait for Fiona to signal him and the others by howling, but he couldn’t restrain himself. All that mattered was that Damon was standing right in front of him, fragile and human, supremely confident. As if he belonged to these people. As if he had done nothing to feel ashamed of.
With a furious roar, Owen launched himself into the parking lot, straight at his ex-packmate.
It was clear that he hadn’t been expected. Nobody shifted or tried to run. They turned and stared at him in dumb shock as he bowled into Damon, the sheer mass of his bear body knocking his enemy over and sending them both rolling across the lot. A moment later, Owen had his teeth in Damon’s bicep.
Damon let out a weak, pained, human howl.
Owen despised him to his very core. Even the taste of blood, now flooding his mouth, wasn’t enough to get him off his old friend.
Suddenly, from behind, he was struck with a sharp, knifelike pain. He glanced over his shoulder. A wolf had landed on his back and was digging in with its claws, raking open gashes into him. Owen growled and tried to shake the wolf loose, but it clung to him doggedly.
And then, without warning, the parking lot of the motel was full of the smell of blood and the sound of snapping teeth.
In his peripheral vision, he could see that more bears had joined the fight. Something struck the wolf on his back, knocking it off of him. Owen stumbled to one side, and Damon scrambled to his feet, shifting as he did so.
Owen dove after Damon again, but this time Damon was ready for
the attack and met him in midair. Their bodies came together hard. Owen clamped his jaw down around Damon’s shoulder, but Damon had managed to bite him in the neck, and they both clung on, shaking their heads, trying to out last the other’s stamina and win the bout.
Owen’s back felt raw and shredded, but he did what he could to ignore that. He focused instead on Damon’s front leg, which gushed blood. Damon seemed unable to put any weight on the limb.
Owen could work with that.
He relaxed his hold for a moment, lulling Damon into a false sense of security. Then, when Damon seemed to be struggling slightly less, he jerked his head hard to one side, flipping his adversary’s body over his injured leg. Damon landed on his back and Owen stepped on his throat, holding him in place.
He looked around.
He accounted for his bears quickly enough. Everyone was still going. Everyone was still fighting.
But there were too many wolves in the lot for him to be sure of who was who.
He couldn’t pick Fiona out of the crowd.
Chapter Eighteen
FIONA
As Owen sprung out of hiding and toward the Feral Fangs, Fiona’s heart felt as if it had stopped in her chest.
What is he doing? That wasn’t the plan! He was supposed to wait for my signal!
But the plan was out the window. Fiona watched in horror as Owen bowled over his old packmate. It only took the rest of the Feral Fangs a minute to adjust to the new reality, and then they had shifted and joined the fray.
There was no way they could stay out of the fight. Fiona knew that if she waited even another minute, the consequences could be dire. Already, one of the enemy wolves had leapt onto Owen’s back and dug in with his claws.
Fiona let out a low howl, signaling the rest of her pack that it was time to attack. Let it be enough.
She had counted on the element of surprise. And they still had it, to a degree, but not to the degree she had hoped for. Owen had blown that, blown it with his stupid, stupid impulse attack. Even as she and the others raced out into the open of the parking lot, the Feral Fangs were wheeling around to face them, ready to meet them head on.