Lee's little wolf blazed through the madness like a missile. If I didn't have longer legs than her, she'd be hella hard to catch. Once I was close enough, I nudged her haunches with my snout. She stole a panicked glance over her shoulder and then slowed. We headed to the forest for coverage, though the onslaught was abounding everywhere around us. We both shifted back to our humans, though I felt immediately vulnerable and displaced.
"What happened?" I demanded. "What the hell is going on?"
"Ambush," she panted, sweat rolling down her red face. "Several packs flooded the field . . . I don't know."
"An ambush?" I looked around with a growl. "Who would ambush us?"
"There have been many uprisings since Basileus took over." She swallowed and, grabbing my arm, tugged us behind a thick pine.
Three wolves came galloping by with blood matting their coats. Once they had passed, she released me.
"We had security measures for this—Tandan made sure of it," she told me. "We weren't expecting a horde, though. Where is he? Where's Basileus?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "He told me to find you and get to safety."
"You want to? Run?"
It was something I'd been thinking about since he ordered me.
"No," I decided. "I want to find whoever coordinated this."
A smile spread across her face. "Good. Let's go. Whoever it is is probably not in the mix. Let's circle around."
We shifted back and took off into the trees. I tried to see a difference between the wolves who were here to celebrate and those who were here to attack. There weren't any, as far as I could tell. How was I supposed to know who to attack?
My anxiety began to unfold as we continued around the field, dodging razored teeth and puncturing claws. The slain bodies were rising in count. This had to come to an end. I looked for the massive black figure while searching for someone who looked in charge. Basileus was nowhere to be seen. A drop of lead fell in my gut. Something was wrong. Once we had circled the whole field, we shifted back in a quiet space amongst the trees.
"They aren't here," I said. "Something is wrong. I can feel it."
The dread was worsening by the second. Now it felt like I was weighed down by a box of gravel.
"Me too." Lee sniffed at the air. "There's too many damn wolves. I can't make out Tandan or Basileus."
"I bet wherever they are is where the leader of this chaos is."
She nodded, eyes darting about in panic. I closed my eyes and tried to think. The leader probably did something to isolate Basileus, to get him away from everyone else. They wanted to divert the attention of everyone who would protect him. But they could have left in any direction. There was nothing around for miles.
"I have an idea," Lee suddenly spoke. "There's a waterfall two-ish miles East. It's connected to a hiking trail that leads out to the main road. It would be easy for them to have come that way. Maybe they took our boys to the waterfall. Maybe they aren't trying to kill them, just take them hostage."
This didn't strike me as a hostage situation. I was certain someone came here to kill Basileus. But, at that moment, I just needed to see him. I fully intended to rip the jugular from whoever coordinated this. It seemed I would be taking more life today, after all.
"Follow," Lee said as she shifted into her wolf.
I followed after her. We covered the two miles quickly and separated just before the waterfall, to prevent us both from being ambushed again. I came in from the North, she came in from the West. The slashing jumble of the falls made it difficult to hear, even with my sensitive ears. When I could see the white budding of the water, I slowed. Voices reached me.
"We don't want a ruler!" screamed someone. A woman. "We have been content for hundreds of years. The last thing we want is a dictator. Our ancestors ousted the last of your kind for a reason!"
I crept closer. There were seven bodies standing near the top of the falls. Two women, three men, Basileus and Tandan in his wolf form. Tandan snapped his jaws at them. Basileus puffed up his shoulders and flashed his teeth. Why wasn't he charging them? He and Tandan could take five people. The terrorists moved in and my boys backed away. One of Tandan's back paws slipped off an edge rock of the waterfall, sending the rock plummeting into the turbulent white water.
Lee's light brown figure darted out of the forest from the other side. She growled like a rabid animal out for blood. Launching herself across the river, she attacked the nearest man. The others broke their formation in surprise. I took advantage of the moment to creep out from the shrubbery. Basileus' head snapped in my direction. Tandan leaped at one of the other men.
Snarling, I jumped onto the other woman and clamped my jaws around her neck. She screamed. The pulse of her life filled my mouth. I dug my claws into her legs, shredding the meat all the way down to the ankle. She writhed and screamed more until I jerked my jaw to the side and snapped her head clean off her neck. I fell to the ground on top of her limp body.
Basileus meanwhile tore the heart out of one of the men while the remaining two had shifted into wolves. They were being circled by Lee and Tandan, but clearly knew their chances were out.
"There will be more coming," Basileus gruffed at me. He was favoring one of his legs and breathing rather hard.
I went to move closer, to inspect him, when a gun fired. The crack was so deafening that the pain in my neck felt delayed. My body instinctively whipped toward the source of pain, towards my attacker. Basileus was already charging into the trees with a bellow of fury. I commanded my body to follow him but I instead took one step and crumpled into the ground. More loud thunderclaps sounded.
What the fuck? Why was this shit always happening to me?
A hand pushed into the fur on my ribcage. My eyes cracked open to confirm the familiar scent. Lee squatted beside me. She looked elsewhere, her blazing eyes hard, before turning down to me. I pushed my face into the earth and attempted to use that as leverage for the rest of my body.
"Easy, easy," she gently scolded. Her hands parted my fur where I could feel blood spilling out of my back. "The bullet is inside you. It didn't touch your spine, but it might have punctured an organ. We've got to get you help."
The lodged bullet explained why it felt like there was a small fire building in my right side. If the thing hadn't touched my spine, why the hell couldn't I walk? My attention snapped. The smell of blood perfused Lee's. It wasn't just my blood though. I hadn't noticed when she first settled next to me. Lifting my head, I tried to look at her. My eyes were shifting in and out of focus. Still, I could make out the thick scarlet liquid dripping down her arm. My gaze followed the stream up, up, up to her face. All the parts were still there though.
"Asshole grazed my scalp," she said.
That rage I felt from the field when that wolf was chasing her bubbled up inside me again. No one was going to mess with my people. My pack. One grunt and I fought the explosion of agony to shove off the ground. My paws wobbled beneath me.
Lee fisted a hand in my fur without applying any real force. The wind might have blown me over, honesty.
"No," she said, "you need to lay down."
Shaking her off, I used the rage to outsource the pain. Walking didn't hurt so much but breathing did. Every breath felt like a saw ripping through my lungs. I ignored the possible implications of that. Basileus and Tandan were gone but I could smell blood and see speckles of it dappling the grass and fallen leaves.
Are we going to die today? Is this all it would take?
Lee shifted and moved at my pace. Her eyes moved constantly, searching for more enemies. Mine were narrowed on the trees. My legs obliged to a trot. I felt a flaming whip flay my innards. My head spun. Fuck dying like this. I would see my Beast one more goddamn time. And, if I could help it, I would kill another fucker.
The wind shifted and carried a striking scent to us. Lee and I both halted. My body swayed. I held the scented wind in my mouth, tasting it. The body it belonged to was familiar but not hardly. A man stepped into view. One of his eyes was nothing but a bloody socket. Claw marks marred his flesh. He was tall and lean, probably quite strong for a man. I knew immediately he was the wolf I had chosen not to kill.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He raised an arm. There was a very heavy-looking handgun in his grip. Aimed at me. Lee lunged a step with a ferocious growl. She wasn't warning, she was threatening. I tried to growl with her but the sound nearly made my lungs cave in. I buckled down to one leg. Lee's growl intensified.
As I looked up for what I expected to be the last time, my hazy peripheral vision noticed a black blur shifting between the trees. And then, just when the man heard movement, Basileus locked his fangs around the man's head and crushed his skull. He wasted no time in tossing the corpse aside. His glowing eyes met mine. My vision darkened and then, at last, went out.