Page 57 of Defeated

If I cause more whispers, I don’t hang around long enough to hear them.

Zoe’s scent is fresh. Fresher still are the two shifters so close on her tail. Their scents converge at a broken iron fence. Small tufts of gray fur pinpoint where she went, and torn scraps of clothes reveal the two men chasing her followed.

The gap is small. Too small for me to have attempted to squeeze through for anything less than an emergency. I force my larger body through it, leaving my dark brown fur in the fence.

It’s only once I’m through that I spot a car parked at the edge of the factory, its doors wide open, and unfamiliar shifter scents headed toward the factory’s open shutters. I don’t know how many went in there, but too many for Zoe to fight off on her own.

Did they lead Zoe here to ambush her?

It looks like they might have.

I sprint toward the abandoned factory, hoping I’m not too late.

Just inside the dust-filled rank-smelling space, I spot the piled up clothes hastily tossed aside. I sniff five, maybe even six males, all headed in the same direction Zoe took, deeper into the factory.

I’m halfway up a set of broken stairs, taking them three at a time, when a wolf snarls in pain. It’s followed seconds later by a female whimper.

Zoe.

I’m running so fast, I skid past an open door and ram the doorway when I change direction.

Inside a dark dusty room with a piece of heavy machinery taking up most of the space, a lean gray wolf lies pinned to the ground. She’s wrestling to get free from under a large, heavy black wolf.

Zoe.

Even if she got free, she wouldn’t get out, because four wolves stand between her and freedom. They swing around to face me, silver eyes glinting as they peel their lips from their teeth in soundless snarls.

Behind them, the wolf is trying to bite Zoe’s throat, as she does everything to evade his claiming bite.

A red mist fills my mind.

I don’t recall moving.

It’s only when bone snaps and a wolf howls that I realize I slammed right through the wolves blocking me from Zoe and smashed into the shifter trying to bite her. The black wolf doesn’t stay down for long, and soon we’re wrestling across the dusty floor.

Zoe has stopped whimpering. When a wolf growls in pain, I risk a rapid glance back. She’s on her feet, fighting with two of the wolves.

Pride at her fighting spirit briefly settles over me, and then a claw slashes my side. I snarl. Then I return to wrestling with the black wolf. The wound isn’t deep, and other than a brief flare of pain, it’s easy to ignore.

We wrestle across the dust covered floor, each of us briefly gaining the upper hand and then losing it. And then I see an opening. One brief second, and I take it, lunging forward. I snap my teeth around the wolf’s throat, bite down until blood fills my mouth and he stops moving.

Releasing the wolf as I stand, I swing around.

Zoe is still fighting, but from her heavy panting, she’s tired. I stalk toward her, never taking my eyes off the five wolves slowly circling her, and I put myself between them and her.

Even if it kills me, they will not put one claw on her.

The wolves sneer, chuffing as if they think they’ve already won.

They haven’t.

I snarl at them, brace myself to attack when I hear clicks on the stairs.

If I was human, I’d be smiling because these wolves just lost their advantage, and I strongly suspect Colton did a shit load of speeding to get here this fast.

One wolf senses the danger they’re in before the others, swinging to the doorway.

Too late.

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