Page 84 of Dawn of the Pack

“That doesn’t excuse you torturing your pack to get them to shift. Whatever your intentions, you’ve abused their trust horribly. You have no business being alpha.”

“Oh, and you do? A teenage girl who relies on her hormones more than the experience she clearly lacks?”

I snarl. “I’m not interested in trading insults with you. Concede, and I’ll allow you to remain in Montrose. That’s the best offer you’ll receive.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I will kill you. You seem to be under the delusion that I’m incapable, but I will do anything to protect my pack. Montrose is also my pack, and I will protect them from you.”

“You don’t have it in you, little girl. You weren’t raised with our ways; your soft human heart won’t be able to kill me.”

Fury ripples under my skin, and I tighten my jaw, teeth scraping against the bones in his neck and cutting off his air supply.

“I don’t have it in me, huh?” I think savagely. “Do you really want to test that theory?”

Nielsen’s wolf body twitches, his paws kicking feebly in an instinctive fight to free himself and breathe.

He holds out longer than I expected, but he eventually emits a low whine.

I ease my clenched teeth apart a millimeter, snarling, and he understands my meaning. This time the whine is louder, audible to the surrounding wolves. Howls of joy rise from my pack, and I refocus on Nielsen.

“You have tonight to get your things and move out of this house. I will send my pack inside your little dungeon to free everyone inside, including Derrek. Don’t even think about interfering or I will kick you out of the pack.”

With that final thought I release him, lashing my tongue against my teeth to scrape off the coating of blood and fur from holding him so long.

I pause for just a moment, observing the joyful crowd of wolves and searching for my mates. As much as I want to stay and celebrate, I need to go free Derrek, now.

I spin in circles, uselessly, unable to find them. I know their wolf faces as well as their human ones, but I don’t see them in the raucous crowd. There are people still in human form, wading among the wolves. Some stark naked and some still in clothes. It’s absolute chaos, and panic rises in my chest.

Where the hell are my mates?

I should have known not to turn my back on a man like Nielsen. But some part of me believed, or at least hoped, that he had some honor, however twisted it might be.

Turns out, that mistaken belief was enough to get me killed.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Derrek

Even barefoot, I burst through the door at full speed and race around the corner, barely feeling the icy gravel beneath my feet. I’m unprepared for the cold, but it doesn’t matter.

He will not kill Lilliana. I won’t let him.

I’m fully unprepared for the sight that greets me when I reach the front of the house. As far as the eye can see into the darkness, and in pools of streetlights far below, are wolves. Packed tightly against each other, apparently just… waiting?

The sound of snarling reaches my ears, and I turn sharply to my left. There’s an open space in the massive crowd, a circle made of living fence, occupied by two wolves.

One has the other’s throat clenched in its jaws, and it snarls periodically, shaking its limp opponent and attempting to secure a whine of surrender. I may not have grown up as part of the pack, but my mom taught me about their ways. I know what’s happening here.

I force my way toward the fight, squeezing my legs between the tightly packed wolves. At first I can’t tell who’s who; I’ve never seen either of them in wolf form. There’s no clue from the surrounding wolves, since they’re all staring intently at the fight and I don’t even know which side any of them are on, either.

But something, some instinct, tells me that the standing wolf, the one whose fur is so matted with blood I can’t really determine its natural color, is Lilliana. When she moves her head, I glimpse her glowing green eyes, and know without a doubt that I’m right.

She has the death grip on Nielsen’s throat, whose belly is a mess of red. As I get closer, I can tell she ripped into him savagely. He’s barely in one piece, so injured his body is struggling to heal despite his magical wolf properties.

Like the surrounding furry crowd, I pause, waiting for something to happen.

There seems to be a battle of wills going on. Lilliana occasionally shakes Nielsen or growls, and he replies with an answering snarl, but refuses to whine. The tension is thick in the air, everyone waiting, practically breathless, to catch the high-pitched tone that will signal the end of the fight.

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