Page 59 of His Prodigal Alpha

“Rex?” he asked.

I opened my mouth to explain the situation, but all that came out was a series of feline yowls and growls.

Fuck, I couldn’t speak.

Panic overtook me.

How could I communicate with him?

“Shift back,” he instructed calmly, but there was obvious concern in his tone.

I hesitated. If I did shift back, would I be able to turn into a puma again? I needed to. Cam’s life was at stake. Instinct told me that I’d be able to do it, if only to save my son.

Wasting precious seconds on concentrating, I thought about what it had felt like to shift and considered how it would feel in reverse. Sure enough, my fur receded, and my bones and organs shrank and morphed back into my biped form.

Before Brandt could say a word, I launched into my panicked explanation. Tears rolled down my cheeks, but I couldn’t care less.

“You need to shift,” I told him. “You need to shift. Fly and find the others. I’ll keep following the babies…” my voicebroke, but I wasn’t going to break down. “Then you find the assholes and track them from above and…do whatever you need to.”

Eat them,I thought viciously.Eat them all.

“Sounds like a plan.” Brandt didn’t hesitate. He ushered me out the door and I focused on shifting back into my mountain lion form again. It came easier, this time. More fluid. Still uncomfortable, but it felt more natural. I feltrightin my cat form.

I didn’t wait for Brandt to shift, pelting in the direction I’d last scented the kids. Later, I would be sure to think about how amazing running in my puma form was. How aerodynamic and sleek I felt. How fast and powerful and graceful I was. But at that moment, I was too focused on finding the assholes who had broken into the Pack Alpha’s home and taken our young.

I had the urge to claw them all to shreds.

Thankfully, I caught up to them within a minute or so of running. I considered myself lucky that they didn’t have any vehicles on Beck’s land, likely having kept their mode of getaway distanced to ensure that their approach went unnoticed.

I clung to shadows, keeping downwind from the large group of wolves and bears and — was that a freakingtiger? The shifted predators surrounded the human contingent: a group of ten men, three carrying the babies while the four surrounding them carried heavy weapons. Three others carried cases which looked large and military-like in nature. I shuddered to think of the kind of weapons that necessitated large cases like that, but it explained their slow progression, at least. I’d been so afraid that my detour would have given them enough of a window to leave with the kids.

Suppressing the urge to growl, I stalked the group and hoped that the dark sky was enough to conceal Brandt when he came looking for the group. I knew he wouldn’t be able to blast them with fire —not while they had the kids hostage— but if they managed to get the babies into a van or something, we’d need him to be able to follow them.

Not that I was planning on letting them get that far.

I hated that I didn’t have a plan, and that I was so terribly outnumbered. I did my best to ignore the human part of my brain, because I was beginning to feel like the worst kind of parent. Cam was only two weeks old, tiny and helpless, and I hadn’t been able to protect him.

If only I had kept him with me downstairs. If only I had thought about better security during events like the pack run. If only—

A blur of gray fur sped past me, the large wolf growling and snapping as it launched itself at the strange shifters. A smaller blur followed it, then a sleek feline form, and a bunch of foxes. Realization struck me that this was my pack and I threw myself into the fray with them, surprised that my senses helped me to distinguish the difference between enemies and foe.

Human voices shouted and then the sound of gunfire burst through the air, making my sensitive ears ring. I flinched, but kept clawing and biting.

The beating of large wings overhead was also a relief, until a glance showed that the humans with the big cases were stopping to assemble large weapons. Somewhere in the human part of my brain, I knew the word for the tubular-looking giant guns, but I was too far gone in my cat form to care for the label. All I knew was that those things would wreak a lot ofhavoc.

The strange wolves and bears provided a furry blockade, making it impossible to get to the cluster of humans in the centre of their circle. I hissed and shrieked the loudest, most intimidatingsounds I could get my vocal chords to manage, swipingdeadly claws to try and break through the furry barricade.

The ground shook as a large dragon landed heavily in the field nearby. His scales were such a dark red that they were almost black, especially when the only light was coming from the stars and moon above us. He stomped forward, lashing his tail to send a number of the unwelcome shifters flying. The humans with guns fired as rapidly as they could at him, but his scales seemed impenetrable. He tilted his head to the sky and roared.

Within moments, another dragon landed at my back, the impact of his landing just as jarring. When I turned to catch a glimpse, I noticed that his scales were a brighter red, the difference noticeable even in the darkness. He was smaller than his brother, too, though he looked just as menacing.

The bright red dragon —Eric, I determined through scent— reached forward and wrapped his clawed hand around three of the attacking wolves, picking them up and flinging them aside with ease. He repeated the action with a bear and a literal handful more wolves, thinning out their defensive line. The bigger, darker dragon (Brandt) did the same where he stood his ground, evening out our pack’s odds significantly.

Until the large-barreled weapons were raised.

I yowled in warning, watching in horror as one of the men fired at Eric. The weapon let out a very sharp, loudbang, the blast from the back of it tearing into the earth behind him. Aspray of dirt and grass flew at the people around him, but I swivelled my head to watch the rocket —there was no other word for it— sail towards Eric.

A single, terrible thought filtered through my mind.

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