Page 79 of Wolf Hunter

Adrenaline shoots through my veins at their nearness. Both my wolf and I stand on edge, poised for action and hoping it isn’t necessary.

“What if I say you aren’t the best wolf for the position?” Crane asks. “There are other wolves who are stronger and more qualified, more capable of protecting us. Why do you think we’ve lost so many of us over the years? It’s because no one can stand the way you lead.”

I punch him square in the jaw, and even though I know resorting to violence is not the answer, my wolf demands blood. It demands retribution for those terrible dark words.

“Back down,” I order.

My heart twists up, punching at the back of my throat—maybe one of them will have some sense and end this before it begins.

Crane stares up at me from the floor, with blood trailing from his split lip and venom in his eyes. “No.”

“We’re not going to let you lead us to ruin,” Emily adds.

I spin on my toe to growl as her and Crane attack, leaping on me when my back is turned and burying their claws into my skin.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demand.

The two share a look. “We’re making sure we survive,” Emily answers.

I have never considered Crane or Emily to be a threat. I never looked their way outside of that first day of searching through rooms with Tasha. And to be honest, I’d been distracted. With my focus on Julius and the note from my father…

I should have expanded my focus.

Roaring, I knock Crane into the wall to try to dislodge him. He clings to me, biting down with a half-shifted head until pain explodes through me.

Emily takes the opportunity to swipe across my midsection when I swivel around. Her claws slash, parting my shirt and my skin in one go. Two on one. It’s a dirty, underhanded fucking tactic.

And she’s much faster than I am. She charges me like mad, and I see a hunger in her gaze I’d never noticed before. My heart thunders as I try to get around them, dodging both wolves and the kitchen furniture now-turned obstacle course.

Crane tackles me, his arms locking around my throat with crushing strength. “Stop, Reid,” he manages to get out.

I somehow throw up my hands and block his next attack by swinging us both forward so that we roll across the floor.

Crane fights hard and dirty. He snatches my wrists and tries to break my bones, snarling ferociously as he lunges again and again. His weight falls hard on me and slams both of us back, to the point where I lose my breath.

I swing an elbow up to his face and nail him right in the jaw.

Crane might be down, but he doesn’t stay that way. Emily holds out a hand to help him to his feet as I scramble away. He and Emily round on me with their wolves pressing against the surface of their human skin, ready to burst out.

“How long have you felt this way?” I ask, half-strangled. I press my hand to the wound on my stomach, but it does nothing to ease the pain.

“For too long,” she answers for both of them. “You are no longer fit to lead.”

“You’re going to have to prove that to me, then.”

She charges immediately. Changing midleap, the large brown wolf lands where I’d been crouched down a moment before. I’m not fast enough stepping away, and she gets me with her hind claws on the landing. Then, whirling with her mouth open, she snaps down to get any piece of me she can bite.

Grimacing, I try to keep my back to the walls and my focus on the two of them.

They obviously planned this attack. Where is the rest of the pack? Why aren’t they responding to the noise?

And do they feel the same way as these two?

“What are you going to do now?” Crane asks. He holds his arms out to the side. “Huh?”

I shift.

I don’t know what else to do, and so I give way to instinct. My wolf pushes through with the same feral glee it felt when we caught a whiff of Tasha in the cemetery. Only then, we’d operated without recognition on some level.

---