Page 66 of Pack Captive

Instead of biting down, it began to drag me away.

Just like the other wolf.

I couldn't distract Ryden from the seething fight, not when his distraction might cost him his life. This one was on me.

I dug my claws in the dirt, ignoring the sharp pain as I tore myself out of its mouth. There would be scars on my back from this night.

The shadow wolf slunk around me, looking for a weak spot, but the dark moon's power was brimming over. If there was one night when I didn't have a weakness, it was tonight.

I darted at it, landing a shallow bite on its thigh, then circled around.

Why did it seem so hesitant to attack me? Nothing about their behavior made sense.

It was almost like it would let me kill it before actually trying to hurt me.

I had zero issues with using that to my advantage, and decided to press it, to see if I could make it snap.

On my next lunge, my teeth buried themselves in its throat.

It tried to drag me backwards, and we were nearly hidden in the trees of the forest when I finally bit down.

The wolf shuddered, then went limp in my jaws.

It made no fucking sense at all. It had allowed me to take its life instead of fighting back.

I dropped the corpse and stepped back, looking at it like I'd see the answer written on it somewhere.

To all appearances, it was the exact same kind of shadow wolf as all the others before it...

I felt the eyes on my back before I heard the soft growl from the darkness.

My entire body froze, my ears alert for any sounds as I realized with a cold chill that I'd separated from the pack during the fight.

I was alone at the edge of the forest, with nothing but a corpse for company. The sounds of the fighting pack were distant, and all my senses strained for what was in the forest.

There was something in there. Probably another shadow wolf...but would it attack, or exhibit the same strange behavior as these other two?

But nothing lunged out at me. Several tense minutes stretched into a small eternity, and the sensation of being watched slowly faded.

The fur along my spine was still standing straight up as I turned towards the field, and found my glowing pack heaping the bodies of the dead shadow wolves like cordwood.

I dragged my own kill over as Ryden separated from them.

He was panting, dripping blood with his teeth still painted red, but his blue eyes were alert.

They're all dead, he said, and Calian appeared on his other side like a dark shadow.

Good work, he said appreciatively, looking at the body of the wolf I'd killed.

It didn't fight back, I told Calian, nudging the body towards the pile.Why is that?

Several of the Warriors had shifted back to their human bodies and were lighting the corpses on their sad pyre.

Maybe it was a defective shadow, Calian said, his tone suspiciously neutral.

The dead wolves crumbled to ash as I watched, then I glanced back at the forest.

The watcher was definitely gone, but I was beyond sure that another wolf had been out there with me, and it hadn't been one from my pack.

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