Page 61 of Veil of Shadows

I quickly looked around and saw one of the healers from Voss’s pack swirling her hands around in the air. It kicked up wind all around us, rustling the trees and bending the branches as another gust of wind grew. I watched it churn as I tossed Annabelle over my shoulder. I scrambled to my feet when I saw another child running for the woods. I ran as quickly as possible as another gust of wind damn near knocked me off my feet.

I scooped Billy into my grasp, looking for any other signs of the children.

“Over there!” Billy exclaimed. “Joseph’s on the roof.”

“Alphaaaa!” the poor boy cried as tears wafted down his face.

And that’s when I saw it. A fucking vampire, doing its best to scale the house.

“Joseph!” I shrieked.

Then a cloudy gray wolf from out of nowhere leapt into the air and snatched the vampire off the side of the house. Its white underbelly was the only color on its body as it grasped the vampire in between its fucking teeth and ripped its goddamn head off. I covered Annabelle and Billy’s eyes. Limbs went flying. The head got tossed into the woods. And as the vampire erupted into a cloud of dust, the matching steel gray eyes of that wolf locked with mine.

Ronyn.

Amassive black wolf with piercing blue eyes and that same white underbelly dropped Joseph from its jowls right at my feet.

Dom.

“Thank you,” I said breathlessly as I scooped the kids into my grasp.

One by one, the shifters of my pack came and snatched the children from me. I gazed around at the turmoil raining down on our beautiful solstice celebration, there were whips of blurs all around me. Wolves jumped into the air. Children screamed as they ran for their lives. The blurs rushed around the fire, starving the bonfire of what it needed to keep burning. Tables were overturned with nothing but the gusts of wind from the healer that kept swallowing someone’s fucking fireballs. As the tumultuous roar of the battle grew, I struggled to catch my breath.

It reminded me of the job I left.

Of the job that I abandoned.

Of the job I never wanted to start back at again.

“Alphaaaaaa!”

The shriek turned my head toward a child that wasn’t part of my pack, but I didn’t care. Ronyn’s gray wolf and Dom’s black wolf stuck with me, snatching those blurs right out of the air. I quickly figured out that the blurring motion was nothing more than vampires running at full speed. Running so fast that my human eyes couldn’t perceive anything except their blurred bodies like in the fucking movies. I shook my head as I scooped up the little girl. I raced for another boy that was headed straight for the woods, and the only thing that stopped the boy was Ronyn leaping in front of him at lightning speed.

I scooped up both of the children and put them on Ronyn’s back.

“Get them to safety, now,” I commanded.

And with a nod of his head, he took off as Dom, in his black wolfish form, stalked around me.

“We get the children out of here, understood?” I asked.

He nodded his head before he dipped down, as if bowing to me. It didn’t take me long to straddle his neck, and as I wrapped my hand up in his fur, I held on as tightly as I could.

Then, he took off.

The entire world seemed to be fucking burning as trees smoked in the distance. Dom and I whipped through the chaos, and I reached down for the small hands of children reaching out for the safety of his back. I pulled them onto me and encouraged them to hang on. Dom pivoted on a dime, causing me to wrap my arms around everyone before he came to a grinding halt.

Just as a vampire headed straight for us, another wolf jumped over my head. A rich, dark brown wolf with that same damn underbelly of white. It snatched that vampire right out of the air and I just barely got the kids’ eyes and ears covered before one snap of that wolf’s neck broke the vampire’s back. Dom and this other wolf wrestled with the corpse. I watched in horror as they grabbed either side of the panicked vampire, and its reddened gaze locked with mine.

Then, Dom and the dark brown wolf tore that vampire limb from limb.

When I finally looked up at the other wolf, I found those mischievous green eyes gazing down at me.

“Thank you, Voss,” I said as I reached up and petted him behind his ear.

His eyes closed for just a second before they popped back open. Then, with a nod of his head, he charged back into the battle.

Dom took off around the perimeter.

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