Page 2 of Sapphire Flame
Before Five Bridges, he’d always been looking up. The stars were his world. Now it was the earth, sand, and the view of the pine forest path as he raced on four paws. Or like now, as he stared down into a battle-focused sandpit.
After a moment, it occurred to him that Ryan had fallen silent. His wolf instincts began rumbling. He sensed his friend was holding back.
He turned once more and met Ryan’s dark eyes, they were nearly black as coal, like his hair. “Tell me.”
Ryan lifted his chin. “You’ll find out anyway, but dammit, Grant, don’t let this get to you. Please. Because it’s bad.”
“Just say it.”
Ryan lowered his voice. “Kryder got to the youngest female before we could. She was torn up as all hell when we bundled her into the van. He’d raped her viciously and used his claws to hold her in place. He’d bit her several times, ripping muscle and flesh from both shoulders.”
Grant’s thigh muscles twitched, and his rage came to life like an engine that had been idling until a foot suddenly slammed down on the accelerator.
He was looking down. For six long, battle-filled years, he’d been looking down.
Down at the dead and dying when he was on patrol.
Down at the sand where he tried to give the women skills to survive.
Down at the earth as he levitated and moved across Savage Territory looking for rogue wolves intent on killing.
Down into his burrow where he lived his secluded life below the earth’s surface, where there were no windows to see the stars when night fell.
The part of him that was still, and would always be human, hated this view.
He’d stared down at his wife’s brutalized body when she’d been mauled in the Graveyard. He’d held her as she died. She’d told him to be strong and to watch his temper, that the women of the pack would need his vigilance, his protection and for him to stay alive.
But it was all low and brutal.
The young woman Kryder had just raped was only eighteen, a month into heraltertransformation which she’d barely survived.
Ryan gripped Grant’s arm and squeezed hard. “She’ll have a chance now. She’s safe. Let it go.”
He’d seen Kryder working his wiles on the three women, but he thought he’d been in time.
“He’s provoking you.” Ryan said, his steely fingers digging in hard. “You know he is. He did this to get you to react, but if you do, you’ll die.”
Rage had Grant in its grip. He wanted Kryder dead. “He’s never been this blatant.”
“My point exactly. This was meant to get you to call him out. He wants you in the sandpit, so he can finish you off legally.”
Something was eating at Kryder, more than usual. Whenever he saw Grant, he started yelling at him, cursing him, trying to get him to offer a challenge.
Whatever had him on edge, the pack felt it as well. Tempers ran short. Fights broke out. Shouting matches. Wolf battles involving claws and deep gashes. Order had become increasingly difficult to maintain.
Across the upper row of seats, from an opposite entrance, a way-too-familiar voice drew his attention. “You’ve gone too far this time, asshole.”
Kryder. And he was in rage.
“Speak of the devil,” Ryan muttered.
The sound of the alpha’s voice caused the wolves in the sandpit to stop what they were doing, shift back to their human form, then to assume submissive poses with heads bowed. The scattered spectators rose to their feet and did the same.
Grant shot a telepathic message to Ryan.Get the hell out of here so Kryder won’t turn on you. I want you gone before he thinks to vent his rage on you instead of me.He’d lost count of the number of times Kryder had beat up Ryan in the hopes of forcing a dominance challenge out of Grant. Those were the worst for him. But each time, Ryan would be yelling at him telepathically to hold his own for the sake of the pack.
Ryan said,For the love of God, don’t lose your shit.
I won’t.
