Page 94 of The Weakest Wolf

In what was once an almost-black early morning, the sun rises in the distance, revealing more dead wolf bodies, more bright splashes of blood.

One by one, the Stone pack dies under the pressure of my teeth and the slash of my claws.

None of them deserve any mercy, so I give them none.

How Bowen convinced the pack to unite like this is no great mystery. Right from the start, he seemed to be alpha in all but name.

He must’ve been waiting for his chance all this time, and then I walk in and steal the job away from right under his nose.

A heavy reddish-brown wolf lunges for my throat and I bat his attack aside, following it up with a lunge of my own. My teeth clamp down and blood fills my mouth.

As I release his body, claws rake my side, opening me up almost to the bone. Snarling in pain and fury, I spin.

The wolf’s scent warns me who it is. Bowen. But before I can take one step after the black and reddish furred wolf, he melts into the mass of wolves around me, and I lose all sight of him.

Fuck.

If anyone needs to die, it’s him. But bunched in as I am by an ever-moving, snarling wall of wolves who all want me dead, there’s no way I can go after him. Not yet. Not until I’ve cut the Stone pack’s numbers by more than I have already.

When another slash opens up my left side, I turn and slash back. My claws rake a white-brown wolf across the face, and with a whimper of pain, he backs up and disappears when other wolves push toward me.

They pair up, and then they strike. I kill one, but every wolf that I strike down leaves me with another wound that I can’t heal fast enough before I’m facing off against the latest attack.

I take every spare second to search for any weakness I can exploit. And then I strike. Again and again.

Those I injured badly stumbled away, maybe to heal, maybe to die. I count twenty bodies at my feet. But now these bodies are a new danger, obstacles I need to watch because if I go down, there’s no guarantee I’ll be getting back up again.

Twenty bodies aren’t nearly enough.

Not after all they did to Sierra.

I seize another wolf by his throat and bite down hard. A whimper later, and he’s dead at my feet. Spinning, I brush aside the wolf who rakes my back to take down another before he can lunge.

It’s impossible to know how many more I can kill before they get me. Already, blood loss is slowing me down enough that I can feel it.

Maybe ten, maybe more.

They put Sierra, Eden, and Melody through too much for me to be satisfied yet, so I ramp up my attack and go at them even harder. More have to die. A lot more.

The attacks are unceasing now. It’s a constant wave that goes on and on.

I stop feeling the wounds. I can no longer even smell my blood. It hangs so heavy in the air, merging with all the blood from the rest of the Stone pack.

But I never stop fighting, even as the sun climbs higher into the sky.

Not even when my attacks slow.

There’s only so much one man, one wolf, can do, and I’m reaching the end of my limits.

I don’t get out of the way of another lunging attack, and it opens up my shoulder. Staggering hard under the blow, I barely—just barely—stay on my feet.

I’m running out of juice.

There are still too many of them alive.

But Sierra got away, and Dom will give her the sort of life she should’ve had all this time.

The next attack sends me crashing to the ground.

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