Rage descended over Dakota in a red haze. She lunged through the air, shifting, and slammed into Maureen, who’d already gone wolf. Before she could tear Maureen’s throat out, her head exploded with pain.
Ludwik was there.
She felt as if a bomb had gone off in her head as she fell over and lost consciousness.
* * * * *
Anders paced next to Miles, keeping a wary eye on his Alpha Prime.
Miles was wild with rage. One of the shifters from the east had just abandoned his own pack and come to deliver the news – Jamie, or whatever her real name was, had been taken from him. Ludwik had her.
Anders was afraid that the news had sent Miles over the edge. Normally Miles would be making plans, rallying the troops, telling them where to go and what to do, but now he was half hairy, fangs descended, and growling incoherently. This was not good. They needed their leader to be clear-headed.
The downtown area was swarming with shifters now, ready to move on the eastern territory.
“The newcomers,” Baldwin was saying urgently. “Their Alpha Prime needs to talk to you.”
“My mate,” Miles growled, swatting at him impatiently. “We need to get to her, now.” Miles seemed incapable of listening to reason.
Baldwin and Anders exchanged glances of alarm.
Baldwin put his hand on Miles’ arm. “Sir, the Alpha Prime who just arrived really —”
Miles exploded with rage, shoving Baldwin so hard that he slammed into a wall. Other shifters around them looked at Miles in shock.
Anders struggled not to panic. They were on the verge of losing Miles – and if they lost him, they lost everything. The other shifters wouldn’t follow a crazed feral into battle – they needed a leader they could trust.
“Hey!” An enormous, burly Alpha Prime barreled through the crowd and stepped right in front of Miles. “You know where my daughter is. Dakota. You’re her mate?”
“We need to get her now!” Miles tried to push past the Alpha Prime, who grabbed him.
Miles spun around to face him and sent out a wave of rage that knocked everyone close to him to their knees, and Anders’ heart sank. They were surely doomed.
But the Alpha Prime responded with an answering wave of dominance. He withheld his rage, and forced back Miles’ fury. Another shifter stood beside him, white-faced and shaking, and Anders realized that he was an Omega and he was helping the older man calm Miles down.
Baldwin, groaning, crawled over and joined in. He absorbed Miles’s rage and madness, sucking it into himself, and finally the two Omegas together managed to achieve their goal. Miles stepped back, panting for breath. Both Omegas looked sick and shaken.
“I’m sorry, Baldwin,” he choked out.
“No fucking time for apologies,” the older Alpha growled. His eyes were blazing with rage, and tufts of fur sprouted on his face and hands. His claws were out, and the bones under his skin were shifting, making cracking noises as his wolf fought for freedom. “I’m Brandon Sheffield. I’m going to get my daughter back and kill the people who took her. Are you with me or against me?”
“With you,” Miles said.
“Then wolf up, quit acting batshit crazy, and let’s go. I hear you claimed her.”
“Yes.” Miles nodded. “She’s mine.”
“We’ll see about that,” Brandon said. “But right now, let’s bring her home.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Fenris Pack and Brandon’s men ran together towards the eastern territory, massed ranks of fur and claw and fury. They were joined by Anthea and Bryant and a dozen other bears from the Stoney Creek Clan. Brandon, running in human form, gave Anthea the side-eye.
“Sure you can keep up?” he called over the howls of the pack.
Anthea snorted. “A bear can run at forty miles an hour. Eat my dust, old man.”
Fur exploded over her body and she morphed into a mountain of a beast, dropping to all fours and charging ahead, unstoppable as a juggernaut. Brandon gave a startled laugh, then went wolf and sprinted after her.
At the boundary to the eastern territory, the wolves and bears slowed their advance. Miles sniffed the air and growled when he scented Dakota. She was close. Brandon stepped up beside him, and Anders flanked him on the other side. At their backs stood a shifter army come to claim back one of its own.
A large brindled wolf slunk out of the treeline. Ludwik. Miles could feel the waves of Alpha power rolling off him. It gave him a taste of the man’s strength…and of his weaknesses. He was arrogant. All ego.
He was joined by a wolf Miles recognized as Fargo, then by a pair of she-wolves. The smaller of the two was whining with excitement, and when Brandon uttered a low, rolling growl, Miles realized she must be the traitor in the pack. More wolves joined Ludwik and Fargo. Dozens of them. Half a dozen bears lumbered from the undergrowth. One of them reared back on its hind legs and bellowed a bone-shaking challenge.