Miles and his men were badly outnumbered.
They leaped into the fray.
The clearing turned into a snarling tangle of brawling shifters.
Anders and Baldwin threw themselves at a bear, gouging at its flanks with their jaws. The beast roared and flung Baldwin across the clearing, where he rolled to a halt and lay still. There was a furious snarl from a coyote, and Naomi barreled into the fight. She wasn’t strong, but she was persistent…and she was furious. Baldwin bounded back across the clearing barking ferociously at the lumbering bear. It staggered on its paws, beginning to tire.
Miles snapped and snarled, rolling over and over, trying to gain the advantage over the wolf he was fighting. He raked bloody gouges across his opponent’s snout with his teeth, and when it fell back whimpering, he went for the throat.
Anthea was tossing wolves around like ragdolls. Brandon, in human form and bloody to the elbows, watched in admiration as she ripped a wolf’s head clear off its body with a brutal swipe of a paw the size of a hubcap.
“That woman’s a dangerous maniac,” he said to nobody in particular. “A total berserker. I like her.”
But despite the brutal strength of the Stoney Creek Bears and the fierce determination of Dakota’s friends, Miles and Brandon’s men were being beaten back by sheer numbers.
More than one shifter was in human form, with the limp shape of a bleeding friend thrown over their shoulder, trying to get them back to neutral ground so they could heal. A bloody black trail bisected the clearing where a dying wolf had dragged himself away from the battle.
Brandon was uninjured and Miles had already healed an ugly wound from where a bear had raked its massive claws across his chest, but even with their Alpha Prime strength, they couldn’t hold back the onslaught alone.
But then a tawny-furred wolf came running out of the woods, snarling. Creel. He was huge, standing head and shoulders above the wolves that followed him. A force to be reckoned with. He met Miles’s gaze and nodded his shaggy head, and Miles realized that Creel was there to fight by his side. That was all Dakota, he realized – if it weren't for her, Creel would have sat back and watched both sides tear each other to pieces. His men were scrappy and undisciplined, but tough. They were used to fighting for survival. Creel howled defiance and, along with his men, the Fenris Pack renewed its assault.
Slowly but surely, the tide began to turn. Miles ripped out an attacker’s throat, then turned snarling on a she-wolf, his muzzle bloody and mad fury in his eyes. She ran yelping into the woods, tail between her legs and ears flattened against her skull.
But then the undergrowth rustled and swayed, and Ludwik dragged Dakota into the clearing. He was flanked on either side by a skinny, pretty blonde girl and a middle-aged woman with features so similar that she had to be her mother. Half a dozen huge male wolves were ranked behind them. They let out a constant rolling growl that curled through the clearing like poisonous smoke.
Blood trickled from the corner of Dakota’s mouth, and an angry red-purple bruise bloomed over her cheekbone. Her arms were twisted awkwardly behind her back – she must be bound with silver-threaded rope so she couldn’t shift. But she was alive. Alive and only a hundred yards away.
“Watch her die!” screamed the older woman. She raised a silver knife and plunged it towards Dakota’s chest.
A hundred yards might as well have been a hundred miles. There was no way Miles could reach her before the silver pierced her heart and she bled out on the forest floor.
But Ludwik caught the woman’s wrist with a meaty smack, giving it a painful twist. She whimpered but didn’t resist.
“I call for immediate surrender,” Ludwik bellowed. “Or the bitch dies.”
Miles knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Ludwik would kill Dakota either way. He looked desperately at Brandon and saw the same knowledge in his eyes. There was only one way out of this.
“Together?” he asked the older man.
Brandon inclined his head gravely. “Together.”
Standing shoulder to shoulder, they concentrated, sending out waves of anger and dominance. It blasted across the clearing like a shockwave. Most of the wolves yelped and fled. One fell to the floor, spasming among the leaves as the power of the Alpha Primes’ rage sent him into a seizure. The two women crumpled to the floor, covering their ears. Ludwik staggered…but he didn’t fall. He was strong.
It would work. It had to work.
Miles and Brandon redoubled their efforts, but despite the blood running from his eyes, Ludwik grinned ferociously and stayed on his feet. He started to laugh.
He didn’t laugh for long. Creel stepped up beside them and added his own Alpha strength to the waves of power being directed at Ludwik, and his laughter was choked off. His arrogant grin turned into a rictus of horror. He seized his head between his hands, screaming with agony, then collapsed to the floor, vomiting stinking black blood.