Taken by storm(82)

No. I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t lose him, too.

“Are you saying you can’t take me on your own?” With the skill of younger siblings everywhere, Devon delivered the taunt with one arched eyebrow. “Are you saying you’re scared to accept the challenge of fighting me head-on?”

That was the magic word.

Challenge. Challenge. Challenge.

I could feel it, in the air. My pack could feel it. The Snake Bend Pack could, too. Devon wasn’t one of them, but he’d challenged their alpha.

There was a reason that people from different packs weren’t generally allowed to challenge each other.

A challenge to the alpha was always settled with a fight to the death.

Driven by instinct, the Snake Bend werewolves circled the two brothers. Lake, Caroline, and I joined them, and I found myself standing directly between Griffin—who’d chosen to manifest—and Maddy, who appeared to have survived the journey unscathed.

Challenge.

Devon and Shay were standing four or five yards apart, mirror images: taller, bigger, broader through the shoulders than any normal Were. Dev looked old for his age—maybe twenty—and Shay looked less than a decade older, despite his many years.

Fight. Fight. Fight.

I couldn’t interfere, couldn’t fight beside Devon, no matter how much I wanted to. All I could do was open the bond between us as wide as I could, willing my strength to flow into his body, willing my love to spare him from harm.

Without any forewarning, Shay attacked. The space between them disappeared to nothing, and an iron-hard fist crashed into Dev’s jaw. He fought back, and I focused on the fight, pushing out any thoughts that might distract my best friend from the battle at hand.

The two warriors were nothing but a blur. I couldn’t make out where Dev’s limbs ended and Shay’s began. I heard each impact more than I saw it. I smelled blood in the air. I felt energy, running electric through the rest of my pack.

The rest of Shay’s.

Tell Devon that he’s the only thing I ever did right. Sora’s words echoed in my mind. You’re it for him. You always have been.

In the circle, Devon was on the ground. He was still. Bones broken, bleeding, he spat. He struggled against his own body—he fought to stand, to keep fighting.

I’d never done a thing to deserve Devon.

All that I had, all that I was—I gave it to him, the way he had always, always given everything to me.

Shay Shifted—not entirely, but in monstrous parts. His mouth grew into a muzzle, his fingers into claws. His spine broke itself, his body caught in between the human’s form and the wolf’s. There was no beauty in this moment, nothing natural or animal or right.

This was Shay, looking as monstrous on the surface as he was at his core.

He loped toward Devon. He swung one massive hand back to strike the death blow.

Devon rolled forward, into a squatting position. He met Shay’s eyes, and instead of dodging the blow, he sprang toward it, Shifting midair. The change was fluid and instant. As monstrous as Shay was, Devon was beautiful.

Powerful.

And unlike Shay, he had something to fight for—someone. As Dev’s wolf body collided with his brother’s, as the two of them fell to the ground and Devon grappled for position, as his jaws closed around Shay’s neck, the only thing in his mind was me.

Looking eerily like his mother in posture and motion, Devon went for Shay’s throat.

Teeth bit through inhuman skin—deeper and deeper. Shay fought, his claws digging into Devon’s stomach, but Dev never let go.

He bit until he hit bone.

He bit through bone.

He didn’t stop—not when Shay’s arms dropped to his side, not when he stopped moving, stopped fighting.

My best friend tore his brother to pieces, and I watched.

Devon, who couldn’t stand to have dirt under his fingernails, bathed in his brother’s blood. By the time he stopped—stopped fighting, stopped the bloodlust, just stopped—there was nothing left of Shay: nothing scary, nothing evil, nothing dark.

He was nothing.

Dev Shifted back to human form. Naked as the day he was born, he spat on the ground and—God bless him—asked, ever so politely, if any of us had a mint.

I choked—on hysterical giggles. On tears.

Devon was alive.

The man who’d killed Chase—Chase, Chase, my Chase—was dead.

And finally, finally we were free.

All around us, the Snake Bend Pack howled—a horrible, keening sound, a soul-wrenching send-off for a man who’d brought them nothing but pain.

Challenge. Challenge. Challenge.

The call was fading; the moment had passed, but something else was rising in its place: something that brought the wolves’ howls to a close.