Page 31 of Bound to the Wolf
The human wolf grinned. “We’ve been looking for you.”
And the fight was on.
Reece couldn’t be in two places at once. He launched himself at the one in wolf form, assessing that claws were more of a threat to Delainey than hands.
He dropped low and drove his shoulder into the wolf’s chest as it leapt, the collision jarring through his collarbone and sending both of them crashing sideways into the base of a tree. The wolf’s ribs compressed under his weight with a sound like cracking kindling.
He had to hope Delainey could manage herself. He had seen what she could do, and he fully believed in her.
Fighting a wolf in his human form was difficult, not impossible; he and the other betas sparred this way from time to time to get the practice in. Reece summoned his own claws and raked them down the side of the wolf’s flank. His claws caught in the thick fur and tore through the hide beneath. He felt the moment they hit muscle, the resistance giving way to a hot, wet slide, and the wolf screamed, a sound that was almost human in its pitch.
“Leave one alive,” Delainey yelled.
She was right. They needed information, needed to know who took them, who was behind all of this.
He knew she was right.
But the wolf had attacked him and had attacked her.
No one got to attack her and live.
The wolf writhed beneath him, snapping at his forearm. Reece pinned its head against the ground with one hand, feeling the skull shift under his palm, the jaw still working, hot salivaand blood smearing across his fingers. He couldn’t stop himself from digging his claws deep into the jugular of the rogue under him and tearing, letting blood flow. The arterial spray hit him across the chest and throat, shockingly warm against his skin, and the wolf convulsed once beneath him before going slack.
The wolf in human form didn’t realize his friend was already dead as he charged at Delainey.
She cursed and let out a burst of magic that sent him flying back into a tree. The blast left a visible ripple in the air, like heat rising off asphalt, and the man’s body folded backward around the trunk on impact.
Bark splintered outward from the point of contact, and a shower of leaves rained down from the canopy above. A sickening crack announced that something was very wrong. He slumped to the ground, his head lolling to the side before he fell over and was still.
Deathly still.
Fuck.
Delainey stared at where the rogue lay, then looked down at her hands and the manacles. She swore and took slow steps toward the body. She jammed her fingers to the pulse point in his neck and shook her head.
Dead.
The man’s eyes were open, fixed on nothing, and his neck was bent at an angle that no living spine could hold. He was maybe thirty, with a cropped beard and a scar through one eyebrow.
She didn’t let that stop her. She worked swiftly, checking the human rogue’s pockets, and came up empty except for two protein bars, which she stuck in her own pockets.
“No wallet,” she said. She wiped her hands on her jeans and stood, stepping back from the body. “No phone, no ID. He knew what he was doing.”
Reece agreed. He looked down at the carnage around them. Two dead bodies would be a lot to answer for, even in self-defense.
Blood was soaking into the forest floor around the wolf’s body, turning the dead leaves black. Reece’s hands were slicked red to the wrists. His shirt was ruined, torn at the shoulder where the wolf had snapped at him, the front soaked dark.
“We need to move,” Delainey said. She was already turning away from the bodies, her jaw set tight. “They might have friends.”
He agreed, but he kept his eyes on her every step of the way.
Chapter
Fourteen
The twig Delainey was fiddling with snapped between her fingers, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She tossed the broken halves at the fire and tried to ignore her trembling hands.
She wasn’t going to freak out. She couldn’t.
