Chapter 26 - Zane

Firelight flickers through the smoke, casting shadows that twist and writhe like figments of the battle itself. The air is thick with the scent of burning wood, blood, and sweat.

It’s hard to see what’s happening now. Maybe that was part of their plan. Wolves slam into each other blindly, scrambling, snarling, tearing, grappling in the mud. Soon, in the wet, humid heat of the nighttime, those already dead will start to give off a foul stench. Gunshots echo through the night, though I can’t tell whether from friend or foe. The roar of the fire as it devours the western edge of town adds to the cacophony.

The beating of my heart pounds in my head. I can still hear Maisie’s voice through the smoke, though I know I’m imagining it. Don’t lose focus now. You can’t lose focus. If you lose focus, you’ll lose her.

My traps worked. That was the only thing that’s gone our way so far.

The bombs hidden deep in the woods surrounding Rosecreek have gutted the Haverwood pack’s numbers just as I predicted. The moment they tried sneaking through the trees to surprise us, they were caught like animals in a cage. Explosions ripped through their ranks, taking out at least half of their forces before they even set foot in town. It’s the only reason we still have a fighting chance.

I might have pushed us into fighting dirty, but I don’t regret it for a moment.

But now, it’s not clear whether it’ll be enough. Not when the stakes are this high.

Because now, it looks like we’re losing.

Enemy shifters just keep appearing. The dark shapes of wolves dart from the shadows, streaking like snakes in the hanging smoke toward our people, making it impossible for us to push them back. We’re losing ground.

I dodge a swipe from a wolf lunging at my throat, dropping low to avoid his claws. Before he can recover, I’m on him, teeth bared. I rake my claws across his chest with a force that tears flesh and then scrapes along bone with a visceral scratching sound. He yelps, crumpling to the ground.

I don’t stop to finish him off. Someone else can handle that.

I transform, hurtling to my feet. My eyes are already scanning the battlefield for Maisie.

My chest aches with the need to find her, to see her, even just to make sure she’s okay. I should’ve forced her to stay in the clinic, I think bitterly. But I knew all along, or some part of me did, that she wouldn’t listen to what we told her to do. Maisie has always been stubborn, fierce, and unrelenting in her need to help others.

That’s why I love her. And that’s what terrifies me now.

If anyone even so much as touches her, they’re dead.

“Zane! Behind you!”

Byron’s voice crackles in my earpiece, snapping me back to my body.

Instinct kicks in, and I duck just as a set of teeth snaps closed in the air where my head was a moment ago. I roll, springing to my feet, and fire a round into the chest of the enemy shifter charging at me. He collapses in a heap at my feet, his breath gurgling in his throat.

“Thanks, Brother ,” I mutter, wiping the blood from my face. “You’re getting slow with the warnings.”

Byron’s chuckle comes through, crackling over the line. “I just like keeping you on your toes. Keeps you humble.”

“Yeah? Remind me to take you out for a drink after this, and I’ll show you just how grateful I am when I kick your ass at pool.”

“Looking forward to it,” he replies. The banter takes the edge off the gnawing fear that’s been crawling under my skin all night.

For a moment, it feels like the history between us has dissolved—like we’re brothers again. It’s almost enough to make me believe we’ll get through this.

Movement in my periphery. Rafael comes barreling through the smoke beside me, his sleek wolf form knocking two Haverwood wolves off their feet. He’s covered in blood, a wild look in his eyes, but he fights with precision, his movements calculated, sharp. Together, we cut through the enemy wolves with brutal efficiency, wordless in our cooperation.

He fights like he’s got something to prove. I wonder when our next battle will be—if we’ll even get one. I’d like to fight alongside him again.

A wolf charges at him, claws slashing through the air. Rafael sidesteps and takes him down with a vicious bite to the throat. I don’t even see him flinch.

“Starting to think you’re enjoying this,” I mutter as I slam the butt of my rifle into another enemy shifter’s jaw, sending him sprawling.

He grunts, snarls, then dispatches another wolf before flicking blood off his claws.

Across the field, I catch sight of Aris and Bigby, locked in brutal combat with a dozen enemy wolves. The two of them move like a storm, their strength a testament to years of leading this pack. They’re unstoppable, crushing anything that gets in their way. Bigby’s roar cuts through the air as he throws a wolf to the ground, his massive frame making it look effortless.

I think that’s Ado and Keira I can see in the distance. Yes, it’s them, moving back to back through the smoke, guns firing in perfect sync. They don’t even need to look at each other—they just know. They’re perfectly in tune with one another.

The pack is working as one strong, solid unit. Despite the chaos, despite everything we’ve all been through, there’s a strange rhythm to the battle now, a choreography that almost feels like victory.

But then I feel it.

The shift in the air.

Something is wrong. I know it immediately.

“Zane.” Byron’s voice comes through the earpiece again, urgent, hard. “The Haverwood Alpha is headed right for Maisie. It looks like he’s targeting her.”

The world stops turning.

“What?”

My voice comes out rough, strained.

“He’s coming for her.” Byron pauses. “Zane, run.”

Cold dread washes over me. A dozen thoughts seem to occur at once in my mind, warring to be heard first. I replay the last raid, the one where we tore through their ranks, where I killed his second-in-command and left him slumped in his own blood in the rain.

I can barely hear Byron’s voice urging me forward over the pounding in my ears. The battlefield narrows down to a single point of focus.

I have to get to her.

The moment I turn, I see him—the Haverwood Alpha.

We’ve all seen photos of him, but neither I nor Maisie has ever seen him in person. Neither of us has ever even learned his name. He’s always been a mystery to us. Once upon a time, we might even have joked about learning his identity someday.

Now, it doesn’t seem so funny.

He’s massive, even by shifter standards, a hulking brute of muscle and fury. In his human form, he carries a semi-automatic that manages to look tiny in his huge hands.

Through a break in the smoke, I see Maisie come into view, and I’m running.

Her back is to us as she kneels in the mud and gore, prizing a bullet out of a half-conscious Percy’s leg.

She can’t escape in time

He’s going to kill her.

No.

The roar that tears from my throat is primal, desperate. I launch myself forward, my feet pounding against the blood-soaked earth. The distance between us feels endless. Every second feels like a lifetime.

The firelight makes her form appear ghostly, as if she’s already gone. My mind is playing tricks. I’ve never felt terror like this. I’ve never felt more helpless.

The Haverwood Alpha reaches her just as I do.

I slam into him with the full force of my body, knocking him off course. We crash to the ground, rolling through the mud and dirt, grappling, both of us covered in other shifters’ blood, stinking of our own sweat and fury.

Something hard hits my stomach. I look down and see blood, but whatever it is, I can’t feel it, so I keep moving, prying the gun from the Alpha’s hands by brute force and tossing it into the mud. Then, I lower my half-numb hands over the Alpha’s eyes and press my thumbs into his eye sockets, hard. A dirty trick from my days spent stealing and conning to survive .

He snarls, bucking furiously, trying to toss me aside. But I dig in until I’m sure my thumbs are going to pop through, until he begins to howl.

With no other option, he transforms. I shift, too, almost simultaneously. He snarls, teeth bared, and throws me off him.

I skid across the ground. Something hot is running down my chest. My vision blurs for a moment, but I force myself to stand, to keep fighting.

He’s on his feet again now, fur retreating, bones cracking, wiping blood from his reddened eyes where it has begun pouring in earnest. He towers over me, eyes filled with hate.

“You think you can take from me and walk away alive?” His voice is a low growl, full of venom. “You killed my second. I’ll make sure you watch her die for it.”

My blood turns to ice. I growl in the back of my throat and snap my teeth.

He lunges at me faster than I expect, but I’m ready. Our bodies collide with brutal force, claws and teeth tearing into flesh. The pain is blinding, but I don’t care. I fight like a man possessed, fueled by one singular thought: protect Maisie; protect our child.

Something sharp rakes up my side—the tip of a knife, I think—and I stumble, but I don’t fall. I can’t fall.

I sink my teeth into his shoulder, ripping through muscle and bone. He screams in pain, but it only makes him angrier. He slams me into the ground, pinning me beneath his weight, then shifts into his wolf form. His teeth are inches from my throat, but I manage to wrench myself free, rolling away just in time.

The fight is savage, brutal. Every hit I land, he returns with twice the force. I’m bleeding, and my vision is swimming. I can no longer even feel pain. My body is barely mine anymore. I feel like I’m floating outside of it.

Through the haze, I hear her.

“Zane!”

I don’t look. I can’t. If I see her now, if I let myself get distracted for even a second, it’ll be over. I have to finish this.

But she’s watching me all the same. And I can’t let her watch me die.

With a roar, I throw myself at the Haverwood leader one last time, using every ounce of strength I have left. My claws sink into his chest so deep that as I rake them apart, they prize at bone, sticking into the curve of his ribs.

His body jerks, a shocked gasp escaping his lips, and then he collapses to the ground like a toppled throne, crashing into the dirt, no longer anything at all.

It’s over.

I shift back, standing on unsteady legs. My surroundings won’t come into focus, no matter how hard I squint. Everything is spinning.

Fire. Smoke. I shove my earpiece into my ear and hear my brother shouting with a kind of sharp panic I’ve never heard in his voice before. What happened?

Someone is moving toward me through the chaos. A shape. Short, stocky. Running.

She’s a woman. She’s stunning. The woman I fell for.

Maisie. Coming to me.

When my legs give out, I don’t know it until I’ve hit the ground and her arms are around me, and she’s screaming something, pressing her hands tight to my stomach, holding me as if I’m going to be whisked away from her, someone’s wet blood spotted against her pale, terrified face.

And she’s so beautiful, I think, staring up at her against the firelight. It’s a shame she’s crying. I never want to make her cry again.