His hands were on my shoulders, running down my arms as if he could spot a physical injury.
“I don’t know. I just got this intense feeling that something’s very wrong. I don’t know where it’s coming from.”
“Green witch.” Rivetsky breathed the words with awe, staring at me as if I were a circus freak.
“No, I don’t think it’s from the plants, although??”
A shock wave shook the clearing, goblins screaming as the platters and glasses on the tables shook as if there was an earthquake.
Lucien’s arms locked around me before I registered what was happening, hauling me out of the seat and toward the rest of the pack with alpha wolf speed. We formed up in a loose circle, goblins screaming and weaving between us as they bolted for the trees in every direction.
“What’s happening?” Lucien asked, his wolf’s influence making his words sharp, like a bark. A second impact rocked us, the ground trembling beneath our feet so violently, I had to hang on to Lucien’s arm to stay upright.
“Attaaaaack on the barrier! Battle stations!” a stout goblin screamed, running in the direction the second percussion had come from.
“What are the chances it’s unrelated to our visit?” Leigh asked, wincing and holding her belly.
“Zero. It’s got to be the ODL,” Gael answered her, eyes piercing as they glowed toward the center of Wrenchet, almost as if he could see the attackers despite the obstacles in the way. “We’ve got to get the females to safety. Once we’re in the air again, they’ll be safe.”
“No! We can’t just abandon the goblins after we dropped trouble on their doorstep,” I argued, immediately regretting it when all those alpha-dominant eyes landed on me.
“She’s right.” Kane shocked the hell out of me by agreeing. “If we have any chance of proving to the goblins we aren’t the same as our ancestors, we’ve got to stay and help them. They’re not as equipped as the Kodiak bears were to fight off an attack of this magnitude.”
Relief flooded me, even as fear clouded my thoughts. I wasn’t excited to fight, not by a mile, but it was the right thing to do.
“So what do we do?” Reed asked. “It’s chaos.”
And it was. Some goblins were running toward the fray, but most were still screaming and hightailing it toward the relative safety of the forest.
“Batten!” Lucien half roared, snagging our guide’s attention from a little distance away. She turned and spotted us, anger tightening her features as she scooped up the goblin child she’d been directing and ran our way, dodging her clan mates every step of the way.
“Just go! You don’t need my permission.” She threw up a hand in disgust and made to turn away.
“Wait! We’re staying to help. Where is everyone going?” I grabbed her shoulder, then quickly snatched my hand away when she glared at me.
“The fighters are gathering the catapults. The rest… They need to go to the caves, but most are too terrified to think straight.”
“Where are the caves? We’ll help you get everyone to safety,” I offered, my healer instincts kicking in as I noticed the sheer number of panicked children running into danger.
“The women can help get people to safety. The men will help the fighters.” Kane turned to Elodie and Galyna with a thunderous expression that promised trouble. “I am entrusting you with my mate’s life. If a single hair on her head, or any female under my protection, is harmed??”
“We will protect them with our lives, High Alpha,” Galyna said, drawing her sword and saluting.
Lucien turned to me, his face a mask of torture. “I don’t want to leave you. You could get hurt or killed if the ODL is really here.”
I cupped his cheek in my hand and let my wolf shine through my eyes, trusting her strength to speak to his. “We’re all going to be just fine, and they deserve an ass kicking for hunting us when we’ve done nothing wrong.”
He bared his teeth in agreement. “If you’re sure. If anything changes, promise me you’ll tell one of the others to call for me with their bond.”
Despite the chaos all around us, his sincerity melted something inside me that had been frozen from his avoidance the last two weeks. He cared, he just didn’t know how to show it. Didn’t feel like he deserved to show it.
“I promise.”
He threaded his fingers through my hair and captured my lips in a domineering kiss that left my knees jelly and my thoughts scattered.
When he stepped away and started shucking off his clothes so he could shift, my brain whirred back into working order. We had a crisis to manage and kids to save. The other mates had also said their farewells, and Batten had turned away, pointing and giving orders to every goblin who ran past.
“Batten, what do you need?” I stepped up beside her, the rest of the pack females forming into a semicircle around her, with Galyna and Elodie bracketing us, butterfly swords in hand.
Before she could answer me, though, a wave of alpha dominance washed over the clearing with so much power, it knocked me to my knees in the dirt.
No, not just me… Every creature save Brielle.
I looked back in the direction it had come from to see a large midnight wolf standing head and shoulders above the rest, his bright green eyes glowing with unfettered rage as the rest of his pack mates shifted. As one, the males ran toward the battle, as fluid as water in a stream, but a thousand times more deadly.
For the first time since I’d been with the pack, the high alpha had shifted. And nothing but death followed in his wake.
Lucien
Ifollowed closely behind Kane as we wove through Wrenchet, goblins screeching so loudly, it hurt my wolf’s delicate ears. It was nothing compared to the third explosion, which rocked the ground beneath our paws and shook the foundations of the handmade buildings we ran between.
It wasn’t hard to find the source of the battle.
A warlock and a lesser fae stood a few feet back from the edge of the city, the former hurling fireballs as if it was nothing, the latter shooting magical attacks that hit with the force of a bomb, blowing trees out of the ground by their roots, and sending them flying.
They weren’t alone, though. At least thirty enforcers were behind them, wearing magically enhanced body armor, and that was only what we could see between the trees. There was no telling how many they’d actually brought.
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