Gone With the Wolf (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Everything stood still.

Drake scanned the furry faces of the wolf to his right, his left, anticipating their first strike. But when his gaze landed on Silas, and he read lethal intent in his brother’s eyes, Drake growled, surging into attack mode. Silas drew his weapon quickly, shooting two electrically charged rods at Drake’s chest. Drake ducked and spun out of the way as the electric strings buzzed through the air and scraped against the floor where he’d stood.

The wolves attacked, charging full speed to Drake’s position. Emelia screamed, a strangled cry muffled by the tape. Silas yanked off the expended Taser cartridge and retrieved the second cartridge on the butt of the gun. Reloaded.

Wolf form or not, if Silas struck Drake with the Taser, he’d drop like a stone. Drake could dodge bullets in wolf form, which was probably why Silas chose a Taser rather than a Glock to try to bring Drake down. Hell, Drake could still rip someone’s throat out with a bullet lodged in his flesh. But by the time Drake stopped twitching from the volts surging through his system, he’d be dead.

Drake saw each and every movement, each step clearer than the last.

As Silas took aim and the wolves closed in, Drake let the fury building inside him coil like a serpent in the pit of his stomach. When the pressure increased, tightening something in his chest into a hard knot, he roared. Muscles exploded over his back, arching his spine higher and higher into the air. His chest ballooned. His teeth sharpened to deadly canine points. He dropped to all fours as fur burst from his skin, blanketing his body in dark, coarse strands of wolf hair. He shook. Quivered with pent-up aggression.

Emelia jerked the chair toward the edge of the stage, struggling to get free from the ties around her hands and legs. It wouldn’t be long now.

The wolf attacking from Drake’s right commanded his attention. It must’ve sensed Drake’s rage and unparalleled strength. It hesitated. A fraction of a second. Long enough for Drake to spring into action. He turned, took a single leap, and bared his fangs, chomping into the wolf’s neck. With a whimper, the wolf dangled in Drake’s teeth, its front legs going limp.

Silas shot off another Taser shot, but Drake’s senses were on full alert. He could hear the rods whizzing through the air and bounded aside. Another miss.

He was running out of time.

Taking the kill shot while he had it, Drake snapped his jaws together, severing the wolf’s carotid artery.

Sensing the death of its packmate, the second wolf roared and rushed behind Drake, hungry for vengeance. Drake spun, dropping the first wolf from his jaws, but didn’t move quickly enough. The roaring wolf bit into Drake’s side. Drake howled, arching, squirming to get the wolf’s razor-sharp teeth out of his fur. With a violent shake, the wolf’s canines dislodged from Drake’s flesh.

Adrenaline sparking through his veins, Drake crouched and spun, trying to get a lead on the wolf’s weakness. The wolf matched Drake step for step, pounce for pounce.

Out of the corner of his eye, Drake saw Silas shift. He bulked up, rippling with layers of thick, corded muscle.

Damn it,
it was now or never.

Drake reared up on his hind legs, slicing his paw across the wolf’s muzzle. The wolf howled, blood trickling down its snout. Drake swiped his paw again, this time catching the wolf in the eye. Temporarily blinded, the wolf snapped for Drake and missed, leaving his neck vulnerable to attack. Drake took full advantage, bit through fur and flesh, and dropped the lifeless wolf to the hardwood.

As Drake spun around and met Silas’s coal-black wolf eyes, he snarled, pulling back his lips to reveal his fangs. They hummed, tingling his gums. His back hunched. Silas snarled back, his snout dripping with saliva, his mangy black hair rising on end.

This was it. The moment Drake had dreaded since their father died. Deep down he had known it would come to this. Silas was greedy and spoiled sour to the core. Silas had simply been biding his time, waiting for this moment when he could challenge Drake for everything without the members of his pack viewing the action as disgraceful.

As Silas stalked around the table separating them, Drake backed away slowly, drawing him farther away from Emelia and closer to the center of the bar. Taking the upper hand, Drake lunged, propelling his body into Silas’s. They hit with the force of giants, colliding into tables behind them and skidding over the floor. They tumbled and rolled, a mess of fur and teeth, biting and clawing their way to top position.

Silas had gotten stronger since Drake fought him last. He was quicker, too. More prepared for Drake’s moves. He’d been practicing. Readying himself for this fight.

But Drake had some moves up his sleeve, too.

As they slammed into the wall, Drake managed to pin Silas beneath him with his back legs. Drake kicked and clawed with his forelegs, tearing through Silas’s abdomen, and came away with gobs of bloody fur in his paws. Early pangs of victory hit Drake’s system, but he didn’t celebrate. Not yet. Drake’s strikes were brutal. Lethal. But the angrier Drake seemed to get, the more Silas seemed to enjoy the fight. He batted away the heavy-pounding strikes of Drake’s paws. Snapped at Drake’s legs. Snorted when Drake missed a mark and rebounded with potentially fatal bites from his own snarling jaws.

It was all or nothing.

Drake went for the kill. With hundreds of years of repressed anger bubbling up inside him, Drake towered over Silas and dropped his muzzle like a hammer onto his neck. But Silas anticipated Drake’s move. Before Drake could sink his fangs into Silas’s flesh, Silas squirmed beneath him, knocking Drake off-kilter.

With a guttural groan, Silas snapped a meaty chunk out of Drake’s neck.

Warm rushes of blood leached the strength from Drake’s muscles.

Out of instinct alone, Drake darted away from Silas to assess his injuries. His breathing was ragged, his heavy heartbeats pounding against his rib cage like war drums. Blood oozed down Drake’s neck, dripped down his chest, and flooded onto to the floor. If he didn’t change back into human form soon, so his injuries could heal during the shift, he was liable to bleed out.

Emelia moaned breathlessly, dragging Drake’s attention to the stage. Her icy blue eyes gripped him, reached through space between them, and struck him like a bolt of lightning.

He had to win this fight. For Emelia. For both of them.

Silas attacked, charging with newfound strength. Drake bounded aside, but he’d lost too much blood. His reactions were slowed, his instincts muddled. Silas slammed into him, knocking Drake to the ground. Drake refused to be on his back, so he scrambled. Kicked. Rolled onto his feet. Silas used Drake’s own move against him, pinning Drake beneath him with his hind legs.

Defending himself, fighting with every last ounce of strength in his body, Drake snapped as Silas lowered himself over him.

…

Emelia couldn’t watch, yet she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

Mere seconds ago, Drake had the upper hand in the fight against his psychotic brother, but things had soured so quickly. He’d been bitten, though Emelia felt the pain as if she was the one who’d had Silas’s fangs thrashing in her neck. Drake had lost so much blood, but Emelia felt the effects. She was woozy, her head light, her heart thumping in a hot, wild rush.

Silas rammed Drake to the ground and pinned him. Emelia felt the pain of the bites stinging through her body. Could taste the metallic flavor of Drake’s blood as if it was on her tongue.

She could sense Drake’s strength waning.

As Silas took a second and third bite out of Drake’s neck, Emelia felt a surge of strength unlike anything she’d felt before. Her blood flushed differently through her veins. Her vision cleared to the point she could see air particles floating through the room and dust bunnies settling on the tables.

It wasn’t the physical changes that had Emelia bursting through the ropes on her wrists and ankles. It was the pure, fiery flood of
wrath
coursing through her.

Time slowed to an impossible halt.

Anger seeped from her pores. Skin shrank over her bones. Her teeth ached, elongated, stretching her gums and brushing against her lips. Her muscles and tendons tightened into knots, shaking and trembling from the sheer force of her transformation. Clothes shed from Emelia’s body as her back arched, and she dropped to all fours. Sleek, white fur flattened across her skin, and her gaze sharpened on Silas.

Hearing her approach, Silas stopped his assault on Drake and craned his neck around to meet her gaze. She was hurting where Drake hurt, feeling more powerful than ever, and hungry for blood.

Instead of attacking her, as Emelia expected, Silas backed away. She continued to stalk forward as he retreated, the excitement of the hunt fueling her on. She wanted him to run so she could follow. She wanted to taunt him, challenge him to get away from her. She felt unusually cocky—odd considering she hadn’t tested out her wolf body yet.

Then Silas went and did the unthinkable. He lowered his muzzle to the floor in a mock bow.

What the hell?

Disappointed she wouldn’t get the chase she craved, Emelia stopped over Drake’s slumped body, her breath coming out in hard pants. Although Drake wasn’t moving, he was alive; she could sense his heartbeat as if it were her own. How long he’d be alive was another question entirely. He’d already lost a lot of blood.

Get up, Drake.

Emelia eyed Silas carefully. His inky black fur and his dark, soulless eyes. Could he understand her if she told him to get the hell out of her bar and never return?

A growl tickled Emelia’s belly, reverberated through her chest and escaped out her lips.

Silas raised his snout off the floor, stared deep into Emelia’s eyes, and lunged for her throat. In a single, adrenaline-sparked move, Emelia clawed at Silas’s jaw, sending him careering to the floor. His massive body slid along the hardwood and knocked into the wall. He hit so hard, the dartboard above his head rattled and shook, dislodged from its hook and toppled onto his head.

Confused, Emelia stared at the damage she’d created from a single swipe of her paw. Silas was bloody. Staring at her in shock and covered in darts and a busted board. Where Silas had hit the wall, there was an enormous hole.

She was strong. More powerful than she could’ve imagined.

Giving a solid shake, Silas clambered to his feet, the hair on the back of his neck rising into in a spiny black mohawk.

Don’t die on me, Drake. I need you.

As if her silent plea awoke something inside him, Drake twitched, moved his feet beneath him, and stood beside her. Fury emanated from his body in hot surges, rippling on the air. The weakness Emelia had felt before was gone. In its place was barely controlled rage bubbling beneath the surface, ready to explode.

Through the haze of what was happening—the sensory overload stemming from her transition, Drake’s anger, the rumble coming from Silas’s chest—streaks of pride tinseled through Emelia’s system. It felt good. Vibrant. It felt…
right.

Drake marched forward, one slow paw hitting the hardwood, blood trickling down his legs. Emelia followed, feeling Drake’s unbridled fury as her own. Step by step they closed in on Silas.

They created a united front. Stronger together. Never to be separated again.

As Drake growled, vibrating the floor beneath their feet, Silas’s shoulders gave a hard twitch. His muzzle quirked and his gaze shifted to the door as a horde of howling packmates burst through, ripping it off its hinges. They corned Silas, bumped into him with their massive chests, and brought him to his belly with brute force.

Reinforcements had arrived.

Mr. Bloomfield strode through the door in their wake, dressed in a suit and tie as if he’d stepped from a board meeting into the fray. “Silas Wilder, you’re under arrest for attempting to murder Drake Wilder, Alpha to the Seattle wolf pack, and Emelia Wilder, his mated female.”

Silas whimpered against the ground as the wolves towered over him smashed him into the floor. There was nothing Silas could do. There were too many packmates, and they moved like an angry mob, swallowing everything in their wake.

So this was the pack family that Drake had told her about. They really did stand up for one another, didn’t they? She’d never felt more relieved, or more protected, in all her life.

As Mr. Bloomfield and the packmates escorted Silas out the broken door, Drake crumbled. It’d been too much. He’d challenged Silas and fought at Emelia’s side when he didn’t have the strength to do either.

Emelia knelt over Drake and nudged him with her nose. Sighing into a full body shudder, Drake opened his eyes. They were soft black, warm and tender, piercing Emelia’s heart. He shifted back to human form. Right beneath her legs. Naked and shivering, Drake reached up and brushed his hand down the slope of her face. Even through her fur, she could feel the pads on his fingers, the warmth of his palm, and the love behind his touch.

“Hello beautiful,” Drake said, smiling. His wounds healed right before her eyes. His skin went from bloody to pink, his tissue from marred to bronze, sculpted muscle. “You’re magnificent, though I didn’t doubt you’d be amazing in this form, too.”

Emelia nudged his palm, letting a little whimper escape her chest. How did she shift back? Would she be stuck this way for the length of the full moon?

“An ambulance is on the way,” Mr. Bloomfield said from the doorway. “Are you all right? Do you need anything?”

Drake stroked Emelia’s nose, and scrubbed the fur behind her ears. “I’ve got everything I need right here.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice.” Mr. Bloomfield left the bar as sirens wailed in the distance.

“I never thought I’d get to see you again.” Drake stroked Emelia’s fur, her chest. She could sense his strength returning each passing second. “I’m so sorry about what happened between us. I was beyond stupid. I should’ve never bought that bar behind your back and I should’ve supported you in this. That was wrong, so wrong. I should have followed you out that door.”