The demon hit the eastern border at moonrise like the scouts predicted, except nothing about seeing it in the forest had prepared for watching it tear through the first line of defense like they were made of paper.
Three wolves down in under a minute.
My stomach tried to crawl out through my mouth and I had to lock my jaw to keep from throwing up right there in front of forty pack mbers who were looking to for answers I didn’t have.
"Selene." Kael’s hand found my elbow. "Breathe."
I was breathing. Too fast, actually, my lungs pulling in air like I’d forgotten how to regulate basic functions, but breathing wasn’t the problem—the problem was the demon was real and here and those were real wolves bleeding on real ground and this was happening right now whether I was ready or not.
Spoiler: I was not ready.
"I can’t—" My voice ca out thin and reedy and pathetic. "Kael, I can’t do this."
"Yes, you can." His grip tightened. "Look at ."
I looked at him because my brain had apparently given up on independent thought and was just taking orders now.
"You’re going to call the shadows. You’re going to pull power through the bonds. And you’re going to rember that thing can’t kill you faster than we can heal you." His eyes were fierce. "But it can kill them. So move."
Right. Move. I could move.
My feet carried forward before my brain caught up, and then I was running toward the border where the demon was currently eviscerating a fourth wolf and my hands were calling shadows without consciously deciding to do it.
The darkness pooled thick and eager, and I pushed it outward in a wave that crashed into the demon hard enough to knock it back three feet.
It turned to look at .
And smiled.
Oh God, it was smiling, and that smile said it had been waiting for this, had been planning for this, had known I’d co running the second it started hurting my pack.
My pack. When had I started thinking of them as mine?
No ti to examine that because the demon was moving, faster than anything that size had a right to move, and then it was on and my shadows barely got up in ti to deflect claws that would have opened my throat.
"Left!" Riven’s voice through the bond, and I dodged left as Thorne’s massive wolf form tore past and sank teeth into the demon’s arm.
It didn’t even flinch.
Just grabbed Thorne by the scruff and threw him fifteen feet into a tree with a crack that echoed through the bonds sharp enough to make gasp.
Rage flooded through —primal and hot and mine mixed with Thorne’s feral anger through our connection—and the shadows responded to it, growing darker and sharper than they’d been in training.
I pushed them at the demon in spikes instead of waves and watched three of them punch through its shoulder.
It scread.
The sound was inhuman and wrong and my teeth ached just hearing it, but it was also proof the demon could be hurt, and that was enough to keep moving.
Kael appeared at my side, already shifted, fur dark as midnight and eyes glowing alpha-gold. Through the bond I felt his battle focus layered over bone-deep terror for , and the dichotomy of it would have been touching if I wasn’t currently trying not to die.
"Blood control!" Draven’s voice from sowhere behind . "Use the blood control!"
Right. Blood control. The thing I’d only practiced on training dummies and had never tried on anything actually alive because the thought of it made want to vomit.
But the demon was alive—or close enough—and it had blood or sothing like blood, and I was out of options.
I reached for my vampire thread, that cold sharp power that tasted like copper and old death, and pushed it toward the demon while my wolf shadows kept it occupied.
Found its blood. Felt it moving through whatever passed for veins in sothing that old and powerful.
And squeezed.
The demon’s scream went higher, more agonized, and I watched black blood start seeping from its eyes and nose and mouth.
Victory lasted approximately three seconds before the demon’s power slamd into like a physical wall.
I flew backward and hit the ground hard enough to knock the air from my lungs, my shadows dissipating as my concentration shattered.
Can’t breathe can’t breathe can’t—
Air rushed back in and I rolled to my side coughing while my ribs scread protest and the bonds exploded with alarm from all four directions.
"I’m okay." I wasn’t okay. "I’m fine."
Through the bond Kael’s terror spiked so sharp my chest ached, but he couldn’t break from the fight to check on because the demon was already moving toward the next cluster of wolves.
I pushed myself upright. Everything hurt and my head was ringing and I was pretty sure sothing in my side was cracked, but I was alive and the demon was bleeding and we were still fighting.
Draven appeared beside with dical supplies I didn’t have ti for. "You need to—"
"I need to stop that thing from killing anyone else." My voice ca out harsh. "Tell how."
He looked at for three seconds that felt like an hour. "The prophecy says your bonds are the key. All four bonds. You need to combine your power with theirs."
"How?"
"I don’t know." Honest and frustrating. "No one’s ever done it before."
Of course not. Because nothing about this could be straightforward.
The demon tore into another wolf and rage burned through hot enough to taste.
And then I felt it—through the bonds, through all four channels at once—power waiting to be used, strength ready to be taken, four alphas offering everything they had.
I reached for all four bonds simultaneously and pulled.
Power flooded through in a rush that would have knocked over if I hadn’t already been braced for it—Kael’s strength mixing with Riven’s patience mixing with Draven’s control mixing with Thorne’s wildness—and the shadows exploded around in a wave that swallowed the clearing.
When they receded, the demon was on its knees.
Bleeding from a dozen wounds I didn’t rember making.
Staring at with eyes that had gone from confident to wary.
"That’s right." My voice didn’t sound like mine. "I’m not alone."
The demon’s smile returned, slower this ti, more calculating.
And then it vanished into shadows that weren’t mine, lting into darkness and disappearing like it had never been there.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Six wolves down. Fifteen injured. One demon escaped.
And , standing in the middle of it all with power still crackling under my skin and the bonds thrumming with four different versions of relief and pride and terror.
We’d survived the first attack.
But from the way the demon had looked at before it left, this wasn’t over.
This was just the beginning.
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