Page 75 of Alpha Brock

Looks like he picked today to die.

Just before he can sink his fangs into the scruff of my neck, I whip around, kicking out my hind legs to fling him away. He crashes into another wolf and I pursue, leaping on top of him and tearing into his flesh. Hot, sticky blood sprays my face as I take his life without even flinching.

‘Alpha, behind you!’ someone calls through the mind-link, and I spin just in time to fend off another attacker. As I subdue him, I see an enemy wolf’s jaws snap around one of our soldiers’ necks- Shay, a recruit from this past summer. I leap onto the other wolf, sinking my fangs into it. Tackling it off of Shay. Once I’ve taken it down, I look back to Shay, and while she’s injured, she’s already gotten to her feet and rejoined the fight.

There are more of them than us, but we’re better trained. I don’t recognize hardly any of the bodies on the ground as our own- though it’s not as if I have a lot of time to study them. I keep trying to look for Astrid, but right when I think I see her, I’m tackled from the left. I snatch another life away without a second thought.

For every wolf I fight off, another advances. My fur is soaked in blood, though I’m pretty sure most of it isn’t my own. I take out another enemy soldier and he lands at my feet with a thud, his dull, lifeless eyes staring up at me. Again, I don’t flinch. This is war, and it’s us or them.

Suddenly, something shifts. All of the shadow pack wolves stop and lift their heads, their eyes clouding over. They’re mind-linking. It’s like they’re all frozen in place. Time stops. I take a second to try to catch my breath as my squadron looks to me in confusion, but before we can act, the enemy soldiers are turning tail, running back for the treeline. Running away.

‘Are they retreating?’ I hear Quinn ask through the mind-link.

But they can’t be retreating…can they?They still clearly outnumber us, and we’ve only just barely engaged. The shadow pack has coordinated many attacks and I’ve never heard of them backing down or retreating before. An uneasy feeling settles in my gut as my mind tries to make sense of what is happening.

Fallon’s voice comes through the mind-link next, though it’s weak. She must be injured. ‘Did we win?’

‘Shh, I’ve got you, baby’. Gray’s voice.

‘That was too easy…’ Theo grumbles.

But they’re gone. The last of their wolves disappear through the treeline, and the sound of their paws against the earth is fading every second. They’re definitely pulling back… butwhy?

I shift back into my human form, my bones snapping and rearranging until I’m rising on two legs. Dark, sticky blood is caked in my hair and on my skin as I narrow my eyes to the treeline, still trying to make sense of what’s going on. I search for Astrid again, but I don’t see her. An icy chill creeps up my spine.

“Something isn’t right,” I growl, looking to the others as they tuck away their wolves and shift, the bewildered expressions on their faces matching my own confusion.

Just then, someone comes through the trees toward us. I recognize him as one of Cole’s warriors- the one who was leading squadron six beside me. He’s moving slow, clutching his stomach, and it doesn’t take long to see why. The poor guy has been split open; his guts are spilling out around his arm. It’s a miracle that he’s even on his feet.

But wait- why is he coming from the treeline?

Several of the Denver wolves rush in his direction, and I’m right on their heels.

What the fuck is going on?

“Devin, what happened?” Cole barks as he approaches the poor fucker. Devin’s skin is a dull grey and his own blood is pooling around his feet. He’s dying- and fast.

“It’s… Astrid,” he coughs, blood droplets spraying from his mouth as he wilts to the ground, still holding in his insides with an arm.

My eyes fly to him, and the next words that come out of his mouth make my blood turn to ice in my veins.

“They took her.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Astrid

As I slowly come to, my ears are ringing and my head is pounding. I’m somewhere cold and damp, and a quiet groan slips from my mouth as I force my eyes open. I’m lying on a concrete floor… butwhere am I? What happened?My whole body feels impossibly heavy, my head throbbing in pain.

I try to shuffle to an upright position, but my body is so weak. My limbs feel like they’re made of lead. I try to draw on my wolf for strength, but I can’t sense her at all. I reach for her in the recesses of my mind, but it’s just dark; vacant. My hands and feet are tied with heavy ropes. It takes a great deal of effort to shift my body upwards, using the cold concrete wall at my back for leverage.

My head hurts so bad. I reach behind it to identify the source of my pain and find that my hair is coated in something sticky, though it seems to be mostly dried. I pull my bound hands back in front of me, looking down at them, and I’m not at all surprised when I see dark red blood coating my fingertips. Whoever brought me here must’ve hit me in the head to knock me out. No wonder my head’s pounding like it is.

At least however I got here, someone put clothes on me along the way. I look down to see that I’m wearing an oversized black t-shirt that comes down to my mid-thigh. It stinks like mildew, but at least it provides a barrier between my skin and the cold concrete. It also covers me up, which I’m grateful for, even if it’s the only thing I’m wearing.

“Well, look who’s finally awake!” a female voice chirps, and I groggily drag my eyes in the direction it came from to see her walking toward me. She’s about my age, dressed in all black- clunky combat boots, skinny jeans with rips up the legs, a black tee, and a leather jacket. Her chin-length hair is just as black as her clothes, and her eyes stand out in contrast to all the black; they’re a bright, ice blue. She’s beautiful, but my intuition immediately picks up bad vibes. Her insides don’t match her beauty on the outside.

As she draws closer, I suddenly realize that she’s holding something in her hand- a syringe filled with an opaque violet substance. She stops right in front of me, stooping down, and I instinctively flinch away, pressing my back tight to the wall behind me. Not that it makes a difference; there’s no getting away from her. She grabs my arm roughly, bringing the syringe to it.