Or so I thought. The two werewolves came out of nowhere, cutting me off before I could reach my destination. They were slightly smaller than me, their fur an unusual light color. Determination and fury glinted in their golden eyes. Based on the blood already staining their thick coat, they’d already gotten into a fight tonight, and the other party hadn’t come out the victor. “Leave, Firewolf,” one of the wolves snarled at me. “We won’t tell you twice.”
“Once is more than enough,” I growled back. “You’ll die tonight, for daring to stand in my way.”
“Stronger wolves than you have tried to kill us. Do your worst.”
Even if I hadn’t already intended to attack them, the challenge alone would have pissed me off enough to change that. With a furious howl, I lunged forward. They met me halfway, not even bothering to dodge my first attack. Their eyes glowed with the feral bloodlust the chaos sometimes induced. I smelled the blood on their fur and wondered who they’d killed today. It would have been nice to know who I’d be avenging.
As our bodies clashed, pain rushed through me, the bones cracking at the impact. The three of us were all thrown back, but none of us showed any sign of weakness or discomfort. I was already healing, and so were my opponents.
There was a desperate savagery in the way they were moving, as if they were being chased by a phantom, something more powerful than the chaos itself. But that didn’t intimidate me. My need to find my mate went beyond anything the golden wolves could have ever experienced.
I wouldn’t be able to truly identify her until we met face to face, and our bond was still clouded and incomplete. But the chaos was guiding my senses, pointing me in the right direction. The golden wolves were in my way, but not for long.
I attacked them again, and this time, they ducked. They tried to use my momentum against me, and it sort of worked. One of them jumped on top of me and buried his fangs in my shoulder. But I wouldn’t let them defeat me. I forced myself to reverse the shift, dislodging the golden wolf’s grip on me.
My opponent twisted in the air and landed on all fours. He stared up at me, obviously surprised by my choice. But he recovered quickly enough and shifted as well, perhaps acknowledging the versatility of our humanoid form.
In this shape, the man’s golden eyes and hair were even more striking. “That was a nice trick,” he said, “but you won’t get away from us so easily.”
The other wolf decided to stay in his lupine form. That put me at a disadvantage, since it allowed them to anticipate most of my moves.
But the wolves were younger than I was, not even full adults. They couldn’t hold their own against me. They were stronger than they seemed, but they couldn’t compare to an Alpha from the Savage bloodline.
I didn’t usually embrace my true bloodlust, since it was much too dangerous and I could very easily lose control of it. But during the chaos, I couldn’t care less about the risks. These two pups had dared to stand between me and my mate. They had to be punished.
My vision went a little foggy and crimson around the edges. Feral anger exploded over me, and I lunged at them again, even faster than before.
They didn’t shy away from my attack. Maybe they realized they couldn’t do it. Trying to would just leave them extra vulnerable, since there was no way for them to escape me now.
This time, when our bodies collided, my momentum was stronger, and they were the ones forced back. One of the golden wolves fell closer to me and I took advantage of the opening to pounce on him. Just as I was about to tear his throat out, his sibling jumped on me, his entire body vibrating with fury and madness.
We surrendered to our insanity and the bloodshed. At one point, I heard someone howling, but I couldn’t tell if I was the one doing it, or if it was another wolf. Or maybe it wasn’t a fellow shifter at all. Maybe it was the chaos itself, reaching into me and clawing me open.
I poured my anguish and frustrations into my battle with the golden wolves. I felt their claws digging into my flesh even as I tore theirs apart. Our bones cracked repeatedly and our organs protested the abuse.
We might have actually killed one another, but that was when I felt another group of werewolves approach. The golden wolves and I fell back, just in time to avoid a shower of bullets.
I took cover behind a rock and looked around. The guards of the Wolfsbane Pack were coming, and there were a lot of them, far more than I’d expected. Between them and the golden wolves, my situation looked grim. Wolfsbanes used a lot of long distance weaponry, and I was already hurt because of my fight with the golden wolves.
But my first opponents didn’t seem inclined to help the new arrivals. I’d thought the golden wolves were Wolfsbanes too, but maybe I’d been wrong, because slowly, they backed away.
“There’s nowhere to hide,” one of the Wolfsbane guards shouted. “Come quietly, and Alpha Clayton might grant you some mercy.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but in the end, it didn’t matter. There were far stronger forces at work here than anything the Wolfsbane Pack could bring forth.
As the other wolves approached, the fog thickened. It became hard to see, and that was an advantage for me, since it hindered the aim of the Wolfsbanes. If things had been different, I’d have attacked them. Even if I was vastly outnumbered, I didn’t care. But the pulsing feeling that pulled me to my mate vanished—and with it, so did the golden wolves.
It was so disconcerting that for a few seconds, I couldn’t move or think at all. I just lay there, still hiding behind the rock, protected by the heavy mist. And then, the sensation passed, and I was left only with the emptiness, with the knowledge that I’d lost my chance at something great.
A bullet hit me in the shoulder, and that was when I realized that despite the mist, the Wolfsbanes could still see me. The chaos couldn’t protect me if I just sat there like a fucking statue. Pain exploded through me, but I welcomed it. It gave me clarity. Through it, I finally remembered myself and chased away the fuzziness that had settled over my brain.
Turning away from the Wolfsbanes, I retreated into the mist. I couldn’t stay here any longer. I must have been wrong when I’d sensed my mate in this area. I would keep searching for her. Maybe I wouldn’t find her this time, but I wouldn’t give up, no matter what stood in my way. Eventually, the chaos would guide me to my other half.
Two
Chapter 2
Luna
