The blood of our enemies dripped down my muzzle. There were eighteen more closing in, and the bloodthirst of my wolf was full-on.

These smaller average wolves stood no chance. I felt a twinge of human sorrow at the loss of lives in so meaningless a way, but my wolf answered it with the howl that was his battle cry.

Must. Protect. Pack.

Yes, Onan.

I could smell their fear as if they were spraying it up my nose. My size, coupled with the presence of such a vampire as Gabriel, had them quaking in terror. But they could not disobey orders from their Alpha.

This was a tragedy. One of MacKenzie’s and my father’s making. They would have to pay a price. A foolish price that could have been avoided if they had simply stayed away.

The eighteen wolves closing in were crouched down low, crawling towards us, preparing to lunge. I braced myself for the inevitable tearing of my flesh, but they wouldn’t bring me down. It was physically impossible.

In a flash, they pounced directly at me. Their attempts to avoid Gabriel were in vain. His vampire speed was legendary. He dispatched a dozen of them in the time it takes most people to take air into their lungs and let it out again.

The remaining six were upon me. Onan met them with the full force of our body, knocking four of them up into the air and away until their bodies’ flight was ceased by slamming into various trees and rock formations.

The other two were snapping and snarling, attempting to latch onto my throat. I hooked my teeth onto the throat of one wolf, dragging him toward the other before I gathered both of their necks in my muzzle at once and bit down, crushing the life out of them.

We hadn’t even broken a sweat yet. But it was going to get harder from here.

MacKenzie was closing in behind the remaining twenty-five warriors and the witch. He was emitting an alpha aura and command to force the warriors into battle. Some were resisting, or he wouldn’t need to command them with his Alpha order.

They shouldn’t have to die, but once the Alpha command was received, they couldn’t be stopped unless they were dead, or the command changed. Such was the nature of our wolf forms. Pack is all.

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The twenty-five were nearing. We could see them all, but I couldn’t lay eyes on MacKenzie, though his stench was palpable.

In the blink of an eye, several things happened at once. The twenty-five warriors leapt into the air at Gabriel and me just as the Entropus wolves arrived on the scene.

Alpha Clovis burst through the trees first with Saranya’s wolf at his side, and they had ripped out four throats each before they even reached us.

MacKenzie lunged out of hiding, going straight for what he perceived to be the weakest link, Luna Meagan’s wolf, and earned himself a pile of four Alpha-sized daughters sinking their teeth into his flesh and tearing chunks asunder.

He managed to remain standing and darted behind some trees to circle around, trying to get at me.

Luna Meagan’s wolf, not slowed by the attempted assault from MacKenzie, dispatched three warriors by snapping their necks clean in half.

Saranya avidly sought out the other enemies without pause and with precision. She had taken down five more in a flash.

The acrid aroma of MacKenzie’s blood permeated the air. Besides him, in our vicinity, remained only nine warriors plus the witch.

She was standing in the trees several yards away doing nothing. We knew her barrier had been neutralized by her father’s blood, but she was still a wolf. Not to mention she must have other magical tricks up her sleeve.

Gabriel, seeing things were well in hand here, made eye contact with her and stalked towards her. He could have been at her side in an instant, but instead he took deliberate, terrifying, red-eyed, fang-mouthed steps towards her.

She didn’t move. She simply stood still and waited. She made one final attempt to raise her hands in the air towards him and chant, but nothing happened. She was defeated.

There was no circumstance in which Gabriel would allow her to live. When she got her magic back, she would be able to come back. She couldn’t run fast enough, even in wolf form, to get away from him.

When he reached her, only one step away, she bowed her head and closed her eyes in resignation. Gabriel took the last step, fisted her hair to pull her head aside and sunk his teeth into her neck. He drank her empty of every last drop of her blood in less than sixty seconds. Her pale, empty shell flopped to the ground.

Renewed with the power of his feeding, he returned to my side.

I stood scanning the forest for MacKenzie as the Entropus family took care of the remaining warriors.

He had retreated like the coward he was. His stench lessened with every mile he put between us. Just as I was deciding whether or not to go after him, his scent vanished in the wind.

My wolf made eye contact with Gabriel, and he bowed his head then blinked away in a flash, heading for the army to the east.

Jane had mind-linked me the information from Clovis about the other Alphas that were here.

Having taken care of the situation in the south, Clovis and I had a clear understanding of one goal and one goal alone. Find the Alphas. Take them out.

In sync, we turned towards the west and bolted into the forest, following our noses to the closest one: Trent.

Six of the fiercest she-wolf warriors in existence followed close behind.

Trent didn’t stand a chance.