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My sword was useless against an ax. But, luckily, my weaponry was magical. So instead of stabbing the attacking werewolf, I flattened my star ball out into a shield as the tremendous wedge fell toward me from above.
The weight, when the ax struck, was excruciating, the star ball’s magical-yet-material gripping straps reverberating painfully within my hands. But my energy-infused armor held. And I breathed more deeply as it became apparent that Edward’s attack would do no more than bruise my skin.
Gunner, on the other hand, was enraged by his underling’s disloyalty. His ominous growl was nearly too quiet to hear above my own panting, but the alpha’s scent promised that Edward might not live to see the light of another day.
I wasn’t particularly thrilled with Edward either. But we’d all regret it if Gunner tore out Edward’s throat in a fit of rage without first understanding what had happened to the rest of the pack.
So my next parry involved diving between the two shifters, clunking the alpha’s chin with my knee as a mild hint that now might be a good time to take a calming breath. Gunner growled then whimpered, clearly getting the message. But Edward was the one who dropped his ax and stood dazed and blinking between us, his brow furrowed and mouth gaping as he strained to come up with words.
It was almost as if a kitsune had stolen his blood and used it to force him into the prior fighting...then had lost interest and left the male cold and confused. “What...?” Edward started, oblivious to the fact that yet another pack mate was rushing toward us with edged metal glinting. Or, rather, was rushing toward Edward, never mind that I was pretty sure the younger shifter was his sister’s son.
In reaction, my star ball shrunk, stretched, glistened into swordishness. Edward might be annoying, but he was an Atwood pack mate and I was bound to protect his life. So I pivoted, retreated, then lunged toward the new attacker. And now Edward was picking up his ax to join me...even as the blond werewolf fumbled and cut himself on his own blade.
Cut himself while trying for one of the easiest sword-fighting maneuvers imaginable. What was the male doing wielding a weapon if he didn’t know how to fight with one?
It was an easy matter to swipe my own sword sideways and send the younger male’s weapon skittering off into the dark. Harder was managing not to injure the shifter’s unshielded body as he came at me with bare hands.
Then someone shouted from behind me. The hairs on my neck prickled, and I whirled away from a werewolf who I suspected wouldn’t manage to do more than scratch me with human nails.
Because something had shifted. Something was different....
There. Not where the shout had come from, but in the opposite direction where the cluster of werewolves was more densely packed together. An arm rose above the crowd. A long dark shape arched back then flew directly toward us.
The tip glinted—a knife point affixed to a wooden handle creating a homemade javelin. And, unaware that he stood at the terminus of its trajectory, Gunner raised his muzzle in preparation for howling his pack back into line.
***
THERE WAS NO TIME FOR warning, for magic, for anything. I was too far away from Gunner, having become separated while preventing him from tearing out the throat of his own pack mate.
But Edward was close enough to save him. Edward, who hated me but whose gaze latched onto mine at just the perfect moment. Whose eyes flicked toward the falling javelin in an attempt to understand the horror on my face.
Edward didn’t hesitate before throwing himself between his alpha and the descending danger. The thunk of knife hitting flesh was sickening. The wheeze of air erupting from a lung, not through a trachea but out between ribcage and punctured skin, made my own breath seize up in response.
While I stood frozen, the blond nephew dropped to his knees beside Edward, already keening out his sorrow. “No! Uncle! No!”
Even dying, Edward somehow found the energy to pat his nephew’s hand consolingly. Meanwhile, his gaze once again latched onto mine. “Protect our pack,” he ordered, the words soundless yet the motion of his lips visible in the near darkness.
Then Gunner was shifting to replace the grief-stricken nephew, the battlefield growing silent as the pack leader’s hands pressed hard against the gaping wound on the older male’s chest. The javelin had gone straight through and out the other side cleanly—and who would have been able to do that from a hundred feet distant without practicing day and night?
Whoever had done it, however they’d done it, Edward wasn’t getting back up from this injury. And Gunner accepted that fact with the grace of a clan leader thinking of his larger responsibilities rather than about only one member of his pack.
“You have my gratitude,” the alpha started. Electricity from shifting werewolves filled the air even as an undulating howl rose up from dozens of shifters who had, one moment earlier, been battling against their family and friends. “Go in peace into the afterlife.”
“Promise.” Edward’s gaze met mine rather than responding to his alpha, his eyes already starting to glaze over with death. He wasn’t even looking at me, I realized. Was instead peering over my left shoulder, as if he’d lost track of his surroundings and was only hanging on long enough to hear my response.
Gunner glanced backwards in reaction, raising his eyebrows when he saw I was on the receiving end of Edward’s mouthed admonition. Then he scooted sideways, making room for me by the dying werewolf’s side.
“I promise,” I murmured to both of them, not certain what, exactly, I was agreeing to. I had no time to press Edward for further information however. Because, with one last wheeze from the hole in his chest cavity, my clearest enemy within the clan subsided into death.