Devon

The situation was dire. Besides the gunshot wound, which thankfully probably wasn't a silver bullet since it was still lodged in my shoulder, I'd also been cut several times by the hunters' wicked silver blades. My wounds weren't healing as quickly as they should, so I'd been hastily bandaged up. They would not have been as much of a concern under normal circumstances, except that nearly everyone else had also been injured. The vampire queen had been slashed across the face, but once she realized her eyes were functional, she was unconcerned.

My attempt to remain calm and rally my flagging troops was interrupted by the arrival of the vampire she had sent away with Kain.

"What news?" she asked, her demeanor changing from flippant to serious in a heartbeat.

"Two things. The Denizen found a hidden back exit, and our reinforcements have arrived."

She smiled widely and looked at me. "Excellent news, then. We'll have to hold back the next wave of hunters while the injured and prisoners get out of here, and then we can get out as well."

I nodded my agreement of her plan.

"Your Majesty, you should be the first to leave," one of her bodyguards protested.

She laughed. "I'll be fine, you two have been doing an excellent job."

"But—"

She shushed him and focused on the guard who had brought news. I imagined being her guard was a troublesome job. "Take that injured wolf," she ordered, "and then lead the prisoners out. Once they're on their way, give them directions and return for us."

He bowed, and grabbed the wolf.

"It's simple triage," she said, with a shrug.

Her guards didn't have more time to argue with her. We'd fallen back to another hall several times, and another wave of hunters reached us again.

As did the sound of shouts from outside.

Katrina smirked as she stabbed a hunter through the eye socket with a knife, blood spraying on her face. The woman suddenly screamed and just as suddenly stopped.

The vampire queen licked her lips and then tilted her head. "And that'll be the sound of reinforcements."

My delta had already called for extra troops from Marrowcliff when the battle had started going south. I hated leaving my territory—and my mate—nearly undefended, but if things went well, we'd be back before it would be a concern.

"Your Majesty, you've done enough," complained one of her guards.

She yanked the woman she had just killed up from the floor, and proceeded to bite her neck. While I had no desire to become a vampire—if such a thing were even possible—I did have to admit there was a certain convenience to the fact they could replenish their strength by drinking from the enemy. I and the other wolves were wearing down, and it was increasingly obvious we had endured as long as we had thanks to our new association with vampires.

The body dropped to the ground again with an unpleasant thud, and the dark eyed corpse eater crept out only to drag it back into the shadows.

I looked at the creature distastefully, before dodging a shot from another hunter. He grazed my leg, and I lunged forward, teeth bared. His second shot went wide, but hit a Goldhollow werewolf's chest. He swore loudly, and I slammed the butt of the hunter's gun into his forehead repeatedly before taking the weapon and training it on another hunter.

The sound of shouts were getting louder, but we fell back again, dragging my pair of surrendered and restrained prisoners. Promise or no promise, dragging them along was becoming burdensome, and I would kill them before I left them behind to rejoin the hunters' forces. Amber would understand if it meant saving our own people's lives, I was certain.

Before I completely steeled myself to break my promise to my mate, the queen's vampire returned. "They're out. You all ready?"

"We'll stay back and hold them off, Your Majesty," the taller of her two guards was quick to say.

She rolled her eyes. "Nonsense. You're going to pick up a couple of the wounded and we're all going to run like hell is at our heels."

He sighed. "You make keeping you safe so difficult."

She smiled at him widely. Meeting my eyes, "Ready to run, Devon?"

I released the ropes binding the hunters' legs, I had no plans on carrying them. I jabbed the rifle in their direction, and let my wolf's power flow. "If you flee, hunters, you will die. I long for your blood and would be more than pleased to spill it." The vampires were apparently wearing off on my wolf.

We ran, as fast as we could manage with our injuries and prisoners, following the vampire. He wound us through the long hallways. We were slower and pursuing hunters would catch up with us and we'd have to stop and kill them. We lost another allied wolf in the fights.

Finally, we reached a dead-end hallway. My hope sank, but the vampire did something difficult to follow with quick hands and the entire wall dissolved in on itself. "Ooh, these hunters really are dabbling in magic now, are they?" the queen asked rhetorically. "Their hypocrisy ever grows."

"It seems so, Your Majesty. I wouldn't have found it without the Denizen."

"We'll have to thank Goldhollow for hiring him, I think," she mused.

The tunnel beyond the end of the hall was roughly hewn into solid stone. Fresher air came from somewhere beyond the damp, and it gave new energy not only to me but our group. Momentary relief filled me as I pushed out into the forest, only to disappear with the sight of a dozen hunters with guns trained on our exit. My wolf growled at these new threats, the sound rumbling out of me.

"I told you the emergency tunnel had been breached," one of the hunters commented with a cocky sneer. My wolf pushed me, but I held back, not wanting to end the standoff until I figured out how to neutralize this new threat with minimal casualties.

"These hunters really are vermin, aren't they? Everywhere, just like rats," the queen complained loudly.

She wasn't wrong. I was weary, but I wasn't going to give up just yet.

"Looks more like a monster infestation to me," the hunter shot back. Then, he literally shot me in the leg. Again, thankfully, the bullet had no silver, likely intended for general use rather than against a werewolf, but it still sent pain screaming through my leg and pissed me off to the point where I saw red.

My wolf had enough of these pathetic humans. In my weariness, my control slipped. He shifted out of my skin, which was more than painful, thanks to my still healing wounds and the bullets still imbedded in my flesh, but that only enraged him even more. He charged at the hunters in a mindless blaze of fury.

Like a passenger in my own mind, I watched as he ripped through one after another, their feeble attempts at attack and defence barely a scratch against the power of an alpha wolf in a berserker rage. Their screams and the taste of blood only pushed my wolf to new heights of viciousness.

Once the threat was destroyed, I tried to wrest back control, but I was too weak, and my wolf was unwilling to return it. These enemies had harmed countless innocents, my brother-by-bond, my sister, and most of all, my mate, and he would no longer allow any of them to ever find another victim.

With the last bit of my strength I tried to call out to my delta, but I couldn't even form words in my mind and then...

I could do nothing at all.