Silver Claws

28. Never turn thy back

Who needs a guardian angel when I have a half-decent mate straight out of hell?

Or at least I'm sure that's what the rogue wolves were thinking, because she looked like a demon dropping down from the sky. She was mud painted and adorned in sporadic, bright red scratches. Her clothes were practically hanging off her, I could see part of her breast (no one else better see that). The violence of her teeth is displayed for her enemy to see, the implication from them is clear. The messagenger of death has arrived.

All of this was faded. The only thing that I could clearly see and feel was that I could breathe again with my eyes on her. The bond carcasses my rib cage, no longer restricting the flow of air. I couldn't look away from the absolute contender that has joined us.

The past few days had been spent in nothing but panic, total terror that she was gone. Abandoned the pack. Abandoned me. Finally the weight is lifted, hope soaring high again to make me stronger.

Even with the advantage of Akela (our personal sledgehammer) we were still in peril. I could hear the sound of more wolves approaching, I knew better than to hope they were friends. It felt impossible to focus on the two wolves snapping at me, searching for weaknesses. They wouldn't find one, but numbers would soon come in their favor.  I bristled at the thought of running like a coward, turning my tail for them to chase.

I gave all my control to the wolf inside, every bit of instinct and training would be needed now. He focused on the task at hand, but watched in the background as Akela moved like a wrecking ball through every adversary. It worried me, she was trying to be in too many places at once. The ground became saturated in blood from her warpath. She stayed in her skin, striking over and under without sparing lives the way even my wolf tried to.

It was the one thing that made me so different from the other Alphas. The mercy was seen as weakness to them, but the idea of ending life was unthinkable to us both. He wanted to incapacitate rather than decimate, his dominance living on through those he left alive.

The moment the two wolves I faced hit the ground, more poured from the trees like a fountain. There were close to twenty, and Akela had broken through enough that we were surrounded in a circle. My tail brushed my betas, Akela standing atop Trevor's back like pride rock. I had no time to ask her why she wouldn't change.

Teeth were nipping closer, trying to drive us into a tighter ball. On some unseen queue, Trevor leaps the opposite direction as Akela who's holding a branch in her hand. Reed and I begin our own assault, and we start to thin the ranks. As soon as we begin to make ground, every Rogue turns to a single target. Me.

Without paying heed to their comrades they leap onto me, I break free from the teeth on my fur only to get my right back leg caught in unforgiving jaws. I twist to get free at the cost of a painful cracking. They continue their onslaught, stepping over the hemorrhaging bodies. I fight harder now, understanding their ultimate goal is to dethrone.

Akela is arching over me shoving her stick straight through the left eye of the one that broke my leg, he falls dead with a thud. In her hands anything could become deadly. She is nature at its finest. The flood that kills and brings life in a single strike. She's in the death haze now, blood drops from her chin and down her neck in rivets.

The pain rocks through my mind, but I keep up the pace. My teeth aim for more lethal areas, a fight for survival. I can feel agony rippling from Akela that has me crazed, my mate's pain driving me into further desperation. It's becoming mechanical, I respond to openings with action and try not to think. Any wolf I leave alive is quickly finished off by Akela. She's a lightning bolt, almost invisible with speed. The only sign of her is a fallen body, and the feather light touch over her bare feet or hands when she uses me as a springboard to attack.