Blake

The campground had been organized into a mobilized war counsel.

Blake stared through the window as Malachi maneuvered the car towards his site at the back of the camp. "How many hunters?" she asked.

"About fifty."

"And the wolves?"

"Numbers are unconfirmed but we should have no problems. Daryl's been monitoring this pack for some time now. He knows what their weak spots are. Plus we've gotten reports saying that the lead bitch is pregnant so when the monster in charge of this pack realizes they're under attack, he's going to reinforce the women and children. Leaving the door wide open for us."

Blake raised a brow. Not easy information to come by. "Where did he learn that?"

Malachi slid a glance her way. "I didn't ask."

A lie. After all these years, Blake had learned Malachi's tells. It was the way his jaw twitched, just slightly. But she didn't push it. That wouldn't end well for either of them.

"What's the infiltration plan? Are we luring them off of their land?"

"No. We're going to them."

Blake started. "Really? Won't we be repelled by that freaking magic wall they have around their border? How'd Daryl even find the pack anyway? Those walls act as deterrents. I've met hunters who've gotten their heads completely scrambled from getting too close."

All hunters knew that most werewolf packs within North America were secured behind faerie-enforced barriers. During the witch and werewolf hunts of the past, many supernatural groups had banded together to go into hiding.

Illegal and warded markets popped up, vampire covens refused to stay stagnant, the faeries relocated back into their Courts. Of them all, the warlocks were perhaps the hardest to track down when on the mortal plane. Nomads – many of which knew magic that let them blend into a crowd. Not impossible to find but very difficult in major cities where being different was just another Tuesday.

Many werewolf packs though had called upon the fair folk to weave complex warding spells into the fabric of the environment they lived in so that humans like Blake had no chance of finding the communities contained within them. The walls were invisible to humans did weird things to your head if you got too close.

Malachi had shown her one once, as a training exercise. They'd been in Utah when they'd accidentally stumbled upon the pack's wards. Being near the wall was the closest they'd gotten to seeing what was behind the curtain before the magic had repelled them away. Blake remembered walking towards a line of trees before suddenly finding herself a few miles away, heading back in the direction of their car as if that had been her path all along.

A normal person would have played it off, presumed that they'd gotten turned around in the forest and had back-tracked by accident.

Blake knew better. She knew what magic felt like. How it made her head slightly foggy, her memories unclear. As if she'd been drugged.

She didn't like the feeling.

"They have it," Malachi assured her. "One of Daryl's guys tracked a wolf here from Denver. Got close enough with his binoculars to see where it disappeared off to but stayed far enough back that the magic didn't affect him. He took the coordinates down for us and we started working on a plan to get inside."

"And how are getting through the wall?"

"There's a hole. We'll cross there."

"Care to elaborate on that?"

"No."

Typical, she thought but held her tongue.

"When is the go-ahead time?"

"Eleven A.M."

Blake frowned. "Broad daylight? Do we want to be noticed immediately?"

Malachi laughed. "Daryl learned that they're having some kind of party tomorrow. All of the beasts will be occupied and gathered in this clearing that gives us perfect sightlines for sniper rifles. We'll be in and have half of them slaughtered before they even realize that we're there. Don't worry, Blake. It's going to turn out fine."

"I'm not worrying," Blake said. "I just want to make sure that we've thought everything through. We've never done a hunt on this scale before."

"We've worked with other hunter communities before," he reminded her.

"Yes, we have. But we've never tried to take out an entire established pack. The closest we came was two years ago when we destroyed that rogue band out near Mexico City. But that was only twenty werewolves. That's barely a pack."

Malachi brought the car to a stop next to a large tent. He cut the engine and turned to Blake. "It'll be fine. Stop stressing."

Before Blake had the time to say anything else, he kissed her hard. His fingers twined in her hair. He pulled away quickly and added, "Daryl's organizing a meeting for the leaders of the assault. You're going to be there with me."

Blake nodded and tried not to show her surprise. "Okay. When is it?"

"Right now."

Malachi hopped out of the car and Blake followed, pausing to grab her backpack and duffle bag from the backseat. The backpack had her clothes and travel essentials. The duffle bag held the fun stuff. Blades and bullets, silver and wolfsbane. The latter was a paralyzing agent designed specifically for werewolves. Where silver tended to force werewolves to return to their human bodies, wolfsbane forced them to stay in the form they were in but left them unable to move. Too much of it could even kill a wolf, poisoning their bodies until they were an unmoving mess.

The weaponry she carried was gruesome but it was all that she needed for war.

They walked towards an area that had a series of picnic tables set up beneath a wooden pergola. Already there was a group of hunters pouring over maps and aerial footage of the forest. Blake wasn't sure how they'd gotten any of it. The magical wall made that part of the forest invisible to satellites and drones flying above the wall.

There was really only one explanation. These images had come from inside the pack. Somehow, the hunters had snuck in behind enemy lines and survived long enough to get the intel they needed.

Blake was impressed. Daryl and his people were better than she had originally assumed.

Though she had never met him, Daryl was easy to spot. He had the same haughty, commanding attitude that Malachi did. She supposed it came with the job when everyone was always looking up to you. Watching what you did, learning how to stay alive.

He was also quite tall but in a lean and lanky kind of way. Daryl had none of Malachi's bulk and broadness, though like Malachi he had rich dark skin and brown eyes. There was very little hair on his head – his scalp bald and chin absent of a beard. The only hair he had stemmed from his dark bushy eyebrows.

"That didn't take a lot of time," Daryl remarked as she and Malachi walked up. "I expected it to take you longer to get back from the airport."

"No time at all," Malachi replied. "The roads were pretty clear."

Blake looked at the other hunters in attendance. She recognized a few of them. People from her own band – like Ida and Brullo and Malachi's sister, Sarah – but most of them were strangers. She was also easily the youngest person in attendance by at least ten years.

Malachi gestured her forward. "Everyone, this is Blake Montgomery. She's one of the best hunters I've got."

A few of Daryl's people gave her cursory glances. One – a light-featured man who gave off instant surfer-dude vibes – leered at her, his eyes roaming over her body.

Blake forced herself to stand tall. You don't back down, she told herself. You don't yield. You are strong.

Daryl stretched out a hand. "Daryl Morris. I've heard good things about you. Malachi says that you've got experience with werewolves?"

"They're what got me into our line of work. I've still got a few scars to settle. Maybe even while we're here."

She got a few understanding looks at that. Clearly, she wasn't the only one with scares that could be attributed to the creatures of the moon.

"Good. We'll need some of that anger if we're all going to live through this."

The language he used raised the hair on the back of Blake's next. If we're all going to live. If. Which means some of us may die.

Blake felt a flash of fear pulse through her but she squashed it quickly – never letting it get far enough to show on her face. Outwardly, she was hard as stone. Without doubt or hesitation.

Daryl gestured to the maps. He'd taken a map of the forest and drawn a perfect circle in red marker around a central spot. In the middle of that circle, Daryl had drawn a few buildings that Blake assumed were supposed to be the wolves' stronghold.

It was funny to see buildings. She'd assumed they lived in dens.

"Okay here," Daryl said, pointing to one spot near the southeast corner. "There's a small breach in their warding. It's not very big. We can get one – maybe two – people in at a time. We're working on widening that hole as we speak. With any luck, we'll be able to get more than that in come go-time tomorrow."

Great, Blake thought wryly. This sounds like a suicide mission already.

"This is our entry point. Now, we've managed to get intel from the inside and know that they have perimeter patrols that have become more frequent near the hole so whoever goes in first is going to be critical for mission success.

"Once we're all in, we're going to have to move quickly. There's a big field here." Daryl pointed to another spot on the map. "That's where we have to take them out. They'll all be assembled there according to our intel."

Blake wanted more detail than that. "How reputable is your intel? What were you using to get inside? Drones? And how do you know that they're all going to be waiting there for us to open fire on them?"

Daryl flashed a grin at her. She didn't like that smile. It made her feel on edge. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. "Trust me, Montgomery. That's where they'll be."

She risked a glance at Malachi. He nodded once at her, a quick dip of his chin. There was no hint of confusion in his eyes. Malachi knew more than what he was letting on.

Need to know basis, Blake assumed. And knowing the source of intel is not something I need to know. How utterly Malachi.

God, knowing him, he'd probably kidnapped a werewolf and was having someone torture it for information even as they spoke.

"All of you gathered here are going to be responsible for a strike team. Every person on a team will have a specific target to take out," Daryl continued. He reached into the bag that was sitting on the floor and came up with a stack of photos.

"We know that we're going to be pressed for time and that once we lose the element of surprise, all hell is going to break loose. The plan is to take out their big guns. The fighters. Those who are left – the bitches and the pups and the old – they'll have to leave eventually once all of their protectors are gone. And we'll have the place surrounded so that they don't have anywhere to go except right into the muzzle of our guns."

Daryl handed out the photos, providing each person present with four or five pictures each. Blake was surprised when Daryl handed her her own set of photos. She'd assumed that she'd be lumped in with Malachi, or perhaps Ida, but it was now clear that she was going to be running point on this attack.

Blake didn't know whether she should feel proud or petrified.

Perhaps both.

She took a moment to study the photos she'd been given. They were grainy as if they'd been taken from a moving drone. Each page had two photographs – one of a human and the other a wolf. Blake found herself staring at them intensely and realized as she examined the photo of her target – a muscular brown-haired man who looked to be about fifteen years her senior – that the human and the wolf shared the same eyes.

Odd to see such a human feature in an animal. Proof that they weren't hunting just animals here but people as well. Abnormal creatures that could shift out of the flesh they wore into something different. Something unnatural.

Daryl looked at each of them in turn. "Let's not kid ourselves here. This isn't going to be easy. Some of our people are probably going to die out there. But we're going to save a hell of a lot more innocents by wiping this pack of abominations away.

"Not all of these creatures are inherently evil. We know that. The pack here is though. As I'm sure most of you are already aware, they have been targeting humans. More than a dozen have been butchered in the last six months and that's just near the city limits.

"The Denver authorities think that they have a serial killer on their hands," Malachi said, taking over from Daryl. "We know better. These beasts won't stop the killing on their own. It's up to us to protect the people of Denver from their claws."

*~*

They gathered one mile away from the southeast corner of the wall that surrounded the wolf pack.

Blake had awoken at dawn. She'd stretched and gone on a short run to warm up her muscles and then downed a quick breakfast of oatmeal and black coffee. After, she'd sat at the picnic tables alone for a while, going over the plan again and again in her head.

The previous night, she'd met the team that she would be leading in. Four others – three men and one other woman. Two of them – the woman and one of the men – had come from Beare Lake but the other two were hunters that knew Daryl and had come when he called.

Blake had distributed the photos of their targets to her team when she'd met them but she'd retained one for herself. Malachi's intel claimed that the photo she carried was of the wolf that had attacked Blake and her family on the night that her parents were killed.

She was lucky that Malachi had been there. That he'd seen the faces of the beasts because she herself couldn't recall them. The injuries and blood loss she'd sustained from the werewolves' attack had that night a hazy mess so Malachi's recollection was the only one that mattered.

Though Blake still remembered the fear. And listening to the screams of her parents as they'd been mauled. Most of all, she remembered the way that one of the wolves had come for her and her brother and the only weapon she'd had to defend herself with was a softball bat.

It hadn't done much – that bat. Didn't even injure the damned creature. What it had done, was buy her brother time. Cherished seconds that had given Josh the time to hide and for Blake to lead the monster away.

Once her brother had been out of harm's way, Blake hadn't cared if she died. Had even resigned herself to the fact that it was likely she did because she was young and the werewolf was three times her size and packed with muscle.

Then, Malachi had arrived. Entering through the busted front door and shooting the werewolf with silver bullets.

She'd passed out after that, waking in the hospital a week later. Malachi had stuck around, waiting to see if she would live or die. When she awoke, burning with fury and a desire for vengeance, they had concocted a plan.

Blake and her brother had no living family aside from each other. They had no aunts or uncles and their grandparents had passed. Their god-parents were friends of their mother's from college who Blake had never met.

Malachi had learned all of that from Josh as Blake had been recovering. They'd found the legal guardianship documents at the destroyed Montgomery household and Malachi had created fake identification documents that matched the names of the guardians that Blake and Josh's parents had selected.

She had never known if their subterfuge was ever learned. If those guardians ever went looking for her and Josh. If they had, they'd never found them.

Blake didn't regret the decision to go with Malachi to Beare Lake. But as they stood outside of the werewolf pack, she wondered how she would feel in a few short hours when this whole mess was behind her.

Would she and Josh continue to stay in that hunter community if they had no vengeance driving their will to hunt? It wasn't as if they had anywhere else to go. At least in Beare Lake, they had a home. On the road, they would have nothing but each other.

"Listen up people," Daryl said, calling the group to order. "You know the plan. We're about to embark on a monumental hunt here. Nothing of this scale has ever been attempted. It's going to be messy and bloody. So be prepared."

"Stick with your teams," Malachi added from his spot next to Daryl. He stood with his arms crossed. "Don't go off alone unless you want to be ripped to shreds. Daryl and I are leading the teams that are targeting the alpha and the other high-ranking wolves. The ten of us," he gestured to the men and women around him, "are going to be cutting off the head of this pack.

"You all know your assignments. The werewolves we've assigned to you are fighters and revered in their pack. They just don't happen to be at the top of the food chain in this particular group. But if we provide any of the beasts that survive with the chance to regroup and identify new leadership, then you can bet they'll come after us. We take out these targets and the desperation of those that survive will bring them directly into our crosshairs tomorrow."

"Be vigilant," Daryl said. "And don't hesitate. If you do, you'll be dead."

Blake looked to her team – Donovan, Fletcher, Amir, and Pam. The latter two had come from Beare Lake with Malachi and they nodded at her now. Donovan and Fletcher were older than her and didn't look thrilled to be following her lead.

"Everyone ready?" she asked from where she'd perched herself atop a large boulder as the teams had begun to coordinate upon arrival.

Don grinned. "I'm ready to add a few pelts to my collection."

That smile was so dark that she believed that he did have monster skins in his house. Blake suppressed a shudder but caught Pam's rolled eyes.

They were the fourth team through the hole. Sometime in the night, it had been widened further. Now, they could fit four people standing shoulder-to-shoulder through easily. Daryl and Malachi hadn't elaborated on how they'd managed to do it and Blake didn't ask. She knew that they wouldn't answer her even if she did.

Blake and her team got into position as the entire convoy began the last leg of their trek towards the wall and its hole. Though four could fit through at one time, they were taking precautions and taking a different formation. Two in the front, three in the back covering and shooting where necessary. They would enter at the southeast corner and head in a northwest direction. That's where they had it on good authority that the beasts would be having a party.

She didn't ask how they got that intel either.

No, she was too busy playing the role of a good soldier. Obedient soldier. Who followed orders without questioning them. Even if something in her gut didn't quite feel right about what was going to happen. Not like it mattered how she felt. Following Malachi and Daryl's orders was the only right thing to do. She would follow their orders until the werewolf that killed her parents was dead.

Maybe she'd even ask Don how to skin them alive so she could hang that pelt on her wall. A memento from this occasion.

Blake watched as the first time – Daryl's team – approached the wall. It was strange to be so close to it and near-indistinguishable. If you didn't know what to look for, you'd never see it. The magic surrounding the werewolf pack was barely a shimmer in the air to the human eye but she could feel the magic thrumming through her veins. The feeling was almost repulsive as if warning her of danger and telling her to head in the opposite direction. It was only that hole, that small space that they approached, that kept the aversion at bay.

That anti-magic zone was like breathing fresh air. It cleared her thoughts and helped her concentrate on the task ahead.

They all watched anxiously as Daryl glanced back just once and then he was nodding forward to his Second and took a step forward. Blake half-expected them to get fried – as if touching an electric fence. Instead, they disappeared into thin air.

One minute there, the next gone.

The rest of Daryl's team followed. Then Malachi went – not even pausing to look back – flanked by his sister. Behind him went a team led by one of Daryl's guys and then it was her turn.

Blake waved her team forward, squaring her shoulders as they neared the wall. "Let's go."

By the time they passed through the barrier, two wolves were already on the ground with bullet holes through their foreheads. Blake didn't linger on their faces, just kept marching on with a steady grip on her gun.

Though it didn't appear any different than the forest she'd just left, there was something about it that felt a little different. Other. As if there were eyes on her already.

They hiked to a clearing, breaking off into smaller groups as they went. No one spoke. No one did anything other than breathe. By the time the trees began to thin, exposing a field on a flat plain beneath the ridge Blake and her team settled on, she could practically feel the nerves emanating out from the other hunters.

She sank into the foliage, setting up her rifle as her team disappeared into the surrounding brush. Below, the werewolves were playing games – playing as if they were human. It was a surprise to see them acting so mundanely instead of the creatures they truly were.

Blake peered through the scope of the gun, searching for her target. The wolf was probably around his late thirties or early forties, with sweeping dark hair and brown eyes. A slight scar was visible above one of the eyes, something that Malachi claimed to have seen on the beast the night it'd attacked Blake's family.

He was thick and muscular – clearly a fighter but not a highly-ranked monster like Malachi and Daryl were dealing with. He stood on the edge of the field, laughing as he watched the games with his arms wrapped around a woman with ravens-dark hair.

Blake calmed her breathing as she waited, even as fury began to roil in her gut. This wolf had escaped the onslaught of bullets Malachi had sent after him as Blake had been bleeding on the ground. This wolf had broken her family.

She would have only one real chance to make the shot that Malachi had missed. Once the initial threats had been neutralized in this clearing, the hunters were to run back to the hole and escape to freedom in the ensuing chaos. If additional wolves were killed along the way, then that was to be considered a bonus.

The main intention, Daryl had reiterated time and time again last night, was to cause panic. Kill the leaders, make the remaining wolves freak, and sooner or later they would have to leave their territory, leaving them open for the picking.

Blake's team was spread out, gear assembled and angled to perfection. She had armed herself heavily with guns secured to her hip and ankle; two small blades sheathed at her waist. The stars of her weaponry; however, were the silver-bladed katana secured down the length of her spine and the long-range rifle she'd already set up.

She got the okay from all of them and peered into the eyeglass of her rifle to wait.

It was a short wait. Less than two minutes later, a shot rang out and it was go time.

Her finger pulled on the trigger, a moment after that first shot, but it went slightly wide as the wolf moved out of the way. He shoved the woman to safety, screaming at her to run, and then he shifted into a beast. Around him, his packmates did the same and any semblance they'd had to humans by playing games was gone.

These weren't humans. They were monsters.

Monsters with teeth and claws and snarling rage. Monsters that were natural-born killers masquerading as people.

"Damn it," Blake hissed as her target retreated past the range of her gun, disappearing into the woods. Bleeding from the wound on his shoulder, but not dead, as he chased after that woman. To her team, "Report."

Only Amir nodded, the rest shaking their heads. Blake swore, her fingers already packing up her gun as she thought through their next move. On the field, a few wolves were down but most had cleared out. They were not the only team to have been unsuccessful.

Something had gone wrong. This was supposed to be a sure thing. It was shaping up to be a failure of epic proportions.

"Fuck that," Don snarled. He lurched to his feet and said, "We're killing these fuckers."

And darted off into the woods, not waiting to see if anyone was following.

Blake swore again and said to the others, "Get out of here now. Fallback and I'll get Don."

"I'm coming with you," Fletcher said. "Don won't listen to you but he might listen to me."

She wasn't going to waste the time arguing. If he wanted to risk his own damned life then that was fine with her. She could use an extra set of eyes watching her back anyways.

"Okay," she said to him. "Amir, Pam – the two of you get the hell out of here. We'll meet you at the rendezvous point."

That was the campsite where they'd met the night before. All of the hunters would be congregating there. Whoever didn't make it back within the hour would be left behind.

Amir nodded, looking unhappy. "Be careful."

"You too." Blake hesitated and added, "If I don't make it out, make sure my brother is taken care of. You hear me?"

Pam's green eyes hardened. "We hear you."

"Good. Go."

They dashed into the woods. Blake prayed they made it out alive.

Blake and Fletcher launched after Don, keeping their eyes and ears alert for attacking werewolves but none emerged. Blake knew it would only be a matter of time. The longer she stayed in this forest, the less likely it was that she'd make it home.

Luckily, it was easy to follow where Don had gone with the clunky footpath he'd left behind. It also didn't hurt that the man was a raging lunatic and had no concept of the word 'stealth'. She could hear him crashing through the forest ahead as they neared –

A scream echoed through the forest.

Fletcher raced onward, no sign of mercy on that face as they saw Don fifty feet ahead, facing off against two wolves that were much larger than the average Canis lupus. Werewolves were at least double the size of their full-animal relatives, but everything else was the same. The sharp teeth, strong jaw, deadly paws accentuated with razor-like claws. From the tip of the snout to the end of the bushy tail, they were pure animal.

Except for the eyes. The eyes were unmistakably human but glowed with animalistic intent. Something different. Not limited to one species. Other. Unnatural.

One of the wolves growled at Don as Blake skidded to a stop. The second circled around behind him, cutting off any chance of an exit. Don's rifle was in two pieces on the forest floor – as if it had been snapped in half.

Fletcher didn't pause to think about what he was doing before he charged in. Blake hesitated only a moment because she recognized one of the wolves. Not the one that Fletcher dove for but the other one that had been circling behind Don.

The one that was consistent with the same photo she'd studied for hours at length the other night. Right down to the scar above the eye. Her target which had bolted into the woods.

Luck, it seemed, was on her side. Now, she had another chance to finish that fight.

Blake didn't go for her gun. Instead, Blake pulled her katana free from its sheath along her spine. She wanted to feel the blood as it pooled on the ground. Wanted to take this thing's head clean off as she should have done twelve years earlier.

She leaped into the fray, slashing at the beast. It was surprised enough by her assault that it jumped away from Don who scrambled back as best he could, blood trailing in his wake. The flesh on his left leg was in ribbons and he was practically holding his guts inside of his body. He had maybe minutes before he was dead.

Idiot, Blake thought as she slashed again with the blade but the wolf danced away out of reach before lunging at her. It's claw ripped through the skin of her left arm as she brought the katana up. Through the flare of pain emanating from her arm, Blake brought the blade down on the monster's flank.

It reared back, snarling before lunging again but she'd anticipated it and was already moving. Not for the attacking wolf, but for the second, grey-furred one that Fletcher was supposed to be taking care of. As that grey wolf jumped, Blake saw that Fletcher was down. Eyes open and staring at nothing; no rise and fall to his chest. His throat was a bloodied mess with no chance of recovery.

Dead.

Blake didn't have the time to process what that meant for her before whirling away from the werewolf, her blade slicing through the air in a downward arc.

The grey wolf howled as her blade connected. Blood sprayed from the beast's unprotected belly as it slammed to the ground. Grimly, she hoped that it would bleed out from that wound. At the very least, it would stay down and out of her way.

She screamed as the other wolf's jaws clamp down on her left arm and yanked her backwards, tossing her to the ground where it growled in her face. The katana skittered out of her reach.

A foot away – Don's eyes had turned glassy, his face blank. Gone.

Blake was in this alone.

She struggled to free herself from the brown wolf's claws. It stood above Blake, teeth bared and dripped with her blood, as she tried to reach for her guns or extra blades but it was futile. The wolf's claws tore into her legs and abdomen, leaving fine little tears that hurt like a bitch but were less severe than the wounds to her arm from its bite.

So Blake did the only thing she could do – spit into its face and stare it down. She wouldn't give the monster the satisfaction of hearing her weep for her life. She had no plans to beg. She hadn't done it at eleven and she sure as hell wasn't going to do it at twenty-three. Blake stared and stared and waited for that final death blow.

Only, it didn't come.

And perhaps it was two minutes or two hours that passed but approaching footfalls sounded and two other wolves – one black and the other speckled grey – appeared in her periphery. The black rushed to the wolf she'd gutted, still breathing shallowly but so close to death that Blake was practically able to taste it.

The speckled grey wolf approached Blake and its comrade, still snarling on top of her. They appeared to have some sort of conversation before bones cracked and skin ripped, and a man replaced the brown-furred wolf that had been standing atop her. Just behind him; the speckled grey wolf remained. He stared at Blake with animalistic intent though Blake's eyes were pulled to the man glaring from above her.

Dark brown hair, matching eyes, a scar. And naked as the day he'd been born.

Even Blake, gritting her teeth against the pain in her arm, hadn't anticipated that. Though she'd sparingly glimpsed ripped clothing in the clearing before Don had acted like a lunatic and gotten himself and Fletcher killed.

"Listen here you little bitch," the man said and his voice was deep and guttural as if the wolf inside hadn't relinquished control. "You're going to come with me and not put up a fight."

Blake said nothing, her lips drawn into a sneer, but allowed him to haul her to her feet as he said, "Brandt? How's Deacon?"

Over his shoulder, Blake saw that the black wolf had been replaced by a blond-haired man who had his hands pressed against the gaping wound Blake's katana had inflicted on the downed werewolf. The tanned skin was coated in a glistening sheen of ruby red blood.

Watching them, Blake didn't anticipate that the wounded wolf would stay in the land of the living much longer. Half of its guts were spilled on the forest floor and she felt grim satisfaction in seeing that, even as the blond-haired werewolf leaned over him, trying to save its worthless life.

"Not good," the blond said. "We have to get him to Dwayne or Amanda now."

The werewolf holding Blake gripped her harder, his nails gouging into the arm he'd mauled. Blake didn't look at it – was sure that it was little better than a hunk of mangled flesh.

"If he dies, I'm going to make sure that you do too. Nice and slow," he growled. "To the others, he added, "Red ordered us to bring at least one in alive. I'll take her to the house now."

Blake knew what that meant. Especially when coupled with the dark glint in the werewolf's eyes. Torture. No quick death for her. So of course she knew what she needed to do.

The werewolf rattled off a few orders to the others and then shoved her forward through the forest. He pushed her along, one of his hands gripping her upper arm until she decided that they'd gone far enough.

Blake had fought a few werewolves in the past before this assault. Had gone with Malachi to hunt some down in Las Vegas and then again in New Orleans. Fighting a werewolf in their animal skin was one thing she wasn't entirely proficient in.

Humans; however, she had plenty of experience fighting against.

This was the opening she was waiting for. She'd known that she was outmatched in more ways than one. The beast was taller than her and definitely stronger. Yet it hadn't removed the guns holstered at her waist or ankle or the blades in her jacket.

She waited, allowed the wolf to shove her along for a while until she was certain that there was a bit of distance between her and the other werewolves. Then, she feigned twisting her ankle – the motion making her stumble forward, bending at the waist, free hand going for that gun on her ankle...

The dark-haired werewolf leaned forward, lurching with her before yanking her upright. Blake didn't let him, instead smashing her head back into his nose. He barked a curse and reactively let go but Blake didn't run. The only thing she had time to do was spin around and fire blindly.

A bullet connected – where she couldn't see but she heard the grunt of pain. The werewolf didn't fall as she'd hoped, rather it ripped the gun from her hand and threw her to the ground face-first like a sack of potatoes. The side of her head collided with a branch as she fell but Blake, dazed and disoriented, managed to roll away before the werewolf's fist smashed into the very spot her head had been.

Blake swept out with her legs, forcing him down to the ground as well. She was growing lightheaded. Blood dribbled down her face from her forehead and nose.

The werewolf roared at her and Blake smiled back – a grim, teeth-bearing sort of thing. Blake didn't even dare hope to survive this encounter. All she wanted was a quick death. No drawn-out torture-filled ending.

Still, she wasn't planning on embracing the darkness alone. She wanted to bring this damned creature with her.

But Blake didn't get the chance for a quick ending. The werewolf reached for her again and Blake was only able to land one more blow – a kick right to its fucking face – before a speckled grey wolf thundered through the brush.

In one quick movement, it was in her face. Sharp canine teeth and an enraged snout, looking like it wanted nothing more than to kill her.

Good, she thought. Do it.

The wolf shifted into its human form and if it hadn't been a werewolf, he might have actually been handsome. He had a face reminiscent of a boyband. Younger and boyish, bright blue eyes beneath the wavy golden blond hair. His eyes dipped to the gun at her waist, exposed by the riding up of her jacket, before it met her gaze again. Without breaking contact, the werewolf grabbed the gun and tossed it away.

"You good, Victor?" the werewolf asked his packmate.

The werewolf with the scar – Victor – lurched to his feet and stood above Blake, glaring murderously. A bruise was forming on his jaw and there was a crooked set to his nose which dribbled blood as if she'd broken it.

Victor wiped his hand across his face, smearing blood, and said, "Fine. But you can bet your rutting ass that I'm going to have the first crack at her later. Fucking bitch shot me."

"You should go see Dwayne."

"It'll be healed in an hour." Victor knelt before her and gripped her injured arm with a force that was harder than necessary. Trying to draw a reaction from her and though it had burned, Blake only glared back. "What I'm going to do to you sweetheart, will last a hell of a lot longer than that."

***

If you enjoyed this chapter, let me know your thoughts in the comments below! :D