"Shit," Jaxon hissed.
"Dammit," Ajax groaned.
"Well fuck," Bailey sighed.
I tugged at my hair and dropped my saddle bag before I looked at Jaxon whose beast was coming closer. Looking back at Enoch and Abram, I sighed and tried to think of all the ways this could go down. My beast eyed the alphas up and down, licking his teeth with anticipation that was fueled by adrenaline that felt like someone was slowly dripping faster into my system, while Deryl snarled at them.
"Shit," I hissed, echoing Jaxon while Billy snarled at them.
There were about thirty of them and ten of us. Three to one, those odds were not bad, not bad at all. They wouldn't be bad if we didn't have a damn army of rogues sleeping behind us and potentially more northern wolves coming to backup their alphas. They were probably coming to back up their alphas; beast growled lowly and flashed the alphas his teeth. He would rip these filthy men apart; he wanted to rip them apart then carry back their bones to his mate as a prize, and in the moment I was very much inclined to indulge him.
"Well boys, either shit or get off the pot," Billy called out to them, his beast charging forward with a lust for blood.
Enoch nodded to his warriors with a devious glint in his eye. The next thing I knew we were in a mix of chaos. I was tearing the throat out of a warrior while Jaxon was ripping a warriors arm clean off their body. We rolled around each other and moved to the next targets, dismembering them quickly while the fighting continued around us.
We had to end this and end this soon. Our luck the commotions would wake up the small rogue army sleeping not all that far away or the reinforcements would start to filter in.
I jumped over a wolf then tackled a warrior down who was moving towards Ryder. I sunk a claw quickly into his chest and pulled out a lung then tossed it over behind me where Deryl was going head to head with Abram.
I moved to join him, to help but it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Ryder jogged to me as Jaxon ran towards Enoch.
Enoch wasn't fighting clean though, he just sliced through the chests of our other tracker Terrance, and one of the vampires with a blade, a long blade made of silver–silver that he drove right into Bailey's heart.
Silver.
Shit.
I started to run towards Jaxon; I think I yelled at him to look out, but rage was swirling in his eyes. The other twin yelled out as he watched his brother fall down, his heart missing from his body and in the hands of Enoch who had clawed it out and tossed it down before stepped towards Jaxon.
"Jaxon!" I called out.
A warrior ran to me but I pushed them away right as Ryder tackled them and snapped their neck. I looked up and Jaxon was going blow for blow with Enoch. The blade whipped around him, it danced too close to his skin.
I could hear it humming, the familiar hum if silver that had given me a headache this whole trip. "Jaxon the blade!" I yelled out again as I ducked a warrior lunging at me.
Enoch punched Jaxon hard then went to stab him in the hip when Billy knocked Jaxon out of the way and took the blade in his torso. Something was coming out of my mouth, but I have no idea what it was.
I ran to Billy, but only to see Enock stab him again in the gut, then again in the chest–twisting the blade and drawing a growl of fury and fire from Billy's lips. Billy growled out at him and grabbed his arm then slammed it down on his leg, breaking it and forcing him to drop his blade which Billy caught.
Billy didn't wait much longer, he nailed the Alpha in the mouth then flipped him around and slit the alpha's throat. He slit his throat, cutting it deep and letting his blood spill onto the ground where he was already bleeding. The alpha fell before Billy; he fell and Billy took two steps back before he fell on his knees.
My heart constricted.
"Billy!" I called out in desperation.
I ran to him and caught him before he fell backward. Jaxon was soon next to me, eying Billy in a mix of horror and shock as the fighting died down and the wolf laying between us wheezed–a death wheeze.
I moved my hands over his belly and tried to stop the bleeding. Ryder was soon next to us and pulled off his shirt while Jaxon just stared open-mouthed at Billy. He soon pulled his shirt off and handed it to me. My shaky hands mechanically took it and pressed it against his stomach that was leaking out blood, too much blood.
"Dammit Billy," I growled out.
"Stop your whining boy," he coughed out. He looked up at me and smiled gently. "Ethan you know it won't heal."
"Yes, it will. We'll just have to carry you," I replied, pressing harder against his wound while Ryder let out sharp breaths; I started to tug off my shirt. Quickly I ripped it off and handed it to Jaxon who held it firm over the wound in Billy's chest.
Becker was crying out behind us. It was then that the surrealness of it hit me. The realness of life and death dancing on a tightrope that could easily snap.
"Shit," Ajax hissed out as he walked over to us. Deryl, coated in Abram's blood, was over next to Becker, trying to pull him away while Billy wheezed harder.
"Billy," Jaxon barked out. "Dammit, no, you just need to hold on."
"Jaxon–"
"It will heal," Jaxon injected. "Just hold on, it will heal."
"Jaxon," Billy wheezed out, his face growing paler as his blood pooled around us. "Jaxon you take care of my daughter, you understand? You take care of her."
"Billy?" Jaxon's voice was cracking and my hands on the shirt now soaked in his blood were shaking.
"Tell Andrea I'm sorry and that I love her," he wheezed out. "You take care of her," he wheezed out one more time before his chest stopped.
His chest stopped and I felt my heart freeze. I looked at my hands then back at him. "Billy?"
I reached up and slapped his cheek. "Billy?"
"Oh my God," Ryder breathed out.
"No," Jaxon murmured. "No, no, no. Dammit, Billy!"
I slapped him harder, my heart constricting at the sight of the male I had known my whole life paling by the minute in front of me; his lips barely parted without the breath of life coming out of him. "Billy!"
Ajax pushed Jaxon back then held his head to Billy's chest. He let out a shaky breath and shook his head. "I'm sorry."
I sucked in a breath and sat back on my heels while Jaxon just stared at him, his eyes wide with disbelief. Deryl walked over to us, dragging Becker with him who looked like his soul was breaking in half. Looking around I saw Terrance on the ground with his neck tore out. I clutched at my chest because two of my pack members, wolves that were my responsibility, had gone to the moon.
"We have to go," Deryl said. "More than likely there are reinforcements coming and we definitely shouldn't wait in front of a cave of rogues for them to find us."
"We have to take them back," I said. "We need to carry them down so we can give them a proper funeral."
"It will slow us down and we need to go," Deryl replied. "I'm sorry Ethan, but we can't carry him, it will take too much time carrying three bodies. We have to move quick–move now.."
"You're asking me to leave them? To never let their families light their pyres?"
Ajax stood and grabbed my shoulder. "Deryl is right, we need to move or it won't just be their pyres that our packs will be lighting."
Jaxon stood, his skin was trembling as he eyed Billy who looked almost peaceful laying below us. He looked at me with eyes that were heavy, straining to hide his inner turmoil. "We have to go, our mates need us. I have to go to her, I need to get back to her."
I sucked in a breath and cursed myself for doing it. For doing what I knew my heart didn't want me to do but they were right. We needed to go, we needed to run. More than likely the packs were already after us and we had to move. We couldn't carry a body the size of Billy, Bailey, or Terrance's. We couldn't move as fast as we needed to with these bodies; yet the guilt of it–the weight on it seemed to pull my heart down further into my stomach. The guilt making me feel sick for doing what I knew I was about to do.
"Let's go then," I breathed out, my wolf howling out in sorry as we turned away from Billy.
Deryl nodded to us. "Skin, stay in your skin. We can't link, our fur will only be a disadvantage right now."
We all nodded before he turned and pulled the vampire with him. Ryder stepped up next to me and looked at Terrance then back at Billy. "Ethan–"
"We have to go, Ryder," I injected.
"But Ethan–"
"Ryder, we could die here," I bit out, my voice slightly cracking as I stepped forward. "I don't want any more bodies left up here. If we don't go, we may never get home."
Ryder nodded quietly then trotted with me. Deryl looked around and let go of Becker. He looked back at us with a solemn nod. "Run."
With that, we hauled ass.
We could hear barking in the distance and we knew that we had no time to waste, there was no time to waste. My beast was still howling for Billy but I yanked him forward. My heart was breaking for him but right now I needed him to focus because right now we had to haul ass or else it wouldn't just be our heartbreaking–it would be her's.
My beast seemed to more than understand this; he surged and pushed me forward, forward as we jumped down rocks, a ledge, and stumbled over loose gravel. Jaxon yanked Ryder forward, he was a wolf on a mission right now.
I jumped onto a boulder and lost my footing. Falling down it, rolling and tumbling until I hit the ground with a hard 'thud.'
A growl shook me up from the ground. A tracker.
The wolf was eying me while my group tried to scale down and catch up to me. The tracker licked his lips and I licked mine; my beast wanted blood for Billy as did I. The wolf lunged at me, his jaw found my arm but I grabbed him by his scruff and threw him into a tree.
He got up and shook off his fur, snarling at me drawing a fiercer snarl from my lips. He pawed at the ground and lunged again, but I caught him then spun us around and slammed him into the ground, my hands grabbed his head and quickly snapped his neck–a quick death his kind didn't deserve.
"Ethan?" Ajax called as they reached the bottom of the large rock formation.
"Let's move," I replied, not looking back as drops of blood trickled down my arm. I couldn't look back or I would just want to go back and get Billy.
We couldn't do that. We couldn't now.
Ajax stepped up and nodded to me as we picked up our pace to a hard run again. The barking was still in the distance, but it wasn't as close as before. We had run and run and run and run until we were back where the trees grew tall, back closer to the first pack.
But our group was tired and daylight was coming soon. Daylight was not an advantage to us. Ryder ran up and held up and hand before he looked up at the trees.
"What do you think Ryder?" Deryl asked.
Ryder shook his head. "It's too close, the trees would work but we need to go a little further or trackers will find us by daylight."
I nodded and jogged forward then ran next to Ryder, my blood was too full of adrenaline right now to slow down. We wove through trees and tried to quickly make our way down the rocky terrain of the mountains as the trees grew thicker.
No one was the master of this forest but mother nature out here. Eventually, Ryder stopped us again; the trees were much thicker here, much taller. He looked around until his eyes found what they were searching for–mud. I nodded to him and ran over to it, throwing myself into the muddy banks of a pond and rolling around until it thickly coated me.
"Come on," I said to Jaxon as he eyed me with raised brows. "It will help hide our scent."
Ryder was rubbing it all over him while Ajax mirrored what I had done. I continued to slap mud all over me; over every inch of skin. We stripped down to our underwear and rolled around some more because our clothes held too much of our scent.
I finished coating my hair in mud while Ryder picked off pine needles and stuck them against the mud. I eyed him curiously as he shrugged. "Billy told me once that this works too."
I nodded, my heart twisting, as I started to pick off some needles from a pine tree and stick them to the mud on my skin. The other men followed suit, pasting different things that would ward off trackers until we all agreed that our scent was pretty well covered.
Ryder trotted over to a tree and looked up then pointed up. "This one should be good."
Ryder jumped up to a limb and pulled himself up; he continued going, up and up and up into the tree until we couldn't see him through the thick leaves. I jumped up next and hoisted myself onto a limb.
The tree was a pain in the ass to climb with all this mud. My feet couldn't get a good grip on things and my hands kept sliding around. Jaxon was muttering curses the whole way up while I am pretty sure Ajax fell down a few limbs.
Eventually, I found where Ryder was curled up next to the trunk with the thick coverage of the leaves sheltering him from the outside world. There were tears in his eyes as he looked out into the night, tears that made my heart twist more.
I climbed onto a thick branch opposite him and nestled myself against the base. Reaching out to the bond, I could feel it but it felt strange. She didn't feel right; I could feel her but the silver in the ground below us was making it hard for me to tell what was going on. There was a dim throb of pain over the bond. My beast howled out while I clenched my eyes shut and prayed that it was nothing–that she was fine.
It didn't feel right. Something didn't feel right. I reached back to the bond and I could feel her but it was strange; I couldn't put my finger on it, and thinking about it made my head pound.
My lips let out a shaky breath as the wind blew through the branches, softly rocking the tree in the night that seemed so much darker.
"Well, how the hell are we getting home?" Deryl asked.
"You mean you don't want to go back and kill them all?" Ajax asked.
Deryl shot him a scowl while Jaxon climbed up to a branch right below me. He curled up on the trunk and let out a shaky breath. "We have to get rid of them, rid of them all."
"Let's do that when we are not being hunted like dogs," Ryder bit out.
I blinked hard but all I could see was Billy, all I could feel was his blood on my hands. His blood was still on my hands.
"Do we go around the pack or through it?" Deryl asked.
"They will expect us to go around," Ryder said.
"You want to run through it?" Ajax scoffed out.
Ryder shrugged. "It's that or take the cliffs home. That in itself may kill us."
"That's suicide!" Becker hissed out as his branch shook a little with the wind.
"All their trackers will be out looking for us as well as their warriors!" Ryder whisper yelled back. "The pack will be vulnerable and easy for us to creep through."
"Ryder is right!" Deryl whisper yelled. "We just need to be quick and make it to where we can link."
"We go at night then," Ajax said. "We take turns taking watch and we go at night through the pack. Ryder, how long do you think they will go hard looking?"
"Twenty-four hours," Ryder replied as the wind howled, like a ghost yelling at us–screaming out to us and reminding us of the men whose bodies we would leave up here.
"Alright, at nightfall we go again. How much further to the tree line where we can link do you think we are?" I asked.
"About a day's run, but if we haul ass it could be shorter," Ryder replied. "We can shift there, but it's still a day's run back to our border. Even if we are running hard, it will be a long ass run."
"We're hauling ass," Jaxon bit out.
"We're going down the mountain," Deryl added. "It should go faster. We go until we can link and then we run in our fur home."
"What about the rogues? These packs?" Jaxon asked.
"We deal with them when we aren't covered in mud and clinging on to a damn tree!" Ajax whisper yelled back.
I gave him a half smile but I knew it wouldn't help. I so badly wanted to turn around and go back for Billy, but I knew better. We wouldn't have made it this far carrying his body or the others. I would take responsibility for that, for leaving him behind–for leaving both him and Terrance behind.
"I'll take first watch," I called out, because I knew I couldn't sleep even if I wanted to.
I leaned back against the tree trunk and stared at the waning moon, the moon that looked so peaceful in the sky. My beast stirred because it made us think of her; we reached out to her again but the link was empty. The link was empty but the bond seemed to be shaking.
Blinking hard I let out a shaky breath and prayed to any deity that would listen that they would just get me home in one piece, that they would get me back to her.
Jaxon climbed up to my branch. He turned and straddled the branch to face me. A few times he opened his mouth before he would close it.
"He saved me."
I nodded as my heart twisted. "I know." Jaxon shook his head and I could see it–the guilt in his eyes. "Jaxon he died like he would have wanted to. He died fighting. It's what he would have wanted, Billy wasn't one to settle for just getting fat and old."
"This will kill her," he breathed out.
"She has you," I replied. "You have to look out for her now."
"I know," he replied. His eyes were staring off into space while his beast howled out in the back of his mind. He scratched at his neck, caked with dry mud before he looked back up at me. "What do we do? Do you think this is it?"
"You mean do I think they could be in other places too?" Jaxon nodded while my beast stirred. "I don't know. Maybe? It depends on what it is they're trying to do."
"How do I tell her Ethan? How do I tell her we couldn't bring his body back?" I clenched my eyes shut because the thought of it made me want to turn around and go get Billy, but we were far behind enemy lines, and we couldn't risk trying to carry the two bodies back. "We could go back? We could go back for him?"
"We'll die Jaxon," I breathed out. I met his gaze that held mine, eyes that knew the truth but didn't want to believe. "We won't make it home, my beast is sure of that."
"This is so screwed up," he hissed out.
"Rules of engagement say that the dead are entitled to a proper burial–that we can pause the fighting to properly bury them."
"That's assuming that they give us his body and that talk means that we're at war Ethan."
"What else do you think this is Jaxon?"
Jaxon let out a tired breath and blinked hard before he nodded. He climbed back down to his branch, scooting back until his back was pressed against the trunk while I leaned against mine as I took watch for the night.
Even after my watch though, I didn't sleep the rest of the night. Jaxon and I were both wide awake with demons of the previous day haunting us all night. All night and into the day as the tree swayed back and forth in the wind.
At one point we could hear barking again and we almost jumped out of the tree to keep going, but the barking turned west and seemed to follow a different course that gave me a little more hope.
The day started to fade. I only had maybe an hour of sleep since we had been in this damn tree, an hour that did very little to help the sadness that was eating away at me as the sun started to dip below the horizon.
We all waited quietly; in a heavy silence until the sun was gone and we were just left with night. Pitch black night. Ryder moved from above me then started to climb down. He landed on my branch, the mud dried on his skin that twitched a little as he held his position on the branch. "We should go now."
I nodded and looked down at the others. "Ready?" I whisper yelled to them.
They nodded and waited for Ryder and I to come down; we made it to the ground and looked around as Deryl landed next to me followed by Ajax, Jaxon, and Becker. Ryder let out a long sigh before he titled his head to the moon, letting her light wash over his skin caked with dried mud.
He turned back to us with heavy eyes. "Let's go home."
Limbs, leaves, and other lazily waving branches in the night whipped my muddy skin as I sailed past them. We didn't slow down to make a trail of our own, we were the full definition of trail blazers.
We came around a bend until we spotted the patrols of Enoch's pack. Jaxon almost went after them, but Deryl and I tackled him down, and restrained him from doing what we all wanted to do–what I wanted to do. I more than wanted to march my warriors back here and burn these packs down to the ground.
But we couldn't.
This land, these mountains were bad news–bad luck. This was their home turf and if we were going to win this damn war, we couldn't do it if we came to them. They had to come to us.
"What do you want to do?" Ajax whispered back.
"How many?" Becker asked.
"Three," he replied.
Becker stepped forward and looked back at us. "Wait here."
We didn't have time to argue because he zipped forward and left a trail of snapping sounds in his wake. My eyes moved from each potential source of the sound–from the crunching. Eventually, Becker came back, not a drop of blood on him but his lips curled into a satisfied smile so cold it almost made these mountains seem warm.
"Patrols are taken care of."
"Becker?" Ryder asked.
"My brother and I have lived side by side for over four hundred years. Three wolves won't satisfy my vengeance."
I stepped forward and nodded to him. "We'll have our blood, but for now we need to go home."
He nodded to me and looked back toward the pack. "Let's go then."
Ryder led us quietly on the outsides of the pack. There was no one walking about at night, luckily for us. We crept past the place where our tent once was and around some buildings until we were hidden behind a shed that was across from where the females were collared up.
Ryder looked at them then shook his head. "We should free them."
"No, we leave them," Ajax whispered back.
"How can you be ok with that?!" Ryder whisper yelled to him, his voice tight and hot with emotion that had been bubbling up.
"I'm not!" Ajax whispered back. "But we cannot trust anyone up here, even them."
"Just because you free them, it doesn't mean that they want to be freed," Deryl added. "This is their way of life and right now you 'freeing' them would disrupt that culture. We leave them and go home."
"Ethan–"
"Ryder no," I replied back. "We go home. They're right."
He let out a shaky breath and nodded. "Alight," he said reluctantly.
We snuck out from around the shed and tip-toed across the yard and over to the trees where we were able to pick up the pace a little. A building came into view; we paused behind a few boulders then one by one lunged out to hide behind the building.
Becker looked around before he nodded to us, he was about to take a step when Ryder held up a hand. Deryl and I eyed each other before Ryder eyed us cautiously forward.
My feet crept quietly until I was standing next to Ryder, looking at omegas pushing wheelbarrows of black rocks down a small path that wound around the mountain. I sucked in a breath and bit back a growl; they were making them up here. They were making them up here and that meant that they had witches up here helping them with blood magic–magic cultivated by the use of strong blood.
I pushed my beast back further at the thought. Ryder eyed me and I could see it in his eyes, the need to follow them. I shook my head and mouthed, 'No' to him. He bit his lip, his eyes pleading but I shook my head more fiercely before I mouthed, 'You will die Ryder.'
Jaxon looked at him and shook his head as well before he mouthed, 'We need you here.'
Ryder covered his mouth and let out a shaky breath before he looked back up at me and nodded. He looked back at them then back at me, 'Ok, let's go.'
I looked back one more time, watching an omega–sickly looking, push a wheelbarrow full of rocks. My beast growled inwardly before I yanked him forward and reminded him to focus, focus and helping me get us home.
We crept through the rest of the pack with relative ease after that. Ease that made me uneasy because I had a feeling it shouldn't be this easy. The terrain wasn't; scaling down the mountain barefoot in our underwear covered in mud was not a damn cakewalk.
The trees started to thicken, and when they did my belly filled with hope because maybe-just maybe we could get out of here with our hides.
Becker held a hand up and looked at Ryder with wide eyes as we came upon a ledge that I had remembered dropped about thirty feet down. Ryder eyed him then held a finger to his lips; he knelt down then started to army crawl to the edge of the cliff, careful to not let his limbs make a sound.
My heartbeat picked up as I followed him; sinking down to the ground and quietly slithering until I could see what it was that had Becker's eyes widened with a mix of fear and bloodlust.
Warriors were lined up below us. They were walking around the area and talking amongst each other while the captains sat in a corner and looked at a map. They were waiting for us.
Shit.
We crawled backward until we made it back around the ledge where some trees and boulders would shelter us temporarily; my heart pounding and my stomach turning in knots. Ryder looked at all of us and tapped his head. He looked at the ground for the longest moment, his brows furrowing while hot breaths escaped his nose.
We still couldn't link.
Jaxon blinked hard then with his finger drew a question mark in the dirt. Ryder eyed it then eyed Becker. Becker drew a mountain, two simple lines with no base. He then drew this wiggly line through it followed by more mountains that were smaller until they led down to smaller mountains where he drew some stick trees.
Ajax raised his brows and nodded approvingly as Becker looked back at us. He pointed at himself then all of us then pointed at a place on the wiggly line he drew on the big mountain; signaling to us that we were there.
We nodded to him as we eyed where his finger was pointing. He drew a numerical one in the dirt, then drew a line with an arrow that pointed back away from the mountains. He drew bigger mountains and a river quickly and extended the arrow until it cut through those mountains, crossed the river, then dumped us out on Lusa land.
He circled the 1 and looked back to us; Deryl looked at him and pointed to the one then mouthed, 'days?' Becker nodded quickly and looked at it, chewing his lip before he drew a number four next to it. Ryder eyed it then looked at Becker and nodded approvingly.
He started to draw again; he drew a number two then drew a line that had us going up the mountain a little, evading these patrols, then down the mountain. It was similar to the path we took but it went further east, cutting across a river before it spat us out on my land.
He circled the two then wrote a number two by it before he looked at us and mouthed, 'two days.'
We eyed the options because both had flaws. The first one would send up back up the mountain and across other ones; we wouldn't be able to link for days so we would be on foot and still in territory that would be considered our enemies.
Yet the second option was just as dicey. Sure we could get to the line where we could link faster, but we would be taking the risk that we wouldn't run into any patrols along the way, and I knew that they would be looking for us everywhere that was considered south on this mountain.
We all looked at each other in question; there wasn't a good option. They all were shit, but it's what we had.
Ryder looked at us and mouthed 'vote.' We nodded together as hands started to draw tally's next to the numbers. Jaxon and Deryl had drawn a line next to the second option while Ryder and Ajax had drawn a line next to the mountains.
I looked back at Becker who was eyeing Ryder before he nodded reluctantly then drew a line next to the mountains.
'Are you sure?' I mouthed to Ryder.
He gave me a deep nod. 'With my life.'
I drew my line in the sand and eyed the stick mountains. We were going back to the mountains.