Chapter 27

The ungainly lupine body at first refused to respond to my commands. Despite being a halfie, I’d never before had a problem running, hunting, and playing on four paws, my human self doing the job nearly as ably as my inner wolf could have managed the tasks. But now my feet dragged and stumbled as I barely managed to hold myself erect.

Was my ineptitude due to the aftereffects of Stormwinder’s compulsion, a linkage that had broken the instant my wolf slid away into the darkness? Or was my newfound clumsiness the result of becoming a shifter whose inner beast had perished at her own hand?

I couldn’t afford the time and attention necessary to find out. Instead, painstakingly, I pushed my body language into that of a playful pup. Ears raised, tail wagging, tongue lolling. Dashing backward, I yipped, begging for a stick to be thrown or a frisbee tossed.

Because the one-body vacationers weren’t dead. They hadn’t even been injured, although their clothes were soaked from a frantic dash into the ocean to hide beneath the waves.

Now their stiff shoulders relaxed, a burst of nervous laughter escaping from the oldest male’s lips. “I think he only wants to play,” the father said, his scent full of shame at having succumbed to the recent wave of mass hysteria.

“I swear he was trying to eat us,” the mother countered. She shivered, continuing to back away from my antics. Unlike her husband, she was tuned in to her inner prey animal and recognized the danger that had so recently infused the air.

“It’s not a he; it’s a she,” the son interjected. Bravely, he walked toward me along the shoreline, but I was already turning to flee. Because Stormwinder would feel the splintering of his puppet-string compulsion. And, knowing he’d failed at his initial attack, he would have turned south to seek my secondary weakness—the other members of my present crew.

So leaving the one-bodies behind to regroup as they saw fit, I stuck to the hard-packed sand just above the waves and ran flat out. There was no point in worrying about leaving tracks or being seen now. No, the battle to come would be decided not by stealth but by speed.

Danger, danger, danger, I broadcast toward Ginger and Sinsa as I barreled down the beach. But I doubted whether they would hear. Without the assistance of my inner wolf, in fact, all ties to my pack appeared to have been firmly severed. I was nothing but a confused human hidden within a furry body that no longer felt like my own.

A confused human, maybe. But still an alpha on a mission, I reminded myself. Then, raising my head to sniff at the air, I caught the first hint of troublesome scents and sounds being whipped toward me by the sea breeze.

Angry snarls, cries of pain, and also the wild aroma of strong lupine predators. Not my pack, but someone else in danger. Someone else being ripped and torn apart.

I itched to continue on down the beach, to gather my pack mates and flee from this spot that no longer seemed nearly as safe as I’d originally assumed. Instead, I found my legs pushing up over the dunes to seek out the source of the snarls.

After all, there might be other innocent vacationers being drawn into shifter politics against their will. Would Stormwinder attack one-bodies himself, planning to lay their deaths at my doorstep despite the lack of blood on my fur and claws?

I wouldn’t put it past him. And if I didn’t come to their aid after hearing the fight, I’d be as guilty as if I’d ripped each innocent apart myself.

Except this wasn’t one-bodies, I saw as soon as I crested the summit. Instead, three wolves battled, locked in a rolling ball of legs and tails. They spun through the air, broke apart, then clashed again.

Blood already stained the sand and a group of anticipatory fish crows had gathered atop a nearby yaupon holly. Were the watchers waiting for the battle to end so they could pick flesh off bones? Were they waiting to consume the vanquished?

Usually, the birds would have gone begging. After all, the entire point of alpha stare-downs and dominance displays was to prevent fights to the death. But something told me this current battle wouldn’t end until one or more of the wolves in question had breathed their last.

Someone has to stop them. That someone was evidently me.

Feeling blindly into the ether, I pulled forth my human body with one resolute yank. I’d hoped to save the only semi-certain shift my strength allowed for my entrance into All-Pack. But I didn’t trust myself not to be overpowered in lupine form despite my missing wolf. At least as a two-legger, I could attempt to reason with shifters who appeared to have jumped off the deep end without thought to risk or consequences.

“Hey! Stop it!” I yelled, plucking a piece of driftwood off the ground to brandish above my head. As I spoke, I picked my way toward the combatants, leery of the prickly pears that offered to swipe at bare soles. My advance would have been easier on lupine paws or with human shoes, but I made the most of what I had on hand—my weaponless human skin.

One of the wolves glanced up as I approached, but the other two remained locked in mindless battle. And as the wind shifted, the scents of the bloodthirsty duo finally filtered into my searching nostrils.

Stormwinder. No surprise there. I would have been startled if the Tribunal member hadn’t been at the center of the current battle.

The other wolf was equally familiar, although unanticipated in context. I’d expected Slate Franklin to be waiting at the gathering site, not staking out these dunes in search of blood. Not clamping down his jaws around my nemesis’s jugular in what appeared to be a werewolf grip of death.

As my brain raced, the third wolf surged upward to become a wizened black man who I could only assume was the ill-named Big Bill. Coincidence that two of my three supposed allies were here hunting Stormwinder at the same moment I passed down this stretch of beach? I thought not.

“This is none of your affair,” Bill Byrd told me as soon as his vocal cords had changed from wolf to man. His voice was far deeper than his skinny frame would have suggested, and I caught a fleeting hint of similarity to his much taller son despite their disparate body types.

Family resemblances were the furthest thing from my mind at the present moment, though. “You and Franklin used me,” I said, realization dawning even as I spoke. “I was just the bait in your trap to get Stormwinder alone. You never intended to vote him off. You intended to kill him from the very beginning.”

“We’re werewolves, not girl scouts,” Big Bill answered dismissively. Then, softening a trifle, he added: “Stormwinder isn’t your ally. Haven’t you realized by now that he and his lackey have been causing your blackouts all this time? You should be glad to see him gone.”

I had realized that Stormwinder was responsible for my lupine issues, but I hadn’t been aware the fact was bandied about between all the other alphas behind my back. If my wolf had been present, she would have growled. As it was, my nostrils flared as I finally accepted the obvious conclusion—my supposed allies had never been even moderately on my side.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Byrd, Franklin released the older wolf for a split second, then spun on his heel to plow into Stormwinder’s shoulder. The Tribunal member flew through the air, landing on his back with belly exposed. This wasn’t going to end well.

I shuddered, wondering what my mate would do once he learned his mentor was dead. Because, despite his recent rebellion, deep down inside Hunter still considered Stormwinder to be the father figure he’d never otherwise known.

And now we had Grey to consider as well. Grey who had submitted to my mate and was thus an official member of our clan. Grey who was bound to Stormwinder even more firmly than my mate and whose current grasp on reality was tenuous at best.

No, I couldn’t allow these alphas to murder Stormwinder without a fight.

Unfortunately, words weren’t working and my wolf was incommunicado. So I went for the only other weapon I had at my disposal. Raising the stick I still held in one hand, I flung it with all my might toward Franklin’s enraged wolf.

And then I was being pushed toward the ground, hard hands pressing my face into the sand. I fought to pull in breath, my lungs stunned from the fall and my mouth blocked by the earth. Flailing arms beat vainly at the air, but I couldn’t grab hold of the shifter who’d vanquished me with a single blow. I couldn’t escape from his wiry grasp.

Then, behind us both—a harsh snap, like kindling broken over a knee to shorten its length for the fireplace.

But this crack hadn’t originated with firewood. No, when Big Bill released me as quickly as he’d thrown me down, I knew without looking that the struggle was over.

The Coastal packs were without a leader. Lucas Stormwinder was dead.