DAYNE
As Dayne sat in stunned belief as he tried to process all the raw emotion Talis had just poured through the mate bond, the sound of a wolf on the hunt ripped him from his thoughts.
He shot to his feet, shaking his head at the faint dizziness which still hadn't abated.
Although he hadn't heard Talis howl before, he recognized the wolf howling, and he knew what it meant.
A savage grin spread over his face, and he turned to the door at his back.
This time he held nothing back.
Each charge at the door met with resistance, but Dayne pulled back and threw himself at it all the harder.
His pack was out there. Talis was out there, and no door in the world was keeping him from her.
As he continually threw himself at the door, he wasn't sure at what point the increasing pain in his shoulder was enough to make him aware he may have dislocated it.
One glance at his shoulder was enough to reassure him he hadn't, but it was close. Not that it would matter if he had. He'd just deal with it and carry on breaking the door down.
"I'd stop if I were you," a female voice called from outside. "No one is getting through that-"
The sound of wood splitting cut clean through her sentence.
Grinning, Dayne backed up and threw himself at the door, and sent it crashing into a wall to the right.
Just before he stepped out through the doorway, Dayne bent and grabbed the small bundle of photographs from the floor and emerged at the top of a narrow staircase.
To his right was the shattered door, which he'd taken off its hinges, and a few steps down from him was a slender woman with a short dark bob and a rifle in her hands.
Her mouth was hanging open, and her eyes were wide with not a small amount of fear.
Dayne gave her a toothy grin. "Five."
She dropped the rifle, turned, and sprinted down the stairs, Ethan following less than a second later.
Other than the shifter running as if her life depended on it, and Ethan in close pursuit, he didn't encounter anyone else as they hurtled down the stairs.
He had a feeling they would all be outside fighting with his pack from all the enraged snarls and growls he was hearing the closer he came to the ground floor.
While he had no doubt that his pack could and would handle themselves in a fight, he didn't trust Glynn Merrick, and he didn't trust the Merrick pack.
The fact he hadn't seen or heard Glynn wasn't a good sign, because Talis was somewhere out there, and he knew as long as Glynn was alive, Talis would always be in danger.
Dayne put on a burst of speed as ahead, the female shifter darted through the open front door and disappeared outside.
He emerged seconds later into a shifter war.
All across the clearing outside the pack house, wolves fought snarling wolves.
Dayne was pleased to see his pack holding their own.
More than holding their own, he thought, nodding proudly at the sight of Hallee taking down a wolf nearly twice her size. He'd have to remember to compliment her on that later.
Then he stilled.
The woman he'd been chasing had fled. Where? He didn't know and didn't particularly care.
What bothered him was that he was neither hearing nor seeing Talis among the fighting wolves.
His eyes fixed on a lean brown wolf fighting off a double attack.
Within seconds, Luka had ripped out the throat of one as the second backed away, looking wary.
"Luka!" Dayne's call cut across the clearing.
Luka tilted his head in his direction to show he had heard Dayne, though he never took his eyes away from the wolf slowly circling him.
Luka would never make the mistake of taking his eye from his enemy in the middle of a fight
"Talis?" Dayne snapped out.
Luka nodded at Dayne's right. And that was all he had time to do because the wolf was lunging at him and then he was back to fighting.
Dayne turned in the direction Luka had nodded, and then he stilled.
Not because of anything he'd seen. But because of what his nose was telling him.
There, almost buried beneath the scent of the wolves, and of blood and death, was Talis' scent, and it was leading off into the woods. But that wasn't all he was smelling.
Glynn Merrick's scent.
Dayne shoved the photographs he'd carried with him in a potted plant on the porch and launched himself off it.
By the time he landed, he was a large, snarling gray wolf.
The Merrick wolves took one look at him and scattered as they tried to get out of his way, but Dayne wasn't paying them the least bit of attention. He didn't give a shit about them.
He lowered his head and took off for the trees. To Talis.
And he prayed he wasn't too late.