Alive, Barely

Alive, Barely
Thane

The side of the mountain had already collapsed by the time I arrived.
Dust hung over the slope and turned the moonlight gray. Wolves moved across the debris in every direction, hauling stone away from the deepest part of the slide while others tried to clear enough room for the larger pieces to come free.
I felt Ayla before I reached them. The bond was faint, buried beneath stone and distance, but it was there.
So was she.
Ronan and I had not completely separated after the run. I was still well over seven feet tall, broader through the shoulders and chest, with black claws extended from my hands and fur covering my forearms and climbing the sides of my neck. His strength still lived through the shape of my body, and his panic lived there with it. Every scent came sharper. Every tremor under the ground registered through my feet. Somewhere beneath all that stone was our mate, and every instinct we shared demanded that I go straight through the mountain until I reached her.
Several wolves nearest the rubble stopped when they saw me.
I heard the change in their breathing and caught the instinctive steps backward, but there was no time to explain what I barely understood myself.
Damon was on his knees near the center of the collapse, both hands bloody from digging. He looked up when I reached him.
Thane. I didn’t get there in time. I dropped beside him and tore the first loose slab free.
She went underground. The tunnels collapsed.
Where?
Damon pointed toward the deepest section of the slide. There was more under this mountain than we knew. Whatever was down there went deep.

I hooked my claws beneath another slab and jerked it loose. Stone scraped against stone, and the rubble settled beneath our weight with a deep, grinding groan.
Several wolves pulled back, but Damon didn’t.
I pressed one hand against the exposed rock and nearly lost what control I had left.
Ayla’s scent threaded through the dust, blood, and wet earth. Beneath it was the faintest trace of blue power, weak enough that I might have missed it if I had not known her as well as I knew my own skin.
Alive.
Deep.
Ronan surged through the Lycan form violently; my claws sank farther into the stone.
He wanted down. He did not care what shifted, what broke, or how much of the mountain came with us as long as we reached her.
For one vicious second, neither did I. Then the rock under my palm moved, reminding me Ayla was beneath that weight.
I forced my hand open. I opened the pack link instead.
The form is mine. Keep digging.

The wolves who had been watching me moved again. I hooked both hands beneath a slab that had stalled several males before I arrived and lifted. My footing held while I dragged it free and threw it clear of the dig.
Damon stared at me for half a second.
I am stronger like this.
Then I reached for the next one.
The work changed after that.
Wolves stopped wasting their energy on the largest slabs and cleared what I exposed instead. Damon began controlling the angle of the dig, keeping debris moving backward so we didn’t load more weight onto the unstable section above Ayla.
I kept reaching for her through the bond.
Little wolf.
No answer. I pulled another slab free. Ayla. 
Still nothing. Ronan wanted me to stop listening to everyone. He wanted claws in stone and blood on our hands until there was nothing left between her and us. I wanted the same thing badly enough that it frightened me.
A section near Damon shifted after I removed the next rock.
Hold.
Every wolf around us stopped. Damon leaned closer, studying the weight above the opening. Clear the left side first. If we take the support under that one, the whole section drops.
No.
Damon looked at me.
Thane.
I could smell her through the debris.
Blood and lavender.
Ronan drove through me again, and my claws bit into the slab until stone powdered beneath them.
Move it.
Get to her.
Now.
The section over the opening rumbled, and debris started to fall. I stopped instantly. If I tore through the wrong support, I could bury her deeper.
I could kill her trying to reach her.
The thought was worse than waiting. I forced my fingers loose from the stone.
Brace it.
Damon moved immediately. Engines reached us from below before the vehicles came into view.
Cyrus was out of the first SUV before it had completely stopped. Raven came around the other side, saw the collapsed slope, and ran.
“Ayla!”
She dropped onto the rubble and immediately started digging. Cyrus reached her a second later. “What happened?”
Underground structure, Damon mind-linked. Collapse sealed the entrance.
Cyrus looked at me. His eyes traveled over the height, claws, and fur. Any other night, I would have expected something obscene.
Instead, he said, Where do you need us?

That scared me more than the joke would have. My muscles went rigid as Ronan let out a desperate howl in my head. 
Cyrus turned toward the wolves arriving with him. Move it.
Raven kept digging. Ayla. Her voice was filled with a desperate anger. Blood covered her fingers within minutes. Cyrus caught her wrist when she tried to force her hand beneath a stone that could have crushed it.

I need your hands intact. Speed won't fix this.
He released her, wedged his own arm into the gap, and lifted enough for her to clear the smaller pieces beneath it.
I understood why he did not tell her to stop.
There was nothing anyone could have said that would have stopped me either.
Ayla had gone underground alone.
I knew she had reasons.
I intended to hear every one of them once I had her back.
I wanted the argument.
I wanted her furious with me for being furious with her.
I wanted her alive enough to tell me I was overreacting.
Until then, anger was useful only if I put it into the stone.
I drove my claws beneath another slab and lifted.
Rock cracked like lightning. Damp air escaped through the gap.
I froze.
Ronan did too.
I could do nothing except breathe her in through dust and decay.
Ronan made a sound inside the Lycan form that I had never felt from him before. It came through my chest and throat as a low, broken rumble I didn't recognize.
I lowered my face toward the opening.
Little wolf.
Nothing.
I widened the gap.
Thane. Damon was beside me again. We need to support this before you pull anything larger.
I could smell her.
She was there.
I could dig.
Damon caught my eye and did not back away.
If this section goes, it comes down on her.
I hated him right now for being right.
I hated the mountain.
I hated Ayla for being under it.
Most of all, I hated that I could not tear it apart fast enough without risking the one thing I was trying to save.
Do it.
Damon moved. Another set of vehicles came up the mountain while the wooden braces were going into place.
Rhonda’s voice reached us before she did. Why did I just get an Alpha-level mind-link that rattled my ovaries?
One of the guards shouted through the link, careful to not disturb the mountain: The Luna is buried!
Rhonda stopped as the humor disappeared from her face. Then she ran. Her crew followed her straight into the work. Jill and Marla took a pry bar to one of the slabs Damon had marked while Suki joined the wolves moving debris away from the opening. Rhonda dropped beside Raven and started digging.

The White Wolves came in behind them. None of them announced themselves. They joined the lines, passed stone backward, and cleared the area around the opening without wasting time asking what had happened.
Mikhail stopped at the edge of the site. I saw the exact moment he felt her. His entire body went still.
Ayla.
Then he crossed the remaining distance and dropped beside the others. He put his hands into the dirt and started digging for his daughter.
I turned back to the mountain before watching him could do anything to the control I had left.
More wolves did not mean we could move recklessly.

The deeper we went, the more carefully every piece had to come free.
I knew it.
Ronan knew it.
Neither of us accepted it.
Damon kept calling the safe pieces. I moved the largest ones. Cyrus shifted wherever extra strength was needed. Guards and White Wolves carried debris away as fast as we exposed it. Raven stayed so close to the opening that every breath of air coming through the rubble brought her head up.
I reached for Ayla again.
Little wolf, I’m here.
The silence in the bond was becoming its own kind of pain. If it disappeared completely, I did not know what would be left of me afterward.
I refused to find out.
My claws broke through another layer of stone. Raven gasped beside me. A faint line of blue appeared between two rocks. It vanished almost immediately. I dropped to my knees and put my palm over the crack. A pulse touched me. Weak, but hers. My knees hit the rubble harder than I intended.
Ayla.

Ronan tore through every remaining wall of control inside me. My vision sharpened vividly, claws extending deeply into stone, while I opened the bond as far as I dared.
Little wolf. I’m here. I’m right here. Answer me.
The blue pulse came again.
Fainter.
“No," I yelled out, needing her to hear my voice. Ronan wrapped himself protectively around our mating bond, holding firmly. I pressed my palm harder against the rock as though I could hold her there through it.
“No, you stay with me.”
I bent over the opening and started digging again.
Everyone moved with me. Fuck the risk.
Damon called out which pieces could come free. Cyrus and the guards hauled them away as soon as I exposed them. Raven cleared the smaller gaps with bloodied fingers. Mikhail stayed close enough that each new breath of Ayla’s scent brought his head up.
The opening widened, and air rushed through. 
“Ayla!”
Ronan surged through the Lycan form again, and this time I let part of him have me. A growl tore out of my chest as I ripped another slab loose and threw it behind me.
“We are coming.”
The mountain groaned beneath us. Damon’s head snapped up. I felt it through my hands. The structure below was moving again. Every wolf near the opening stopped.
The pulse beneath my palm weakened. Ronan wanted me to tear down.
I wanted to tear down.
I could see nothing but stone between her and us.
I could smell blood.
Her blood.
The pups.
The bond.
All of it buried beneath my hands.

I punched through the rubble, then I pulled.
And every wolf on that mountain moved with me.