Chapter 172: Blood On Our Soil

(Kieran)

Rage hits the tree line like a rabid wolf. One second, we are running. The next, the shadows ahead split open, and bodies come at us hard and fast. Rage launches without hesitation, his weight slamming into the nearest wolf so hard the impact jolts through my whole body. The other wolf goes down beneath us with a crack of branches and a burst of dirt. I thought maybe we were hunting rogues, but now the scent hits me properly, I realise they’re a pack, just not ours. My shock barely lasts a heartbeat before the wolf beneath us twists and snaps for Rage’s throat. Rage rears back just enough to avoid losing a chunk of skin and comes down again with his full weight, jaws closing around the side of the other wolf’s neck. Fur fills my mouth, and blood follows, hot, metallic, and fresh enough to make me want more.

To my left, Rider collides with another attacker in a blur of grey and black, teeth flash, bodies roll, and someone yelps. To my right, Onyx goes low, vanishing under the bulk of a larger wolf before driving upward hard enough to throw him off balance. This pack came ready for a fight. So did we.

The wolf under Rage bucks hard, trying to throw us off. Rage rips free and pivots just in time to avoid a second wolf launching for our ribs from the dark. It clips us anyway, claws scoring across our side, and pain burns hot along my flank. Rage answers with fury. He twists mid-step and catches the bastard by the shoulder, driving him sideways into a pine trunk hard enough to shake needles loose overhead. My paws hit the earth, and the forest explodes around us. There are too many bodies moving at once to count. Five. Maybe six. They’re big wolves, full-grown, and trained, and I have no idea what the fuck they want.

A third comes at us head-on, and Rage meets him. The collision rattles through me. We slam chest to chest, legs digging trenches into the wet earth as we fight for leverage, teeth snapping inches from eyes and throat. His scent is like northern pine over old blood and something acrid beneath it I don’t recognise. Pack, absolutely. Enemy, without question. He drives forward, and Rage gives him more ground, but only enough to bait him. The second he overcommits, Rage shifts left and tears into the exposed side of his neck. The wolf roars, twisting away, and blood arcs hot across the leaves. He stumbles, loses footing on the slope, and vanishes through the undergrowth with a crash that tells me he went farther than he meant to.

There’s no time to chase. “Left,” Onyx snaps through the bond. Rage pivots just as a larger wolf tears through from the left side, and instead of hitting us clean, the bastard crashes into the younger one still trying to recover. They tangle for half a second, and Rage goes for the bigger one first. His jaws close over the wolf’s muzzle, crushing down hard enough to force a howl from him. Then we wrench sideways, throwing him into the base of a fallen log. The sound he makes is wet and ugly and satisfying as hell. Beyond him, I catch flashes of my brothers through the trees. Rider is all speed and chaos, darting in and out of reach until the exact second he chooses to commit, and then he commits hard, leaving blood in his wake. Onyx fights more quietly. He’s cleaner, about it, no wasted movement.

Rage tears free of the larger wolf and wheels around just as the younger one lunges again. This time we meet him in the air. Teeth slam into fur and flesh, as our claws scrape down his ribs. The two of us hit the ground together and roll, dirt and leaves and pain turning the world into a blur of movement and impact. The wolf gets a mouthful of our shoulder, but Rage gets his throat. We both clamp down, for one straining second, neither of us gives. Then Rage drives his back legs into the earth and shakes brutally, and the hold breaks in a spray of blood and a choking yelp. The other wolf scrambles backward, throat ripped open and leaking hard, and vanishes into the shadows with survival in mind instead of victory. Good. Run. You’ll leave a trail. “Idiot.” Rage growls just as something crashes through the brush behind me. A massive wolf hits us broadside and sends Rage tumbling down the incline, smashing through scrub and low branches before we slam shoulder-first into a tree. My breath leaves me in a rush. So does temper. Rage surges up as the other wolf comes with him.

This one smells of a higher rank. Not alpha, but close, probably a beta. He stares for half a beat before he charges. His teeth sink into the loose skin at Rage’s shoulder, and Rage answers by driving forward instead of back, forcing the bite deeper while gaining enough room to get under him. We slam upward with all our weight, lifting his front half clear off the ground, and then twist. He hits earth wrong, well, wrong for him, satisfying for us as the sound that leaves pure pain. Rage is on him instantly. No mercy. We sink our teeth into his neck. One paw pinning his chest. The wolf thrashes, claws raking uselessly through wet leaves, and then Rider appears from nowhere and hits him from the side with enough force to end the fight for good.

Rider steps back, chest heaving, muzzle dark with blood. His eyes flash toward us.

“You good?” Felix throws through the bond, far too casually for the blood all over him.

“Fine,” I answer, because there’s no time for anything else.

Dorian cuts in. “More to the east.”

I smell them a second later. Fuck, how many of these bastards are there? I spot movement and smell the blood of the foreign pack, their scent turning hot and panicked. They’re going to try to run now. The wolves still standing have finally realised they came into the wrong territory. Rage takes one step after them. Every instinct in him screams to chase, to finish, to run them down until none of them ever sets paw across our land again. I feel the same need. So do my brothers. The bond between us snaps tight as a wire.

Rider is already moving left. Onyx angles right. Rage drives straight for the one taking the ridge, earth flying beneath our paws as we launch back into the trees with blood in our mouths and the hunt turning savage all over again. They came onto Red Moon land looking for a fight. Now they get to find out what happens when they have to run from its Alphas.