Chapter 73 - Lost II - The Royal Hybrid

Gabriel’s POV

I had been so focused on taking Killian down that I hadn’t noticed the back attack they had been planning on me. Had it not been for Hayden, I would have been dead or at the very least hurt to a point where I might as well have been dead. The wolf to my right, the one who had jumped at me, had landed on its paws and flipped around quickly to attack again, but this time I was prepared. I glanced at the wolf behind me and watched how it slightly bent its legs preparing to jump, just like the one in front of me, and when they both lifted from the ground, I in a fast movement, rolled to the side to bring as much space between us as I could. I heard the thud followed by grunting from them colliding before I saw it. And when they finally managed to get back up and ready, I was no longer alone. Three of our pack warriors had seen what had unfolded and had hurried over to help.

‘Go help Hayden,’ one of them linked and, by the mentioning of his name I whipped my head around only to find him cornered.

I didn’t think twice about it as I ran through the field avoiding every fight that had unfolded, but I stopped dead in my tracks when a white wolf cried out. I searched for where the sound was coming from only to find out that one of Killian’s men had my Luna’s throat in his mouth. He swung his head from side to side before releasing her and when he did, she flew through the air and landed only a few feet away from me.

‘Talia!’ I called out as I rushed to her.

She looked up at me, her eyes big, as the red color started to cover her white fur.

‘I’m fine!’ she assured me just as Hayden’s dad, Kyle, came to her rescue. ‘Go!’

I was torn. Not because I didn’t want to go help Hayden, but as a warrior, you had a duty to protect your Alpha and Luna, and seeing her like that, not only made me want to stay, but also made me think, what if that was Tatiana and another warrior had to make this choice.

‘Snap out of it!’ Onyx sneered. ‘You won’t have to think about that being Tatiana if we don’t win this, because then it will be her!’

It was the first time I had heard from him ever since Tatiana was presumed dead and he was right. He usually was.

I took one last glance at Talia and nodded before I dashed toward the place where I had last seen him, but now that I was running in the hollowness under the hill, my free sight had been blocked. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him.

‘Hayden! Focus on my voice,’ I tried through the link but I got no answer. ‘I am coming! Just hold on for a bit!’

My body started to feel cold, and I could feel how every nerve began twitching. He was okay, he had to be.

I kept running, pushing myself to go faster while still being fully aware of my surroundings, until I finally reached the edge of the battlefield and the last place, I had seen him and, sure enough, he was still there, but luckily, he was no longer alone. Despite him limping a bit, he seemed okay, and I knew I had to thank our alpha for that.

Shane was fighting off three of the wolves, snarling and growling while throwing them around.

Hayden, who was making sure to keep his Alpha’s back clean, had a fight of his own. I knew that scent. I had sniffed that scent ever since Tatiana had returned.

Kathleen… But in a male version.

It had to be her dad and Killian’s beta.

I made my way to help Shane when I realized that something was off. Someone was missing.

Before, when Hayden was surrounded and by himself, four wolves had trapped him while the beta got ready to attack, so where was the fourth wolf?

I barely had time to register it, or the pain, as claws and teeth embedded themselves in my back and neck. I felt how they slid past my fur and got a hold of my skin before tearing it up.

I roared out, not just in pain, but in shock, as I could feel the blood already running down from my neck to my chest.

‘Gabriel!’ Hayden shouted through the link, his voice filled with shock.

I couldn’t tell if it was his panic or my own that I could feel as I tried to throw the wolf off of me. The more I moved, the further his claws went into my skin and when I turned my head to the side to try and free my neck from his jaw I saw a black wolf nearing me, with a grin so big plastered on his face that I knew that if I didn’t get him off now, Killian would take the opportunity to end me.

‘That is probably for the coward comment you made earlier,’ Onyx grunted, his voice strained.

‘Now is not the time to tell me I need to learn how to keep my mouth shut,’ I huffed and bend my legs just enough so I could get enough force to throw myself back.

If he didn’t want to let go, I would take him down with me.

As he landed on the ground, with me on top of him, I surprised him just enough for him to briefly loosen his grip and I took that as my chance, just as I noticed Killian made his move. I rolled to my left and felt how his teeth and claws were torn away from me, but I wasn’t fast enough, and I had miscalculated Killian’s intentions. He didn’t care that his own pack member was under me, he jumped at both of us, his jaws open in the most vicious snarl, ready to clamp down on my now half-exposed neck.

My eyes went to Hayden, who pounced at the brown wolf in front of him, trying to get to me, but he couldn’t.

‘ Í should have said goodbye after all,’ I choked out.

‘Don’t you dare!’ he nearly screamed. ‘Do you hear me, Gabriel?!’

But it was too late. I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable to happen, but then a voice filled with horror, a voice I wasn’t expecting to hear, reached my ears and snapped me out of it.

“No!”

My eyes snapped open and immediately went to where the sound had come from and sure enough, there she was standing, her feet planted stiffly on the ground, her eyes watering and her mouth slightly open as she stared at me.

The blow I had expected to come from Killian, hadn’t, and when I looked to the side, I saw him backing away, the smug grin on his face now gone. I took this as my opportunity to shake the other wolf away from me and as soon as I was once again standing, the wolf took off, earning itself a snarl from Killian, who was anything but impressed.

‘It takes a coward to know a coward,’ Onyx snorted in my mind.

‘Are you referring to me or the one who just ran?’ I asked.

‘I said what I said.’

He didn’t give me any further explanation, but deep inside I knew that he was talking to me as much as he was himself.

“You!” she shrieked and pointed at Killian while she walked with hasty steps toward him. “How dare you!”

I jumped in front of her to stop her from walking straight into the battle area, but it didn’t phase her at all.

“Gabriel, step aside.”

I shook my head. There was no way I would let her walk out there in her human form and she knew it, she just didn’t care.

“If you want to go help, someone, go help Hayden. Kathleen’s dad is not one to back down and besides, I need you to trust me to take care of myself. I am not alone.”

I could feel how Onyx started to whine in my head, but I blocked him out. She was right. She wasn’t alone and not only did she have us, but she also had Killian’s son on her side, something I was sure he wouldn’t be as careless about as he was about his other pack members.

‘You link me if you are in trouble,’ I sent her way and watched as she nodded and before I could change my own mind I dashed off in the direction of Hayden, while trying to ignore the itching pain in my neck and back.

‘That is what you meant?’ Shane growled furiously through the mind link. ‘You knew that my daughter was alive and didn’t tell me?’

I watched how he threw the last wolf away from him before he turned to me, staring as if he had seen a ghost.

‘If even one person knew about it, it could have jeopardized everything,’ I explained as I ran past him and towards Hayden, who was still in a growling match with Killian’s Beta. ‘You know that as well as I.’

‘I will go help my Luna now and make sure that she doesn’t get to know about this just yet. If she does she will end up getting distracted, which could be fatal.’

Tatiana’s POV

I watched him as he tried to make himself look bigger. The man, who for years had terrorized me, the man who kidnapped me, was standing right in front of me and I was for the first time ever, ready to stand up against him.

“You haven’t changed one bit, have you? I saw what you just did,” I pointed out. “No wonder why he ran off. You were ready to sacrifice him to take out Gabriel, weren’t you? You were ready to call it, what was the words you always used? Ah, yes, collateral damage.”

I took a quick look around us, not taking my eyes off of him for too long, because I knew who he was, and what he was like. He used every dirty trick in the book, hell he probably wrote most of them himself.

“You look shocked to see me? It must have been surprising seeing someone you thought was dead. Surprising enough to stop mid-attack but that doesn’t explain why you haven’t attacked me yet.”

I watched him and studied his body language as he slowly edged closer to me.

“It would be so much easier if you shifted so we could talk,” I pointed out and watched as he bared his teeth. “Or not,” I mumbled just as he charged at me.

I wasn’t scared, I didn’t move, because I had a trick up my sleeve, one that most definitely would catch him off guard and I was right.

As Killian was no more than a few feet away from me, Chad emerged from behind me, jumping over my head and blocked Killian’s path to me. The shock that plastered itself on his face was remarkable; like nothing I had ever seen before. It took a lot to surprise this man, and yet within a very short time, I had managed to do it not only once, but twice.

“You still don’t want to shift?” I asked, leaning sideways to be able to look from behind Chad.

I hadn’t expected much of an answer and the growl I got in return was enough. I knew they were mind linking. I could see it on his face, the way his expression changed, and when Chad stomped on the ground with his front paws, correcting his stance, I knew that playtime was over.