Chapter 150: Your Reign is Over - Halley's POV

As shadows move like water spilling down a flood stream, I nearly scream. They crawl over rocks, their limbs bending wrong and their movements jerky. They’re too fast. Their eyes lock on us like they have been planning this all along.

Sam snarls beside me. Reed skids to a stop ahead of us. We’re boxed in.

Rook crashes through the brush to my right, blood pouring from a wound along his ribs. “Halley!” He yells. “We can’t hit them head-on.”

“We’ll die,” Cale finishes breathlessly, his eyes sweeping the slope. His voice trembles, but his stance doesn’t.

We all skid to a stop as my pulse pounds hard. We can’t go forward nor can we go back. The sound of their rattling growls fill the air. I look at Reed. My father is fading fast with shallow breaths. I don’t have time or options.

“Circle tight!” I shout. “Protect Dad at all costs!”

The warriors obey instantly, forming a shield around my father. Sam takes my left, while Cale moves to my right. Rook besides himself behind me, though he’s shaking.

We move ahead of everyone else, taking our place at the front. The man from before, the same one who wanted to sentence me to death if I didn’t separate from Sam, stands in the middle of all those creatures. He looks at me, his dark eyes roaming over his face.

“Now what will you do? Your father is dying and you are out numbered with these… wonderful creatures,” he says, reaching out to pet one like it is nothing more than a dog.

“This ends here. I know what you don’t want me to know. You fear me.”

The old man laughs, his head tilting back as his mouth opens. I hate the sound of it. “No, of course I’m not.”

“You are, or you wouldn’t have gone through so much trouble. You don’t want an alpha female having power. That’s all this is.”

“You should have mated with those who were safe for you to mate with, little girl. All you had to do was follow the rules. But now, since you haven’t, I have to destroy you, which is such a shame.”

“A shame… No, it’s a shame that we don’t have better leadership.”

He gets angry, his face turning crimson before he holds his hand in the air. “Attack her. End her!”

The first wave comes down before I can even blink. Claws rake the earth, jaws snap, and bodies slam with ours before I can hardly move. Sam lunges and tries to get to me, tackling one mid-air and slamming it into a tree hard enough to splinter the trunk. Rook meets another head-on, his jaws locking onto its throat mid-shift.

Two creatures crash against Cale. He shifts mid-motion and meets them with bone-cracking force, but even he’s knocked back, claws raking across his side.

I launch myself in to the closest creature as it charges at Reed. My wolf surges upward, and I shift mid-stride, my bones rearranging with a crack of power. I slam into the creature with enough force to flip it.

It shrieks and swipes at me with its claws grazing my snout. Pain blossoms hot across my face. I bite down hard on its leg, dragging it away from Reed. Its twisted body spasms uncontrollably, then bucks upward, nearly throwing me off.

Rook barrels through and pins it, ripping into its throat before it can screech again, but there are too many and they just keep coming.

Sam roars something, but the sound disappears under the fury of bodies colliding. Wolves yelp, claws tear through flesh, and blood sprays onto the roots and rocks.

Cale slams into a creature climbing down the ridge, but two more leap over him to land in the center of our ring, right where Reed is.

“No!” I try to break toward him, but another creature leaps onto my back, its claws sinking deep just below my spine.

Agony explodes through me.

I stagger, snapping upward, trying to shake it off. It screeches and tears deeper. I twist violently, throw myself sideways, rolling across the dirt. We crash down in a heap, and I clamp my jaws over its muzzle and twist until its neck snaps with a crack.

The moment I’m free, I whirl toward Reed.

He’s backing up, holding Dad to his chest with one arm while slashing out with the other. The two altered wolves circling him are too fast.

Dad cries out as one catches his side. Something in me fractures.

A sound rips out of my throat that’s too loud, too wild, a scream that feels like it’s splitting the air open. Every creature snaps its head toward me.

Sam pauses mid-fight, eyes wide even in wolf form. Cale stiffens. Rook growls in awe.

I don’t know what just came out of me.

But the creatures recoil, like they felt it too. It buys us one second.

Several of them look at me, their twisted faces showing their horror and it’s in that moment, I realize what I can do. They listen to me.

I feel it first in my chest like a deep pulsing sensation that spreads outward. As soon as I have shifted back to my human form, I look at them.

“Stop,” I say in a low, commanding voice. All of the wolves freeze. Not a single one anywhere moves. All eyes shift to me. “So that’s what you’re afraid of.”

Sam is beside me instantly, his jaw slack and his eyes wide. “You… How… you… What is this?”

I step forward, letting the power flow through me“Back off. Leave my pack. Leave my territory.”

The creatures twitch, not wanting to obey, but then reluctantly do. One by one they walk into the forest, the only thing left of them is the sound of their fading footsteps.

I give it a few seconds, making sure they don’t come back, but when they don’t, I turn toward the council. Specifically the old man who has given me so much trouble.

“Do you think you have won? We’ll just come back. I won’t let this slide. You shouldn’t even exist.”

“Funny for you to say when you are the one who can’t move,” I say confidently as I walk to the treeline where he stands. When I reach him, I look up into his eyes. “I heard you were a great alpha in your time.”

“I should have killed you,” he says low under his breath. “The Howlers deserve better than a little female like you.”

“The Howlers?” I ask, flinching. “You were the pack alpha for the Howlers? That means…”

“You’ve met my four sons.”

I remember how bold they had been and how sure they were that they would be the ones who mated with me. Of course that has been what feels like ages ago and they haven’t been around me.

“You are their father.”

“Grandfather,” he corrects.

I almost grant him mercy, but today, I no longer feel like giving it. “Since you were so ready to kill me, I guess I should do the same.”

“You wouldn’t. They will turn against you.”

“I’ll deal with them if they ever do.”

Before he can utter another word, my claws extend and I slash through his throat. He gasps for breath, sputtering and cursing my name as he dies. When he drops to the ground, face first, I breathe out a sigh of relief.

I look at the remaining council members, who are mostly hidden in the trees. “Your reign is over.”