Chapter 24 Truth Revealed
Sage was supposed to stay in bed for three days but by the second morning she was going crazy.
Margaret had cleared her for light activity. The silver bullet wounds were healing faster than normal thanks to her hybrid nature. Human enough to process the silver. Wolf enough to heal quickly.
She found Kade in the den’s main chamber with maps spread across a table. Cole, Riley, Beth and twenty other wolves surrounded him planning the hunt.
“You should be resting,” Kade said when he saw her.
“I have rested enough.” She moved to the table. “What have you found?”
Cole pointed at a map of the area south of Seattle. “Marcus and the Crescent Pack are holed up somewhere in this region. We’ve had scouts tracking movement. They are in an old lumber mill about sixty miles south.”
“How many?”
“Best guess? Forty wolves plus another thirty hunters.” Riley traced the perimeter on the map. “They are fortified. Guards, weapons, this is not going to be easy.”
“Nothing about this has been easy,” Kade said. He looked exhausted, the mate bond told Sage he had not slept since the clinic attack. “We hit them tomorrow at dawn. Fast and overwhelming by taking out their leadership before they can organize.”
“That is a suicide mission,” Beth said. “We could be walking into a kill zone.”
“You have a better idea?”
No one answered.
Sage studied the map, the mill was surrounded by forest. Only two access roads, perfect for defense but terrible for attack.
“What if we split their focus?” she said. “Draw some of them away from the mill.”
“How?”
“Bait. Someone they want badly enough to send forces after.” She met Kade’s eyes. “Me.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Think about it, Marcus wants me specifically. He has said so multiple times. If I’m somewhere else, somewhere vulnerable, he will send wolves to capture me, that splits his forces.”
“And puts you in danger.”
“I’m already in danger. We all are.” She pointed at the map. “I go here, five miles from the mill with a small group. Make it look like we are hiding, when Marcus sends wolves after me. Then you will hit the mill while they are distracted.”
Kade was shaking his head before she finished. “No. I’m not using you as bait.”
“It is the best strategy we have.”
“I don’t care. Find another strategy.”
Sage felt his fear through the mate bond. His absolute refusal to risk her but she also felt something else. The knowledge that she was right.
“You know this is our best option,” she said quietly.
“That doesn’t mean I like it.”
“You don’t have to like it, you just have to let me do my job as Alpha female by protecting the pack.” She touched his hand. “Trust me.”
He stared at her for a long moment. The room was silent. Everyone waiting.
“Fine,” he said finally. “But you take ten wolves with you. Best fighters and you stay in constant contact. Anything goes wrong, you run. Understood?”
“Understood.”
They spent the rest of the day planning. Sage would take Riley, Beth and eight others to a cabin five miles from the mill. Make themselves visible and wait for Marcus to take the bait.
Kade would lead the main force. Thirty wolves, hit the mill when Marcus’s forces were divided.
It was risky, a hundred things could go wrong but it was better than a frontal assault that would get them all killed.
That night Sage couldn’t sleep. She lay in bed in the den staring at the ceiling while Kade worked in the next room.
Around midnight she got up and found him still at the table. Papers everywhere. Battle plans.
“Come to bed,” she said.
“I can’t, I need to make sure everything is ready.”
“Kade.” She pulled him up. “You need rest, tomorrow is going to be hell.”
“I know, that is why I can’t stop planning.” But he let her lead him to the bedroom. “What if something goes wrong? What if Marcus doesn’t take the bait? What if he does and we can’t protect you?”
“Then we adapt, like we always do.” She pushed him onto the bed. “But right now you need sleep, that is an order from your Alpha female.”
He almost smiled. “You are ordering me around now?”
“Someone has to. You are terrible at taking care of yourself.” She lay beside him. “Three hours, that is all I’m asking. Sleep for three hours then you can go back to planning.”
“Three hours.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
He was asleep within minutes, exhausted and running on pure willpower.
Sage watched him and felt the mate bond. His love, his fear, his determination to keep her safe even if it meant sacrificing himself.
She wouldn’t let him do that.
Tomorrow they would face Marcus together. As a team. As mates.
And they’d win.
They had to.
Because the alternative was losing everything.
She must have dozed off because when she woke it was four in the morning and Kade was getting dressed.
“Time?” she asked.
“Almost. Everyone’s gathering.” He strapped on weapons. Gun. Knives. Silver ammunition. “Your group leaves in thirty minutes. Mine leaves in an hour.”
She got up and dressed. Combat clothes. Boots. Her own weapons that Cole had given her. A gun she barely knew how to use and a knife she was better with.
They walked to the main chamber together. The pack was there. Forty wolves ready for war.
Kade addressed them. “Today we end this. Marcus and the Crescent Pack have been attacking us for months. Poisoning our members. Trying to destroy us from within. That ends today.”
The wolves howled agreement.
“We fight together. We protect each other. And we come home alive.” He looked at Sage. “All of us.”
Sage’s group left first. Ten wolves including her. They drove to the cabin Cole had scouted. Small. Isolated. Perfect bait.
They made themselves visible. Lit fires. Made noise. Waited.
Two hours passed.
Then Riley’s radio crackled. “Movement. North side. Fifteen wolves approaching.”
“That’s more than expected,” Beth said.
“Marcus is taking this seriously,” Sage said. “Good. Means Kade’s assault will face fewer defenders.”
The wolves surrounded the cabin. Marcus’s voice called out. “Sage Monroe! Come out! This ends now!”
Sage stepped onto the porch. “You want me? Come get me!”
Marcus emerged from the trees. Human form. Flanked by fourteen wolves. All shifted and ready.
“You should have stayed hidden,” Marcus said. “Made this harder.”
“Where is the fun in that?” Sage shifted partially. Claws extending. “Let’s finish this.”
Marcus shifted. His gray wolf was larger than she remembered. He attacked.
Sage met him halfway, they collided hard. Rolling across the ground. His teeth found her shoulder, she raked claws across his face.
Around them Riley and the others fought Marcus’s wolves. Outnumbered but holding.
Sage broke away from Marcus and shifted fully. Her white wolf with black markings, smaller but faster.
They circled each other.
Then Marcus made a mistake, he went for her throat and left his belly exposed. Sage went low. Claws tearing through soft tissue.
Marcus yelped and stumbled back.
In that moment Sage saw it. The radio on his belt in a waterproof pouch. Still in human form somehow.
She shifted back. Grabbed it.
“What are you doing?” Marcus wheezed. Bleeding badly.
She turned on the radio. Heard the chatter. Kade’s forces hitting the mill. Fighting.
Then she heard something else, a voice she recognized.
The pack elder.
“Fall back,” the elder was saying. “Let them in, spring the trap.”
Sage’s blood went cold. The elder was the spy.
He had been feeding information to Marcus all along.
“Kade!” She screamed into the radio. “It is a trap! The elder betrayed us! Get out of there!”
Static. Then Kade’s voice. “Copy that. We are engaged. We can’t retreat.”
“Then I’m coming.” Sage looked at her group. “We go now, leave Marcus.”
“I’m not dead yet,” Marcus growled, but he was. The belly wound was fatal. He just didn’t know it yet.
“You will be soon.” Sage threw the radio at him. “Enjoy bleeding out.”
They ran for the vehicles. All ten wolves piling in. Racing toward the mill.
Sage pushed the engine as fast as it would go.
Through the mate bond she felt Kade fighting, struggling and injured.
“Hang on,” she whispered. “I’m coming.”
They reached the mill and it was chaos. Wolves fighting everywhere, blood, bodies. The trap had been sprung but Kade’s forces were holding.
Sage shifted and ran into the fray. She found Kade surrounded by five wolves. The elder among them.
“You!” Sage lunged at the elder. “You sold us out!”
“I saved us!” The elder blocked her attack. “Marcus was offering peace! Alliance! You and Kade were too proud to see it!”
“Marcus was offering slavery!” She attacked again. “You betrayed your Alpha!”
They fought. The elder was old but experienced and strong.
But Sage was young, fast and driven by rage.
She got her teeth around his throat and bit down.
The elder shifted back dying. “You have doomed us all.”
“No,” Sage said. “I saved us.”
She shifted back and ran to Kade, he was down with multiple wounds. Barely conscious.
“Stay with me,” she begged. “Please stay with me.”
The mate bond was fading, weakening.
“Sage,” he whispered. “Love you.”
“Don’t you dare die on me!” She pressed her hands to his wounds. “Riley! I need help!”