Chapter 62: Chapter Sixty-Two

Chaos.

The coven poured out of their homes. Already I could tell we were outnumbered, so desperately outnumbered. Stride had Annecy’s entire army at his back, and they were bounding down the street toward us.

But we had something he didn’t. Witchcraft.

Aimes and I crashed into each other in the middle of the street as witches ran past us, prepared to fight. Snarling sounded from somewhere, but I couldn’t see where in the blinding sunlight.

“Do not leave my side!” Aimes shouted over the wailing siren. “You understand? Not for a second!”

I nodded. I didn't have it in me to get snarky and remind him I was just as powerful as he was. “What do we do?”

“We have an advantage. Everybody!” he bellowed, then took my hand and ran toward the growing cluster of witches around the fire. “We've trained with Stride’s army. They're good at hand-to-hand combat, but they never trained to fight witches. So long as you hold them off and keep them away from you, Harlow and I can take care of Stride.”

“Harlow!” Mom shouted, her whole body quaking in her nightgown.

Penelope and Ostera flanked her, protecting her.

“We’ve got this!” I yelled. “Just hold them back!”

Did we have it though? I wanted to believe it. I needed them to believe it. There wasn't a doubt in my mind a bunch of skilled witches could turn Annecy’s army into chopped liver. They had no idea what they were in for.

But Stride? That wouldn't be an easy task, though it didn’t stop Aimes and me from marching to one end of the street, side by side, hands clasped.

Stride led the charge, his white fur gleaming, his eyes glowing a preternatural orange.

Aimes and I shared a look. Our plan flowed between us without words.

He shifted while I called upon my wolf. She was faint at first, like wisps of smoke coming together, but soon those wisps solidified, took shape. Shining like a pearl, she stood beside Aimes's wolf with her head lowered.

Somebody cut off the siren, and now the only sound other than my pulse blasting through my veins was that of so many wolves snarling, ready to fight.

Louder than any of them was mine.

I braced myself, but none of the wolves tried to attack us. No, they ran around us, past us, and I realized Stride must have planned it that way. He wanted us for himself.

He slowed to a stop a few dozen feet from the two wolves and the winner of the Full Moon Games staring him down. I didn't need to hear the words coming from his mouth to understand exactly what was going on in his head. He was riding high, without Connolly telling him what to do.

“You have the chance now to back down!” I called out over the sound of fighting behind me. A blast of warmth hit my back, sheer energy, and a chorus of pain-filled yips twitched my lips into a satisfied smile. “You don't have to lose your army like this.”

His wolf tossed back his head, a sinister grin splitting his furry face. I could have sworn he was laughing at me.

Well, the fucker couldn't say I hadn’t given him a chance.

My wolf burst forward and met him in mid-air, their bodies colliding, jaws snapping. As soon as they came down, still tangled in each other, Aimes jumped in. He pulled Stride away from my wolf by the scruff of his neck and tossed him aside before landing on top of him. Aimes’s claws slashed, his fangs shining as he tried once, twice, to sink them into Stride’s throat.

I had seen Aimes fight. I had fought at his side, and I knew he was fierce and brutal when he needed to be.

But now he was unhinged, wild. I felt his rage, his sense of betrayal. He was determined to kill.

But so was Stride, who flung Aimes away from him and through a nearby house’s window. It shattered in an explosion of glass.

My wolf howled at the sound of Aimes’s pained whining. I hissed through my teeth and squeezed the butcher knife tightly.

Stride was set to finish Aimes off, growling as he stalked up the front porch toward the wounded wolf inside the house. My wolf and I stalked him.

As Stride lifted his paws to peer into the broken window, my wolf leaped through the air. She slammed into Stride’s side, and I bared my own teeth in grim satisfaction at the sound of snapping ribs. Stride went down, whining loudly, but he quickly scrambled to his feet and was able to avoid my wolf’s claws.

But not the quick slash of my knife along his side. Deep and ugly, the wound began to pour blood.

Stride’s wolf slumped but still didn’t go down, glaring at me menacingly.

“Give it up,” I hissed.

A glance over my shoulder showed me I’d been right, that Annecy’s wolves had no idea what they were doing. She hadn't prepared them for this, a fight where all the brute strength and agility in the world couldn't make up for magical power.

Most of the wolves were surrounded, clustered together around the fire, growling and snapping their jaws at the witches who encircled them. I felt the power holding them in place, like an invisible dome, while the handful who were still free tried to dodge the spells flung at them.

It wasn't going well. The muttered spells crackled through the air from some of the witches by the fire and hit Stride’s stolen army wolves. They went down flat. They just didn't have the experience, no matter how well they'd been trained.

How did Stride respond? Roughly the way I would have expected—like a cornered wild animal.

He struck out at me and sliced my side, almost exactly where I’d stabbed him. The pain didn’t register until the blood flowed, and I doubled over onto the porch steps.

Stride didn’t even have time to gloat, to prance in a triumphant circle.

With an apex predator’s growl, my wolf burst forward, charging straight for Stride.

He went down fast and hard, the two of them rolling over and over down the porch steps before my wolf ended up on top. She pinned him to the ground and sank her claws into him again and again, slashing, spraying blood from a dozen places while the best he could do was try to shake her off.

“Yes, Harlow!” Mom shouted from somewhere behind me. “You're doing it! Don't let up!”

I wasn’t about to. My wolf’s bloodlust flowed into me, and I saw through her eyes, saw Stride struggling under me, felt his strength weakening.

When he half-heartedly lifted a paw to slash at her face, she took his leg in her powerful jaws and shook her head violently, snapping it until the bones stuck out from beneath his skin.

“You’re done, Stride.” Aimes stood inside the broken window in his human form and climbed out, wincing a little as he did. He was covered in blood and broken glass but otherwise seemed okay. “You know you don't stand a chance.”

My wolf backed down some, as though to give Stride a chance to surrender. Then, deciding her work here was done, she dissolved like wisps of smoke back into me. She warmed my chest with her presence, but her continued rage strummed at my nerves.

“Does this feel familiar?” I dragged myself down the steps toward Stride’s trembling, weakened wolf. “Aren't you tired yet of me and my wolf kicking your ass all the time?”

He shifted back to his pathetic human self, lying defeated on the lawn.

“I should’ve known not to underestimate you,” he panted out. He turned his head, looking past me, looking to where his army had been rendered useless. “Well. So much for that. I also should have known Hannah would give me a defective group.”

Hannah was Annecy a long time ago, back when he’d rejected her as his fated mate.

“She didn’t give you anything,” Aimes reminded him. He stepped up beside me and put an arm around my waist, helping to hold me upright as I clutched the wound on my side. “You took them.”

“What…was I supposed to do?” he demanded, his teeth clenched, tendons standing out on his neck as he fought the pain. “Stand there and let her kill me? Come on, Aimes. You know better than that.”

“All you were doing was delaying the inevitable,” I said. “And it's no one's fault but your own. You should’ve stayed away.”

“I’m not…in the mood…to be lectured by you.”

“That's fine. If you're in such a hurry to die, I'll give you what you want.” I slipped away from Aimes and prowled closer until I was standing directly above Stride.

As if reading my thoughts, my wolf’s bloodlust grew inside me. She was hungry, just as hungry as I was, for justice. Either we ended this now, or there was no telling what he would do next.

“Wait!” he blurted out with a note of desperation in his voice. “I can tell you where to find Connolly. That's who you really want, right? You let him wander free, and this will never end. He will find a way to get you where he wants you.”

“How are we supposed to believe you?” Aimes demanded. “Like you wouldn't say anything right now to save your sorry ass.”

Stride choked out a laugh that leaked blood from the corners of his mouth. “I don't know if words could do that now. I'm all busted up inside.”

“Then it will be that much easier to put an end to this,” I snapped.

“It's not going to end,” he gritted out. “That's what I'm trying to tell you. You need to go back there and take him out, too.”

“Yeah, I think we can handle it from here,” I said. “Don't act like you care all of a sudden who wins and who loses. All that matters to you is whether you win or lose, and in case you haven’t noticed, you’ve lost. Big time.”

Even so, I didn't know how to feel as his blood puddled in the grass around him. He was the same Stride who had hurt me, threatened me, tried to force himself on me. He had me chained up. He’d been so ready to force me into being his mate.

Still, there was that tiny, human part of me that knew he’d never had a chance since the day he became Alpha. Not with somebody like Connolly twisting him up and turning him into a monster too.

But he was a monster. I shook away the last of my hesitation and reminded myself what was really at stake. He had to die.

“Don't you dare!” The voice rang out from the end of the street, not far from where we stood.

All of our heads swiveled.

“No way,” Aimes muttered.

But it was true. She was dirty, looking like she'd spent the past week without a shower. It took a second for me to recognize her mud-caked dress as the one she wore for her wedding. She hadn't taken it off, and now it was in tatters, barely recognizable.

Annecy’s green eyes glittered with cold hatred as she marched toward us. “No, this one's mine. Don't you dare take away the pleasure of ending his useless life.”