Vengeance had carried Zio from the border to the compound. Had kept him alive as they’d fought against an enemy that outnumbered them four to one.
They’d barely escaped.
Fear kept him upright as they fled their home and regrouped in the forest.So many. How did they amass those numbers undetected?
Having been absent from the compound and township for weeks, Zio had no idea. Perhaps Gale might’ve known, but Zio would never get to ask him because Gale was dead. His unit ambushed and destroyed at the hospital. At least, that’s what wolves he’d managed to gather for the retreat were telling him.
In the relative safety of the forest, Zio skidded to a stop and shifted into human form. Cuts and scrapes healed in an instant. A gash to his thigh took longer, even with his self-healing powers enhanced by Devan’s magic-laced pills.It’s not the pills that are magic—it’s him.
But Zio shook off the thought. Pushed Devan out of his mind, keeping him safe at the border camp where he’d left him.
More wolves joined him beneath the thick canopy of trees. Soldiers, brothers, workers from the administration building. Thankfully, all the children had been in school in the township and were now guarded by humans. But it was a small mercy. Hundreds had died, all of them someone’s child once.
Danielo limped into the glade in human form. Drawn to Zio, he joined him beneath a large oak tree, gaze haunted. “Where’s Michael?”
Pain flared in Zio’s heart. “I don’t know, but he’s not dead. We’d feel it.”
“How do you know?”
Zio laid his hand over Danielo’s racing heart. “We’dfeelit, brother.”
For a moment, Danielo seemed almost convinced, but whatever he saw in Zio’s eyes clearly didn’t match the conviction in his voice. They both knew that their psychic connection wouldn’t hold if they were too far from each other to keep it alive.
Zio’s hand slipped from Danielo’s bare chest. “How many do we have?”
“Fighters? Or in total?”
Zio glanced around. “Both. We’re going to need every able soul we have if we’re going to retake the compound.”
Danielo’s expression morphed from grief-stricken to one filled with fury. “Are you fucking serious?”
“Of course I’m serious.What do you suggest we do? Hide out here until the bad guys get bored and go away? Until thehumansget bored of guarding the township and go home, leaving the rest of our people to the same fate as the others?”
Danielo shook his head. “It’s not possible. There’s hundreds of them in the compound, probably more by now if they were hiding reinforcements at the hospital too. We don’t even have a healer among us.”
“Not yet. We can bring Devan here.”
“You want to bring your mate on a suicide mission? Gods, you’ve lost your mind.”
“He’s not my—”
“Yes, he fucking is!” Danielo exploded, his shout ringing out around the small clearing. “Whatever the technical state of this bond bullshit, if he comes with us, he’ll fight to protect you and you to protect him, which leaves the rest of us exposed to your bad fucking judgement.”
Zio flinched, flayed open by the very thought of Devan in danger and Danielo’s clear disgust at his leadership. “We have to dosomething. If we don’t, the township will fall too.”
“I know that,” Danielo snapped. Then the fight seemed to drain from him, and he slumped against a nearby tree. “But whatcanwe do? Because it seems to me, whichever way we turn, we’re gonna be wiped out.”
Wiped out. Decimated. Destroyed.All the terms fit, and each one left a deeper trail of fear to Zio’s heart. His own death he could live with, but not his brothers. His family. Hispack.And what about Devan? With Zio gone, who would protect him? Love him? Make him smile that damn-fucking smile that lit up the whole world?
No. There had to be another way.
Another wave of wolves made it to the clearing. Zio scanned them with unseeing eyes. The need to separate the injured from those who could fight was as pressing as anything else, but his focus was shot. Danielo was right—he was no leader right now. Perhaps he never had been.
“The fuck?”
Danielo’s murmur broke through Zio’s daze. He followed Danielo’s stare to the wolves trooping past them but found nothing untoward.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”