They fought like demons cornered—no fear, no hesitation, bodies absorbing punishment that should have dropped them.Dorian tore one down with his teeth, felt bone give beneath his jaws, felt hot blood flood his mouth.Another slammed into Rafe, claws scoring deep across his shoulder, and something in Dorian snapped.He ripped the creature’s throat out and kept going, barely aware of the tearing of muscle beneath his claws.
We have to go.
We can’t.
The knowledge that they were trapped in the fight while Riley was being carried farther away clawed at Dorian’s sanity.His wolf paced and screamed inside him, every instinct demanding pursuit.
Then the air shifted.
A familiar, crushing presence hit the fight from the north side—controlled, devastating.
Leopards.
Moments later the ground itself seemed to brace as Gorillas crashed into the line, massive bodies slamming into hybrids with unstoppable force, snapping spines and driving the enemy back.
Dorian barely registered any of it.
Because Ivan shifted.
One second there was a massive bear ripping into a hybrid.The next, Ivan stood naked and bleeding in the middle of the carnage, blood streaming down his chest, eyes blazing with command.
“Go!”Ivan roared, voice cutting through the chaos like a blade.“Hunt!”
That was all Dorian needed.
He and Rafe broke from the fight as one, shifting mid-run, bones snapping, muscles reforming as they launched into full sprint.The world narrowed to scent and motion.
The trail hit immediately—burning rubber, oil, blood—and beneath it all, Riley.
Fading.
Unconscious.
She’s alive, Dorian told himself as they tore across cracked concrete and broken ground, following the trail out of the city.
She has to be.
The car was fast.Faster than anything human-driven should have been.
They ran anyway.
Through alleys choked with refuse, over chain-link fences, across service roads and scrubland, lungs burning, muscles screaming.Dorian pushed his senses outward until the world sharpened into vibration and scent, every nerve ending tuned to her.
He reached for the bond again, pushing past instinct and fear, forcing the connection open the way he would force air into his lungs if he were drowning.
Nothing.
No warmth.No echo.No answering pull.
Panic surged, cold and suffocating, clawing up his spine.His wolf bucked, frantic, a living thing pressed against the inside of his ribs with nowhere to go.
Rafe—
She’s unconscious,Rafe sent immediately, the words tight, stripped of everything but truth.That’s why we can’t feel her.She’s alive.Hold on to that.
Dorian clung to it like a lifeline as they ran.
Ten minutes in, the sound of an engine cut through the night—low, powerful, gaining fast.Headlights slashed across the ground beside them, illuminating torn earth and broken scrub.