Chapter Twenty-three: The Attack on Linewatch

VARUL

The moment the dining hall doors closed behind me, the scent of my wife became fainter.

I disliked that immediately.

"This had better be fucking good, Darren," I said.

I was in a foul mood.

Not least because I had been seconds away from carrying my wife upstairs and locking the world outside my chambers when he had appeared.

I had briefly considered the pros of having his neck on a guillotine for cock-blocking, until he had telepathically communicated the word Death to me.

As members of the same pack, we operated with a hive mind that was only activated when it was necessary.

"It is, Alpha," he said solemnly. "I would not have intruded on your dinner otherwise."

"Details," I said.

He matched my large strides as we moved through the corridor.

"Two scouts returned from Linewatch. Both are barely alive. We have sent for Orasmus the healer."

My jaw tightened. Sending for the healer meant it was bad.

The fortress around us remained quiet. Most of the household was rounding up for the night. Servants moved through the corridors carrying things.

They stepped aside with bows the moment they saw us coming, but I paid them no mind.

"Where are they?" I asked.

"The stables."

I glanced at him.

"Except the men on patrol at the gates, no one else saw them arrive, Alpha," he said, answering the silent question.

Good.

Rumors spread faster than fire, and fear ran faster than any wolf.

The last thing I needed was panic in Pillak Towers before I knew what I was dealing with.

My men knew better about keeping crises under wraps to protect the people. It was a strategy I never compromised on.

The scent reached me before the stable came into view.

Blood.

Enough of it that my wolf lifted his head immediately.

The stable doors stood open.

Darren moved to my left as we entered, falling into position with automatic ease. Until situations were correctly assessed, we always expected threats.

Three of my men were waiting inside.

The stable was dimly lit, illuminated only by the torch held by Zophyr, who was nearest the door.

He turned when I entered, the light catching his grey and blue irises. A bold streak of grey ran through his dark hair. He was the youngest amongst my core men, but as sharp as the pointed edge of a sword.

Omri was crouched beside one of the injured men, pressing a folded cloth against a wound. Dark-skinned. Dark-haired. Broad as an ox. A descendant of Eastern pirates.

Haden was standing against the far wall with his arms crossed, watching the injured men with guardedness. Mixed-breed. Ginger-haired with a fiery temper.

All three men gave me curt, deferential nods.

Darren, Omri, Zophyr, and Haden—the four soldiers in this stable—were the most trusted men of my pack.

They would exchange their lives for mine in a heartbeat, and I would do the same for them.

Omri stood up from his crouching position, shaking his head at me silently. The cloth he had been pressing against one of the men's wounds came away, dripping with blood.

I turned my attention to the wounded men on the floor.

The scouts lay in a pool of their own blood. Their shifts had not yet completed. Both men had human torsos, human faces. But their hands were still partially clawed, their feet still furred and wolf-shaped.

Linewatch was six nights away from Pillak Towers on wolf feet. Ten nights on a horse.

The journey they made down here in their wolf forms must have taken everything they had, and now that the adrenaline of survival had drained away, their bodies were caught between forms.

One of them looked unconscious. His left shoulder was shredded. I could see the whites of a bone. Whatever had done it had done it with force and with something larger than claws I recognized.

The other was barely any better. There was a deep gash running down his cheek and stopping somewhere on his torso.

He struggled to rise when he registered my presence.

I crouched next to him.

"Down," I said gently. "Stay down."

He obeyed immediately.

"Your name."

"Bilan, Alpha." His voice was scraped and raw.

I nodded once. "Tell me what happened."

Bilan swallowed. His eyes darted to his partner beside him. "We were making our rounds at Linewatch when we heard noises from the treeline.

"How many of you?" I asked.

"Ten of us, Alpha."

Ten of them, yet only two were here. I did not like where this was going. "Go on."

"At first, we thought it was raiders, the regular rogue wolves who occassionally try to make their way back into the North, but—"

His breathing quickened. He groaned in pain.

I turned my head to address Darren. "How far away is Orasmus?"

"He should be here soon, Alpha."

Bilan's pain spasm passed several seconds later. After taking a steadying breath, he continued, "We followed the sound."

His eyes drifted somewhere far away. Back to whatever he had seen. Then he shuddered.

"They came out of the dark."

"Who came out of the dark, Bilan?" I pressed when he went quiet for too long.

I placed a hand on his shoulder to bring his attention back here.

"Monsters," he croaked finally. "They moved too fast."

Siren stirred within me.

"What did they look like, Bilan?"

For several seconds, he said nothing. Just kept staring into space. Fear rolled from him so strongly I could smell it.

Then, in a voice so low I had to lean closer to hear it, he said, "Blue."

I exchanged glances with my men.

They all looked as grim as I felt.

"They were huge creatures," Bilan continued, his eyes wide with terror. "Two of them. Each one five times the size of the tallest wolf among us. They-they looked like wolves, b-but at the same time, nothing like wolves.

"They killed eight of us, including Ty, the Linewatch head. They hunted us. Then, as quickly as they came, they retreated back to the treelines. Only Wollan and I escaped."

There was silence as everyone bowed their head. It was always a pain to lose pack members. To us, pack members were family.

Ty had been one of the bravest soldiers the pack had.

I gritted my teeth in anger. My men had died on duty.

I had never failed my pack before.

And I was not about to let that happen now.

I looked at Darren. "How many riders can be ready before dawn?"

His answer came immediately. "Fifty."

"Make it seventy."

His expression hardened with determination. "Yes, Alpha."

I turned toward Omri. "Wake the barracks." He nodded once.

"Haden."

The ginger straightened.

"Prepare supplies for a ten-day deployment."

"Will do, Alpha."

"Zophyr."

His mismatched eyes met mine.

"Send ravens to every pack house in the North."

His face darkened. "Warning them?"

"Ordering them," I corrected. "Double patrols. No one travels alone. No exceptions."

Zophyr inclined his head. "It will be done."

I needed to find out what these creatures were and stop them before they got here.

To my people.

To my pack.

To her.

Siren surged forward immediately at the thought.

The image flashed through my mind.

The flush on her cheeks.

The scent of her skin.

The marks on her throat.

Mine.

I shoved the thought aside.

Later.

My duty came first.

It always had.

Even when I hated it.

The stable doors opened. Orasmus hurried inside carrying his healer's satchel.

Good. At least these men might survive the night.

I turned away.

"Dawn," I said to my men. "We ride for Linewatch."