This Dark Wolf (Soul Bitten Shifter #1) - Everly Frost Page 0,66
crowd of wolves tonight. She needs time to adjust to the outside world after the protected environment at the house.”
“That had better be true.” Jace stops circling and gives Tristan a disappointed growl. “You’re a real fucker around her.”
Tristan’s composure changes, his head lowering, eyes narrowed, facing Jace’s accusation head on. “I can’t let her get close to me. You know that.”
Jace presses his lips together before he suddenly darts in and grips Tristan’s shoulders, a more human move. “You can’t push every woman away your whole life. You’ve got years before the three-headed wolf gets you—”
“He’s already here, Jace.”
Jace freezes, his hands clamping around Tristan’s shoulders. “Already? It’s too soon.”
“I can sense him,” Tristan says, holding Jace’s gaze, his expression like stone. “The three-headed beast is coming for me the same way he came for my dad.”
“Fuck.” Jace lowers his hands, his shoulders slumping, more beta than alpha now. “Tristan… you know I can’t help you…”
Tristan’s jaw clenches. “But Tessa can. She’s strong enough. She might be the only one who is.”
Jace’s head flies up. “She’s your answer to this? Fuck, Tristan. This is the reason you want her?”
“If I make sure she doesn’t get close to me, she’ll be able to kill the three-headed wolf for good,” Tristan replies, his voice a low growl. “She’ll be the end of him. Once and for all. Then everyone will be safe.”
Jace runs his hand through his hair. “Be careful, Tristan. You’re playing with wildfire that could get out of your control.”
Tristan suddenly grins, reckless, his green eyes gleaming. “I’m not trying to control the fire, Jace. I just want to light it and watch it burn.”
Jace gives a heavy exhale, a troubled crease forming in his forehead. “If the wolf is coming for you, then we need to deal with Baxter Griffin sooner rather than later. We need to make sure the pack is safe from the threat of the other alphas.”
“One enemy at a time,” Tristan says.
His head suddenly snaps to the right. “There’s trouble under the bridge.”
He breaks into a run and Jace follows, both men so fast and agile that the human passersby barely register their sprinting forms before they’re gone.
I race after them, slower than they are as I attempt to keep to the shadows between streetlights, following the trail of their scents, my thoughts in turmoil.
Who or what is the three-headed wolf? And why is he coming for Tristan?
More importantly, why does Tristan think I can stop him?
Racing after Tristan and Jace, I follow them much farther than my wolf’s energy has ever traveled from my human form, all the way toward the river.
I sense the disturbance ahead when we’re still a block away. I blank out the sounds of vehicles traveling across the bridge above us to isolate the growls and snarls from the grassy area ahead that sits in the shadows under the bridge.
Five wolves are fighting in the darkness. I don’t know any members of Tristan’s pack yet, so I can’t tell who is a friend and who is an enemy. I can’t help them anyway—other than calming Becca, I haven’t ever impacted anything with my wolf’s energy. I can only observe.
Tristan and Jace split up as they race toward the fight, charging at the wolves from either side. Jace’s fists are already forming. He uses his momentum to ram into the dark gray wolf on the far right just as it’s about to leap at a smaller russet-colored wolf. The dark gray wolf yelps and rolls, transforming back into his human form seconds before Jace hauls him up and lands a cracking punch against the man’s broad face.
The man darts to the side to avoid another punch, shouting, “It’s Tristan and Jace! Time to scatter!”
Tristan remains in his human form, leaping onto a second dark gray wolf on the other side of the fight before it can escape. He charges into it, lifts it off the ground, and throws it back down into the earth. It yelps and I sense its fear seconds before Tristan drops his full weight onto the wolf’s body, his knee landing on its spine.
There’s a sickening crack.
The wolf’s scream is cut short as Tristan grabs its head and breaks its neck with an efficiency that makes my world spin.
Helen warned me about Tristan’s capacity for violence, but the way he killed so quietly, without even a roar of effort, makes my wolf’s heart beat cold and quick.