Wolf's Hunger (Mafia Monsters #5) - Atlas Rose Page 0,29

again. Snap! Another twig snapped, this time closer. My heart thundered, the sound filling my ears as I pushed forward, making my way around the thick brambles and deeper into the forest.

There was a second when a faint voice inside my head said careful now…but that whisper was gone before the thought took hold, leaving me to continue pushing ahead. Crunch! I jerked my gaze toward the sound, moving faster now as that whirlwind of Unseelie rage swirled like a tornado inside me, and for a second everything else just melted away.

I was alone in the forest…alone with no one around me.

Crack!

I swung my gaze right and kept on pushing, cutting between thick ash trees and moving deeper into the dark.

“Carina!” My name caught the wind, so faint now…barely there. So easily forgotten.

I turned away from the sound and pushed on, following that urgency. Mine. The word filled me, thrumming with my pulse. My Wolves, my territory. Something was coming, some foul sense of sickness that wafted through the air to slam into me.

I knew that sickness. I’d felt it before, amidst the terror and the panic as I ran from Murphy. It had been a moment just like this, one that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. I stopped running and darted my gaze around, scanning the trees.

A blur came at my left. I glimpsed white fur, spotted with brown. I caught my breath as I watched the unfamiliar Wolf slink through the trees and head past me without giving me a glance. It was stalking something…or someone. Arran and Vitold filled my mind.

I gritted my teeth and pushed toward the beast. “Hey!” My hand went to my hip…shit, no gun. “Over here, asshole,” I snarled, and lifted my fists.

The beast turned on me, that sick, savage gaze filled with rage that was now aimed at me.

“Come on, you piece of shit,” I taunted as it stalked closer, until a howl of agony and pain ripped through the forest, coming from the same direction Arran and Vitold had headed.

It’s not them…it cannot be them.

The enemy Wolf’s black nostrils flared, scenting something far more predatory than me. Phantom.

My pulse leaped at the thought as I spun, seeing a dark blur cutting through the trees behind me. That’s not Phantom. My mouth went dry and my breaths slowed while my pulse spiked as the midnight beast slunk into a clearing and headed toward me head lowered. That’s not Phantom at all.

I stumbled backwards. Rogue Wolves…that’s what Arran had called them. They were after my pack, coming for us just like Phantom had said they would.

“CARINA!”

My name was shrill in the air, making me tremble. I wrenched my gaze toward the sound, my heart slamming against my ribs. It took all my will not to scream for them. But one sound…one panicked call, and I’d put their lives in danger…more than I already had.

“You just stay right there,” I forced the words as movement came behind the midnight beast. But it was the white Wolf, which was closer now…and more of a threat. It came at me, head lowered, top lip quivering and peeled back from its teeth.

There were more of them, brindle and gray, heads down, eyes catching every movement as they moved through the forest, heading for the cavern we called home. I focused on that black beast with the cold, merciless eyes. Finis…Phantom had called him.

“You stay the fuck away from him,” I roared, my knees trembling as I took a step forward. “You hear me? You stay THE FUCK AWAY!”

“Carina!” Arran roared my name.

But the midnight beast didn’t move, even as the others behind him slunk past him, heading toward the howl of my name.

“Finis,” I whispered, and the midnight beast’s ears twitched. Still it didn’t move, standing too far in the distance for me to charge toward it and take the bastard out.

Instead, it watched me with a careful gaze as I took another step closer. A touch brushed across my mind, like a blanket of drowsiness. I knew without question it was the black Wolf. “You want Phantom,” I warned, and stepped directly into the Wolf’s path. “Then you’re going to have to go through me.”

Black lips curled, exposing long, terrifying fangs. “I don’t give a fuck,” I insisted, and held my ground in front of the enemy Alpha. “You don’t get to hurt him, you don’t get to hurt any of them anymore.”

The Wolf advanced, low, sleek strides bringing it closer, cutting