my diner all over the bark and grass. Two waves passed before I began to dry heave.
“Feeling better?”
I recognized the voice as belonging to the dragon who had nearly taken my life. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and turned to face him. His green eyes were regarding me with a mixture of lust and curiosity. “I will be fine.” I walked back over to Connor’s corpse and lifted his body up, tossing it over my shoulder. I then bent down to retrieve his head. More blood dripped from the open wound and he was still in his beast form. I would have to run fast back to his home, so no human could see what I carried.
“Fortunately for you, our King will let you all leave. There are so few of you left, he takes pity. However, if you are still here tomorrow night…” He stepped closer to me and grabbed me by the back of my head and kissed me.
I couldn’t push him away, as both of my hands were occupied, but I did yank my head back and I knew he let me. I was no match for him, strength for strength. “Filth!” I spat.
He smiled. “… I will have you. I will put a collar around your neck, little wolf, and fuck you in all of your forms. And you’ll love it too. A dragon’s cock is heaven to all we grace with it.”
“Keep your cock,” I snarled, then turned away. I ran and saw Elliot and Charlene were still in wolf form waiting on me. Thank god they had both survived. Once I caught up, we all ran together back to Connor’s mansion.
~*~
Julie was better composed at this point, but I could tell she’d been crying. The redness and puffiness of her eyes were a dead giveaway. Who could blame her? She’d lost her husband, the love of her life. I couldn’t imagine what that pain must have felt like, nor would I ever want to. To lose a mate, that was on a scale more than just a simple wife losing her husband. A connection created by the universe had been severed. There was an emptiness inside her that would never, ever be filled again. Perhaps death would had been a better fate.
Royce was carving out Connor’s heart for Julie to devour. The pack was surrounding her in a circle still in their forms as before. We had three thousand, nine-hundred and twenty wolves when this night began. As I looked around, I counted one-hundred and twenty-three of us remaining. We’d nearly been wiped out in a matter of minutes by the dragons. Had we underestimated our enemy? Or did we actually never have a chance?
Royce gave Julie his father’s heart. “To make us whole again.”
Julie took the bleeding heart with trembling hands. “To… to make us whole again.” She then put it to her lips and took a bite. With that, we all began to howl, giving her encouragement. We continued to howl until she had fully devoured Connor’s heart. The moment it was ingested, I could feel power flow into me. I finally realized what that sensation had been that I’d felt when I was still trying to recover from my injury in the forest. It was the moment when Connor had died. Having never lost an Alpha before, at least not when I was a full wolf, that feeling was alien to me. When my first Alpha died, I was human and didn’t have that connection. It all meant so much more now.
Julie took a deep breath, then spoke. “I am sorry that we have lost all that was ours. I cannot imagine what this means for some of you who have lost loved ones and must now lose your homes. But we will survive this. We will grow stronger. But we can only do this together and not here. Rest for now and in the morning, we must gather our dead, bury them, and prepare to leave.” She didn’t say anything else. Only walked into the mansion, I assumed to prepare. Connor had already made arrangements to leave in case we lost the war, to what extent, I hadn’t been completely made aware. Regardless, we still had our own personal arrangements to make.
“Let’s go home,” I said to Charlene and Elliot. If I could only take what I could carry on my back, I needed to make sure it was my most important belongings. I transformed