she could never be alpha and as much as that bit, the defense of the pack was the responsibility of everyone.
She rolled out of bed silently and rose to her feet, listening. The Alaskan pack slumbered in Kirk’s big log lodge, each wolf shifter in his own room, many with their mates. The house was filled with the sound of steady breathing.
She heard someone inhale and moved to the doorway of her room. She could see Logan’s silhouette in the great room below. He was standing guard this night and must have sensed something as well. As she watched, he prowled toward the windows that overlooked the forest. Wynter took a step forward and he spun to look, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. She froze.
When Logan saw that it was her, he smiled and beckoned, obviously thinking that what he’d heard was her approach.
Just as obviously, he assumed she was coming to seduce him. Logan had the original one-track mind. Just because he was her brother’s second and believed a mating between their families was the ideal choice didn’t mean that Wynter agreed. The last thing she cared about was Logan’s ambitions. She was going to wait for her destined mate, following her brother’s example. It might be a joke that they were both chaste, but Kirk’s strategy made sense to Wynter.
She shook her head and saw Logan’s eyes narrow at some minute sound. He pivoted and she knew he was going to shift shape, but he never had the chance.
It all happened so quickly.
There was a flash of silver light directly behind Logan, like a slit had been cut open in the air. A blond man stepped through the gap, as if he had opened the zipper on a tent flap. He was tall and broad, tanned golden, and built like a warrior. Wynter recognized that he was Fae.
She shouted a warning, and shifted shape, taking her Arctic wolf form.
Logan would have shifted to a timber wolf, but the Fae warrior’s dagger flashed, slicing Logan from gullet to groin in one powerful stroke. It was a strange weapon, one with a blade that looked like a silver flame. Wynter would have distrusted it even if she hadn’t seen how lethal it was. Logan fell lifeless and bleeding to the floor and was kicked aside by the warrior.
The other wolf shifters burst from their rooms and a howl rose from several of them. The hair rose on Wynter’s back as she leapt down the stairs. Most of her pack-mates had already shifted. They barked and snarled, led by her brother, Kirk, into the great room of the lodge. Wynter saw four more flashes of silver light, then the wolves were falling dead with stunning speed, those strange blades flashing on all sides.
The scent of blood filled her nostrils before she reached the fight. Kirk was already surrounded by Fae warriors. He was a big Arctic wolf who had never been defeated in battle before. He leapt at one of the intruders and sank his fangs into his opponent’s arm. The warrior tossed his strange blade to his other hand, as if he didn’t feel pain at all, then buried it to the hilt in Kirk’s chest.
Wynter watched in horror as Kirk fell to the floor, blood flowing from his wound. The warrior bent and cut out Kirk’s heart, smiling as he held it aloft. He took a bite out of it before Wynter’s very eyes, then kicked Kirk’s lifeless body aside.
The wolves fell on the intruders, but without Kirk to lead them or Logan to take his place, Wynter feared their attack was doomed to failure. She tried to take the lead herself, but a Fae warrior jabbed his blade at her. She twisted in the last moment and took a blow to the shoulder instead of her back, but it burned like nothing she’d ever experienced before. The pain made her stagger and fall.
By the time Wynter lifted her head, the warriors were stepping back through their openings between the realms. The rest of her pack was dead around her and the floor was wet with blood. Mates wept and shouted, and one threw whatever she could grab at the Fae. Lamps shattered but Wynter knew it wouldn’t change a thing.
Her pack had been slaughtered, her brother was dead, and she knew this was the Dark Queen’s plan to eliminate all shifters in action. Wynter saw four of the warriors disappear as her need for vengeance burned to