scares me.
He shrugs, then makes a moan as his lips tighten from the clear agony he’s feeling.
“You want to know something, right?” he begins with an edge in his voice. “Something about why I’m so fucked up… I once made a deal with the neighboring pack Alphas who challenged me, and I agreed to take them all on my own. It’s fucked up and I knew it, but I couldn’t back down. Ragnar stopped it before it started, or I wouldn’t be standing here with you.” He half-grins like it pains him to admit this to me of all people.
“I don’t judge you,” I admit, while he glances at the bear falling to all fours and pushing into a run toward us.
“I am scared shitless of failing, or not winning a battle, of getting others killed. And strangely, I’m not worried about dying.”
Just as the last word leaves his lips, his eyes roll into the back of his head and he drops to the ground as a shadow crests over us.
My heart thumps loudly in my ears, my mind caught on what he’s just revealed.
A shower of dark mist abruptly cascades over us, and I duck out of pure instinct, my hands covering my head. The vanishing bear darkens the world for a moment, creating an ominous feeling in an already terrifying forest.
Crius lies by my feet, sprawled on his back, arms stretched out on either side of him, his legs bent… and he’s unconscious, just like Stone. I want to believe what I’m doing is going to work. Please work.
Except part of me is still rocking on my heels at his revelation about death… for me, dying scares me more than anything. To leave my sisters behind alone is my worst nightmare, and yet Crius embraces that? He’s more afraid of not succeeding.
But I shake those thoughts away, needing to get to the last two Alphas.
Without pausing, I swing around and run at full speed, yelling before I even reach him across the clearing. “Nikos!”
When I lay my hand on his back, he whips around and frowns at me, then turns back to the bear. What is it with him… he’s so hot and cold all the time?
“Please, Nikos, hurry.” I grab his hand, imploring him to open up, explaining what he has to do. His brow furrows like I’ve done him an injustice to show him I cared. He turns, ripping his hand out of mine, charging for the bear.
His response carries on the wind. “I lied to Ragnar when I told him I had no intention of leaving his pack.” He ducks the bear’s swinging paw and jumps into battle, his blades slashing across the beast’s underside. “In the end, it’s easier if I leave before I’m tossed out.”
His words carry as much punch as the ones he delivers to the animal, but in seconds, he crumbles to the ground while the bear morphs into a floating mist, evaporating on the breeze.
Yet I can’t move and instead drown in Nikos’s secret, to hear the defeat of already accepting that he’ll be pushed aside. Hell, these men are tough as mountains, but on the inside they are just as broken and twisted as me.
As much as I want to shake him awake and make him talk about this shit, I tear away from him and swing toward Ragnar in his white wolf form, clashing with a huge brown bear. It still amazes me how massive he is… he’s unlike any Alpha I’ve seen before. But he is the last I need to fix, and I hurry to him, not sure if I want to hear his secret, in all honesty, when my mind is hurting with what I’ve just learned from the other three.
I close in on him as he rushes in for an attack. There’s a long, painful-looking wound ripped down the back of his arm, blood dripping behind him. He’s limping and sluggish in his movements. I ache on the inside, struggling with seeing how beaten these Alphas are, how they keep battling an impossible fight.
“Ragnar,” I yell, doubting he can hear me, so I rush to him, my arm reaching out for his back.
Suddenly, Ragnar’s knocked in the face by the bear’s swinging head. He groans with agony and reels backward so fast that I don’t have time to get out of his path.
Panic captures me as I cry out, and he whips around so quickly that his huge wolf head slams into me with