Yet I had enforced others to adhere to it for generations. I had overseen the moment when Hudson's father had turned his mother. I had encouraged Lillian, Hudson's former sister-in-law, to press for justice to happen to the Fontaine pack when Hudson's son had bitten Sadie Adelaine, a simple farm girl who ran an animal rescue, and turned her into a werewolf.
That had gone out the window as soon as I'd heard that Lillian had attacked the human, but that was of little consequence.
I stared at Hudson. He was still pointing at the human paleontologist that had done nothing except help our flight. She had only attempted to serve us, to give us what we wanted, and the look on his face brought me to a boiling point that I had only known twice in my life.
My fist connected with his jaw and sent him spinning to the ground. Olivia cheered; Sadie gasped. The omega wolf tried to step between us, but I moved in first and snarled at her, "Interfere and I bring you down as well. You wolves need to back off. You come into my territory and demand things of me? You dare?"
"You enforced the Pact on us," Hudson said, wiping blood from his nose. He looked up at me and narrowed his eyes. "I guess I have to do the same with you."
I didn't realize his leg had crept between mine as he spoke. He hooked his foot behind my ankle and ripped me from my feet. I hit the ground, the back of my head smacking into a rather sharp piece of gravel.
And then the fight was on. I snarled, shifting as quickly as I could, but Hudson was faster. The wolf threw itself at me, still somewhat tangled in his clothes, and latched sharp teeth on one of my arms. It made it all the harder to concentrate on my shifting and I struggled, somewhere between dragon and human, trying to pry the werewolf from my flesh.
"Please, guys, this isn't the time or the place," Sadie begged, looking around for something on the ground.
I couldn't pay attention to her and defend myself. I managed the transformation and flung the wolf from me, Hudson landing heavily somewhere in the cavern. Though dragon eyes are impressive in the dark, we hold nothing on a wolf's night vision. The beast launched itself at me, catching my face with claws and teeth in a furious tornado of pain and blood.
Dragons do not yelp, but wolves do. I smashed him into the side of the stone with a roar, making note of the crimson streaming from his bites. I would have to be careful not to slip in it, but that was all that mattered. I reared, intent on crushing him, when Sadie ran into my vision as a wolf.
The she-wolf hunkered over her mate, ears flattened against her skull, her lips peeled back from her teeth. She licked the air, crouching, the picture of a begging animal. I kept my paw in the air, considering both of them as I bled down my chest. I could end them. We would leave them a ruin, dead for the scavengers. I would never be allowed within the local supernatural community again, should the rest of the pack discover what I had done. I assumed the Hummer had some sort of on-board recording device.
If I hexed it, it was likely to blow the entire computer in the vehicle. And if I were to let them go, it meant I would strand them on this mountain. Without a way home, they were like to starve. Wolves hunt well. They do not hunt as well as they would need to survive half a mile into the sky with few prey animals lying in wait.
My paw curled into a fist and I slowly sat it down upon the stone. Sadie never flinched, but she did slowly stand up a little straighter and cock her head at me. Her white socks were splashed with my blood and, I couldn't hold it back, the gore only worsened when I sneezed all over her.
She sighed up at me and shook herself off. Olivia walked into view, looking up at me. "I think you knocked him out. Isn't that enough to prove that you're both big, bad men? And weren't there other werewolves with them?"
"There are. Three," I gritted. Though I healed quickly, the grinding sensation of that healing was unpleasant. It was far better to not get injured in the first place, but I'd been in several fights as of late. Far more than I had over the past few years.
Perhaps it was the sort of chaos created when you were trying to raise a family. I moved a step back from the crumpled wolf, then another. A spotlight hit me and I hissed, glaring off into it as my pupils snapped to pinstripe width.
"Hate to be a bother there, Eskal. Seems like the fight's over with. The problem is, you've ruined the area for most of the rest of we shifters, too," said a voice I knew all too well.
I sighed at it. "Jeremiah, the humans will quiet themselves. You know it all too well."
He was a human-shaped masterpiece, all dark skin and tight muscle. Jeremiah was built like he was made to run; and he was. Still, he wore a business casual shirt and a pair of slacks that had to come from a mall anchor store. But his smile was wide and his face was kind, and his eyes were the brightest, purest white I'd ever seen. "The humans aren't going to forget anything this time around. And you may have just killed Hudson, who was delivering you justice."
"Was this a set-up, then?"
Jeremiah shrugged one shoulder, all contempt. "Only if you did it to yourself. I know I'm new to this little troop
