ALPHA KANE

First Blood

The raiders hit Dustbridge two days after the first wagons arrived.

Kane heard the screaming before he saw anything — a woman's voice, cut short, then the sound of wood splintering near the east row of houses where most of the refugees had been given shelter. He was up and moving before he'd even decided to move, ribs still aching from the beating two days prior, body slower than his instincts wanted it to be.

He rounded the corner of a grain store and saw them. Three men in Vask colors, armor stripped down for speed, dragging a family out of a refugee tent by force. The father was already down, bleeding from the head. The mother was screaming at the men holding her arms. A teenage boy, maybe sixteen, was fighting against a fourth man twice his size, getting nowhere.

"Let them go," Kane said.

The nearest raider turned, sized him up — a human, no scent of pack-strength, no wolf shimmer in his eyes — and laughed. "This isn't your business, old man."

"Made it my business."

The raider came at him first, swinging a short blade in a wide arc meant to intimidate more than connect. Kane stepped inside the swing instead of away from it, grabbed the man's wrist, and slammed it down across his knee. The blade dropped. Kane drove a knee up into the man's stomach, then an elbow down across the back of his neck, and the raider went still on the ground.

One down. Three left, and his ribs were already screaming from the effort.

The second raider didn't bother with a weapon , just barreled into Kane with full wolf-strength, and Kane felt it immediately, the disadvantage cutting deep. He hit the dirt hard, the raider's forearm crushing across his throat.

"You're not a pack," the raider said, sniffing once near Kane's neck like he was confirming something. "Not even worth killing properly."

Kane used the opening — grabbed a fistful of dirt and threw it into the man's eyes, then twisted free while he was blinking it out. No wolf-strength to fall back on, just old training and a willingness to fight dirty that he wouldn't have stooped to as Alpha. He got behind the raider and drove a forearm across his windpipe, holding until the man's struggling slowed and finally stopped.

Two down. His arms were trembling now, exhaustion setting in faster than it used to. He turned just in time to see the third raider finish wrestling the teenage boy into submission, binding his wrists with rope while the boy kicked and screamed.

"Let him go," Kane said again, moving toward them.

The fourth man — bigger than the other three combined, clearly the one in charge — stepped between Kane and the boy. "You took out two of mine. Impressive, for a human." He smiled like the word amused him. "Doesn't change anything. The boy's pack-blood. Vask wants pack-blood. You're going to lose this."

He came at Kane without warning, faster than anything Kane had faced in six months. A fist caught him across the jaw and the world tilted sideways. Another hit landed in his ribs, directly over the bruising from two days before, and Kane felt something crack. He went down to one knee, vision blurring.

"Stay down," the man said. "You don't have anything left to fight with."

Kane looked past him — saw the third raider hauling the bound boy toward a horse, saw the mother screaming, restrained by two of Dorian's other men who'd appeared from the tree line. He tried to stand. His legs didn't fully cooperate. He made it up anyway, swaying, blood running from his split lip.

"You're still standing," the big raider said, almost impressed. "Stubborn. Won't matter."

He hit Kane again, an open-handed blow that sent him sprawling into the dirt near the grain store wall. Kane's hand found a loose stone the size of a fist as he fell. He didn't think about it — just gripped it and swung it up and into the side of the man's knee as he stepped close to finish things.

The raider howled and staggered, knee buckling. Kane used the half-second to drive the stone into the man's temple, once, hard enough to drop him face-first into the dirt.

Three down. The fourth and the one binding the boy's wrists, was already mounting his horse, the boy thrown over the saddle in front of him like cargo.

Kane ran. His body screamed the entire way, ribs grinding, vision swimming at the edges, and he reached the horse just as it started moving. He grabbed the stirrup, got dragged three full strides through the dirt, and the raider kicked down at him, boot catching his shoulder hard enough to nearly break the grip.

He held on anyway. Hauled himself up enough to grab the man's leg and pull, and the raider lost balance in the saddle, tumbling off the far side with Kane following him down. They hit the ground together, and Kane lost the fight from there he outmatched, outmuscled, the raider on top of him within seconds, a forearm pinning his throat to the dirt.

"You should've stayed down the first time," the raider said.

Kane couldn't answer. Couldn't breathe. The edges of his vision went dark, narrowing down to a single point of light above him, and somewhere distant he heard hooves, the boy's horse, riderless now, bolting off into the trees with the boy still bound across the saddle.

He'd failed. The thought landed harder than the forearm crushing his windpipe.

The raider eased the pressure just slightly, enough to speak clearly. "Tell whoever sent you. Dorian's taking every pack-blood child in this region. Nothing you do changes that."

Then he stood, spat once near Kane's head, and walked off toward the horses his men had left behind, leaving Kane gasping in the dirt, alone, beaten, and furious in a way that had no outlet left.

Mira found him there twenty minutes later, half-conscious, three ribs cracked, a boy somewhere out in raider territory who Kane had failed to save.

"You went after armed riders with your bare hands," she said, kneeling beside him, voice tight with something between anger and disbelief.

"Couldn't let them take him."

"They took him anyway."

Kane didn't answer. He was already thinking about the trail the horse had left, the direction it had bolted, and the fact that he wasn't going to let this end here no matter what his body had left to give.

"You're not going after them," Mira said, reading it on his face. "You'll die."

"Maybe," Kane said. "But I'm still going."