Surviving My Fate

Chapter Twenty-Seven Invasion

I’m running faster than I ever have, pushing my body to its limits. All the of-age male wolves run past me, some already in their wolf forms and some shifting as they go.

The women and children are rushing to the pack house and the cover of the safe room. I see a mom with three young children fall in her haste and I run to her aid.

“Here let me help you,” I say pulling the young girl about Alex’s age from her arms while she stands readjusting the other toddler and a baby in a sling.

“Thank you.”

We run together until we’re inside and I leave her to her children as I run for my own. I’m almost to the top of the stairs when a howl so loud the windows shake rips through the pack house. I don’t know whose howl it is and I don’t stop to find out I keep running. I hit the top step and I slip tripping over my own two feet and fall onto the floor. I throw my hands out to catch myself at the same I hear paws bounding up the stairs. I scramble to my feet as fast as I can darting toward the playroom. Please be safe baby. Tears threaten to spill out of my eyes and my heart beats so frantically I can’t catch my breath. Cassie get it together. Now is not the time for a panic attack. I chastise myself. The playroom door is closed and I reach it with a smack sliding into the hard door before I can stop. Alex are you in there I yell when the handle doesn’t open.

“Mm m m mommyyy” I can hear the tears in his sob-filled voice. My heart breaks at the sound.

“Baby I’m right here, stay strong for mommy. Are you alone?” I ask.

“Nnnn no.” He replies.

“Who’s with you?”

“Aaabby.”

“Okay baby, y’all stay away from the door. Hide in the back as far away as you can. You understand me?”

“Ye yes mo mommy.”

I turn around facing the stairs, I will die before anyone gets to mine or Mel’s baby.

At that moment a wolf comes into view and relief fills my body.

It’s Mel.

Her amber wolf has the same blue ocean eyes that glow slightly with their vibrancy and she stalks forward shifting halfway to me.

“Are the kids still inside?” Her voice is strong and steady but her watery eyes betray her.

At the end of the day, she’s a mom and her baby comes first.

“Yes, it’s locked,” I say wrapping my arms around her.

“Oh thank god. I had this room tied to the pack's panic room. Whenever it went on lock this one did too. It would take more than one wolf to get in.”

“Thank you, Mel.” I don’t know what else to say she had thought further ahead than I knew too and our children are safe because of it. “What’s going on out there?”

“Rouges hit the northwest and southwest borders simultaneously.”

Carter’s POV

“Rogues southwest border Alpha,” Levi says.

“They’re attacking the northwest Alpha” Marcus links.

“Don’t let them get through, slaughter them,” I order reaching all of my men.

I’m stuck in the middle unsure of which way to run knowing there are rogues on both sides.

“Let me out.” Cain snarls.

I relent moving to the back seat and watching as he runs to the south.

The first rogue we come across is small and Cain doesn’t stop as he rips his throat out in one smooth motion. Blood splatters over our silvery fur. He spits the flesh from our mouth as the metallic taste invades our senses heightening the blood lust we feel during every battle.

Another rogue runs towards us and the howl Cain releases stops him in his tracks. The rogue tucks his tail running away like a coward but he’s too late. Cain leaps into the air pinning the brown wolf to the ground and in one s***h of our claws, his head rolls to the side. We watch as the life leaves his eyes in an instant and they glaze over his tongue lolling from his mouth which is left agape. The rest of the rogues are retreating when we lift our head.

“How’s everything on your end Marcus?” I ask shifting and taking in the battlefield.

“They’re retreating do you want us to pursue?”

“No fallback, any wounded?”

“One but he’s already healing.”

“Send him to the pack doctor, leave warriors on the border,” I order.

Two men on this end are wounded one pretty badly. He’s a younger wolf having just joined the warrior ranks on his eighteenth birthday. This was his first battle. I look over his wounds, his chest is covered in blood. The more I survey the more damage I see. The ground houses the bodies of dead rogues. I count them as my men work piling their scattered bodies up. Six total had lost their lives today.

“Get them to the pack doctor now,” I instruct motioning to our two wounded.

Ian’s POV

Ashley’s punishment drew the eyes of all the pack her screams bringing them into the bar. I spent time breaking her body beneath me and running my claws over her smooth skin when I finished I sat back watching as I let the rest take their turn.

Ashley disappeared when the last man finished. Raya left when it started and didn’t return until it was over and Ashley was gone.

We spent the rest of the day strategizing for the battle. No one has been allowed to drink today in preparation. I need them to have clear heads. I decided to split the legion in two. If Raya is right we’ll have a distraction on the northwest border while we slip through the southwestern territory. If she’s wrong I’m dividing my forces and leading my army to slaughter.

***

We’re heading out slipping through the dark of the morning in our wolf forms. Kyle is taking the north with a team of fifteen. Raya and I have the other twelve. Ashley follows behind slinking through the shadows alone.

We slip across the border undetected. I hang back allowing Raya to lead the men further into the Silver Crest territory. That's when s**t goes sideways. A large silver wolf with black ears comes out of nowhere knocking the first rogue off his feet and five more follow engaging our men effortlessly. I watch as Ashley turns tail and runs. Raya is locked head to head with a brown wolf and forces him to the ground with large claw marks across his chest. A howl rips across the battlefield and two of my men go down fast to the power of their Alpha. I don’t watch more, I run much to the dismay of Ivan. The few men who are alive follow.

***

I sit at the bar downing drink after drink fogging my mind.

Kyles managed to catch up to us halfway to the bar. He only lost four men opposed to our six.

The next attack would have to be more thought out. We lost ten men. Ashley is now obsolete. Her intel was wrong. Raya would’ve had a good idea if she hadn’t allowed the rogues to go so far alerting them to our presence. They shouldn’t have crossed the border before we were ready to put our plan into action.

This sent me back to square one. How am I going to get Alex now? And how will I make Cassie pay?