Run! The Black Wolf's prey.

Chapter 30 - Stray dog

Everybody’s heads turned with surprise as Zack started to sprint towards the man who was holding Joanna hostage.

“Let go of my mate!” Zack roared, his eyes fuming with anger.

The man quickly changed his grip, holding Joanna’s head in an awkward position and she squealed with pain.

“I will snap her neck if you come closer!” he bellowed.

Zack stopped instantly, the agony and frustration evident in his eyes as he was backing a few steps back..

“Mate!” Joanna whispered, her eyes filling with tears.

Like every werewolf girl, she had fantasized about the moment when she would find her true mate. Standing naked, covered in blood, in the arms of another man who was about to snap her neck, was definitely not how she had imagined it.

“John, Alpha of the Black Wolves,” the man holding Joanna hostage was looking straight at John, acknowledging him with a sly grin on his face. “What an honour to have you here to pay us a visit. And you brought some friends with you, I see.”

“Nolan,” John growled.

He now recognized the man. They had done their Alpha and Beta training together several years ago. John had never liked him, finding him reckless and violent.

Nolan’s pack had been extinguished during the Northern Pack Wars, and his whole family had been wiped out except for his mother. They had lost their lands, their pack, everything. His mother had insisted upon him going to the Alpha and Beta trainings, hoping for Nolan to become someone’s Beta.

However, Nolan could never take an order and was eventually expelled from their training because of bad behaviour, breaking his mother’s heart. When she died shortly thereafter, Nolan had disappeared completely. Until now.

“What is a stray dog like you doing here?” John’s voice was ice-cold.

“Stray dog? Is that the best you can come up with, Johnny boy?" Nolan snickered. "What am I doing here? I have been courting this young lady for quite some time,” Nolan smiled wryly, holding Joanna in a firm grip, pressing her against his own nude body. “But she has declined my proposals. So, I thought she needed a little persuasion...”

“Where is Ralph? And Amelia?” Warren growled, still in his wolf form.

“Oh, the big Alpha is here too?” Nolan shifted his gaze to Warren. “That’s very brave of you, bringing all the top dogs of the pack to fight.” He looked back at John. “Is your brother here as well? And your little sister? I’ve heard she has grown up to be a real hottie,” Nolan smirked.

John, Warren and Rebecca simultaneously started to growl menacingly, their eyes fuming.

“Forgive me, my lady. I didn’t acknowledge your presence,” Nolan did a small bow to Rebecca. “I am truly very honoured. My mother was a big fan. But now I suggest you leave.”

“I think you are misinterpreting the situation here,” John sneered. “You are the ones who are leaving. But first you let go of your prisoners and answer my father.”

“Or what?” Nolan arched his brow. “Will you attack us? I will snap her neck in an instance. Or we will cut their throats,” he nodded towards the children. “Whatever you choose.”

John made a movement with his right finger, a secret sign to Luke’s group to load their crossbows. It would be difficult for them to shoot, though, as they had to be sure they didn’t hit any of the hostages.

“You will let them go… Or we will shoot you, one by one,” John looked coolly into Nolan’s brown eyes. “We have a group of shooters just waiting for my signal.”

“Liar,” Nolan sneered, but his gaze started to wander around, looking for threats.

John made a small motion with his right hand, and Luke came out of the woods, the crossbow loaded in clear vicinity, aiming straight at Nolan’s head. John knew it was risky, it would be incredibly difficult to shoot Nolan without risking shooting Joanna.

“We have more of these, and they are all pointing at your head as we speak… So, now it’s time to answer our questions. Where are Ralph and Amelia?” John said with a dark voice.

Nolan grimaced; nothing had turned out the way he had planned...

Since Joanna was the only offspring of Ralph and Amelia, her mate would naturally become the Alpha of the Pine Ridge pack. It would have been perfect for him; he really wanted their lands at the foot of the mountain, and the thought of having a Luna as pretty as Joanna had also been very appealing. They weren't fated mates, but she could have accepted him as her chosen mate. He had been planning to take over this pack for years!

Ever since the passing of his mother, he had been roaming around, gathering other lost souls that had nowhere to go. Pine Ridge would have been the perfect place for him to start up a new pack of his own. But as Joanna had refused him, over and over again, he had lost his patience. And now here he was, trying to seize the Pine Ridge pack by force and press her to accept him. It didn’t go according to plans, and he was very displeased.

“Bring them,” Nolan growled at his fighters.

Two of them went inside the house, shortly thereafter coming out again, carrying two motionless bodies, both wrapped up in chains, and throwing them down with a thud on the ground.

“No!” Joanna cried as the two bodies hit the gravel.

“What have you done?” Warren barked, his eyes fuming with anger.

“Some convincing,” Nolan replied nonchalantly. “They were quite hard to convince though.” One of his fighters approached him and they locked their gazes, clearly mind-linking each other. Nolan jerked and instantly looked up, searching the woods.

“I see you are telling the truth,” he squinted his eyes, noting a few of John’s other crossbow warriors in the shadows behind the trees. He turned to face John again.

“I think we should make a deal,” he continued. “We will both leave. And you will let us be. No more bloodshed. Win win.”

“Over my dead body,” Warren growled.

“It would be over her dead body then,” Nolan smiled dryly and nodded at Joanna. “You really want her death on your conscience?”

“Make a decision, John,” Rebecca mind-linked as she shifted into her human form, her long platinum hair covering her bare chest.

“I am only going to tend to the wounded,” she raised her voice, holding up her hands as she looked at Nolan, vigilantly walking over to the immobile bodies lying on the ground.

“Release your hostages immediately, and maybe we will not kill you,” John gritted his teeth.

“Then you would definitely kill us!” Nolan laughed unpleasantly. “I don’t think so. You will leave first.”

“That’s not happening,” John replied coolly with arms crossed. “Release them, Nolan.”

Nolan furrowed his brows, his jaws clenched, and he faced his fighters, once again in obvious mind-link as they nodded at him. Then, abruptly, they started dragging their hostages along with them over the yard.

“You move, and we will cut their throats,” Nolan shouted.

John motioned for everyone to stay still, while Nolan and his fighters were cautiously moving away from them, aiming at the woods. Within the blink of an eye, Nolan and his pack shifted into a bunch of grey and brown wolves and took off, releasing their hostages as they sprinted away.

“Fire!” John exclaimed, and bolts aiming at the runaway wolves were flying through the air, hitting two of them in the back. One was Nolan, now a big gray wolf with black ears, but he managed to wriggle it out and started running again, bleeding massively. The other one wasn’t as lucky, though, remaining on the ground whining, the spear piercing its heart.

“After them!” John yelled, releasing his allies into the hunt, almost all of them taking up the chase.

Zack, though, decided to shift into his human form and ran directly over to Joanna who was lying on the ground, breathing heavily, unable to stand up.

“I’m here,” he told her softly, lifting her up in his arms. “I will never let anyone hurt you like this again.”

“They managed to break through,” she sobbed. “We fought, but they eventually overpowered us. Our best fighters are dead. He tortured my parents, and I think he killed them too.”

“Shhhh,” Zack kissed her cheeks covered in tears. “I’ll take you to them.”

He carried her gently over to Warren and Rebecca who were ripping the chains off Ralph’s and Amelia’s motionless bodies. The other Pine Ridge pack members were also starting to gather around them, the adults seemingly in shock and the children weeping in the arms of their mothers.

“Mother? Father?” Joanna cried, holding on to Zack while trying to stand on her own feet. His eyes were full of concern when he looked at his newfound mate, wishing he could take her pain away.

“They are alive,” Rebecca looked up. “John? Come over here!"

John quickly ran back to them, kneeling by the two wounded bodies. They were both covered in blood, with deep cuts and bruises, but were slowly starting to heal. Amelia was worst off. She was unconscious, her lips were turning blue, and her shallow breathing made John suspect she had a punctured lung.

He put his head to her chest to confirm, and he was right - there were no breathing sounds on one side. He quickly inserted one of his claws in between two of her top ribs, and there was an immediate hissing sound as the air escaped and her heart was relieved from the pressure of the hyperinflation.

“Can someone find a big needle to place here, as soon as possible?” he shouted.

As Amelia’s condition was improving, he turned his attention to Ralph, who was starting to wake up, complaining about pain in his head. As Ralph’s movements were jerky and his pupils dilated, John suspected he might have an epidural bleeding. This type of injury often healed by itself in werewolves, so he wasn’t as worried as he would have been with a human, but he still wanted to keep him under watch.

“Follow his pulse and breathing,” he instructed Warren, who sat by his side. Ralph’s right arm was also broken, and had already started healing at an awkward angle.

“Hold on!” John said, followed by a big ‘crack’ as he broke Ralph’s arm right again, Ralph groaning in pain. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, “I had to do it, or your arm wouldn’t heal properly.”

Ralph nodded.

Just as John was about to shift back into his wolf form to catch up with the others in the woods, Liam, Luke and their respective fighters appeared by the tree line, being in their human forms, dragging two of Nolan’s pack members in their hands. However, Nolan was nowhere to be seen.

“What happened?” John was irritated, he wanted Nolan caught.

“They had parked their cars that way,” Liam grunted and pointed at the direction where they had just left the woods. “We managed to catch these two, but the rest of them got away.”

“Damn it!” John was frustrated, he didn’t like the idea of Nolan on the loose.

“I shot him, though,” Luke recalled. “So, he's injured. Even if he heals quickly, I hardly think he would try anything on the River Valley pack tonight. Besides, he has lost a few of his fighters here today.”

It was as if Luke had read John’s mind. What was the risk of Nolan being on his way to attack the River Valley pack as they were speaking?

He had to call Chloe to warn her.