Chapter 111

Elroy POV

I leapt straight at Denis, but then a beta was in my way, and I ended up with my jaw clamped down on a gray wolf’s foreleg. I snarled and shook him away; he whined before I lunged again and snapped his neck. I turned to find Denis, but again his soldiers were in my way.

A large omega with something to prove—one of the most dangerous opponents an alpha can face in the heat of battle—reared up before me. Her fur was red, and her eyes were almost pure white. The Alpha in me wished I could make her one of my Pack, but the rage of her lips pulled back from her teeth let me know we were about to fight to the death.

I acknowledged her challenge with a snarl, and then we were engaged. She went for my belly, but I rolled and twisted to come after her neck. She countered with a slash across my face that missed by a millimeter.

I lunged back around in the other direction and saw she had left her left flank open. I bit down hard and her help. Most wolves would have howled in pain, and again I wished I could invite her to my Pack.

She snapped at me, twisting her mussel as though she could tear flesh, and my instincts took over. I latched onto her bared neck and sank my teeth in deep. She was dead in a moment, and I took that same moment to stand over her to howl in respect.

Then there was another damn beta from Denis’s army, and I dispatched her in moments.

Sam rolled to my side with his teeth sunk deep into his opponent’s neck. I slashed down the wolf’s flank to help finish him off, then turned yet again to confront a low-ranked alpha who actually bared her teeth at me. It took me little effort to finish her, and then I could finally get free of them to find Denis.

But he was gone.

Even worse, I realized, Olivia was gone.

I howled in rage. If there had been another of Denis’s wolves there, I would have torn them to shreds.

Then my wish was granted and a light gray beta attacked from my right flank. I turned in near glee, but he leapt over me to land on Sam. To my horror, he was able to rake his back claws down my Beta’s stomach before Sam could intercept. I leapt on his back and tore his neck out.

I gagged slightly on the smell of viscera and transformed back to lean over Sam. His wounds were bad. “Stay in your fur!” I ordered. Outside, I could hear some wolves fighting two or three Rogues, who soon whined and fell silent.

“Apothecary!” I shouted, unable to help wishing that Iris were there. I didn’t think about how much I wanted the Lunaris Apothecary and how much I wanted my mother. “I can’t lose you, Sam,” I whispered. “Stay with me.”

“I will try, Alpha,” Sam whispered.

A medic ran in clutching a bag. She looked about twelve years old. I wanted to shout at her that I wanted someone senior, but then I reminded myself that most battlefield apothecaries didn’t live long. It was too easy to mistake them for the enemy. I decided I would talk to Olivia about a better way to distinguish them in battle, and then I remembered she wasn’t safe, and I howled again.

Sam whimpered, and I squeezed his hand. He had been with me for so long I wasn’t quite sure when he had first appeared at my side, loyal and ready to fight my enemies as his own. Alphas had a saying, “The best Beta is just there.” Sam was the epitome of that. Why had I never told him?

Why had I been so adamant that he was my Beta, not my friend? What a ridiculous distinction that seemed now. Had I really needed to be so isolated, or was that yet just another foolish thing I had learned from watching my father?

I absolutely did not want to be my father. Why did I keep discovering that I had acted as he had? Why was I comfortable with wolves when they treated me the way they had treated him?

The medic looked at me, and reluctantly I let go of Sam’s increasingly cold hand. Then all I could do was sit there on the tent floor while my people rushed in and cleaned and made Sam more comfortable and reported that Olivia was nowhere to be found.

I felt the despair of my Pack rise up around me and tried to ignore it. I needed to get Olivia back as soon as possible, of course, but I could not leave Sam’s side. He was dying, and though I choked on the knowledge, I knew Denis didn’t want to hurt Olivia.

A blanket of knowledge warmed my chilled soul, if only slightly. Olivia can handle herself. She’ll hold on until I get there.

The Apothecary’s assistant ran in then, and I waited for the worst. It was almost unbearable.

I thought of Olivia again. Olivia, who was so beautiful, who held herself like a true Luna, whose eyes seemed to take in the whole world at once, whose silver wolf was almost difficult to look at for the light it brought all around it.

It hit me then how deeply I loved her. What I had mistaken for possessiveness was fear. I saw it so clearly: fear it would be she lying where Sam was now, dying or otherwise lost to me. From the moment I had entered her body and felt whole, I had been terrified she would be taken from me.

I remembered my near-terrifying elation when I found out she was pregnant with my pup. This incredible she-wolf would be tied to me forever, hopefully to her mutual delight, when I had known, somewhat sheepishly, that she had been a little drunk when we went to bed. Yes, if I’d thought she was beyond reason, I would have stopped her, but she was aware of herself, and I had taken what she offered with pure joy.

But then to know that she was happy to be carrying our pup? To know that she wanted to be with me? I was lost in her orbit. I was, in point of fact, hers.

And yet, even as I had finally defeated my fear of her power over me, I was aware that something was holding me back. My heart, which longed to go to her, stayed somehow tethered to an invisible presence I was beginning to despise.

“Now,” the apothecary told her apprentice, who hesitated. She scowled at him. “Do I need to tell you again?”

“He’s not—”

“I said now!”

To my horror, the apothecary’s apprentice brought down a hypodermic right into the middle of Sam’s chest. To me, it looked like a killing blow, and it took everything I had to remain silent.

And then Sam drew in a shuddering breath, and the child-like apothecary nodded at me in relief.

Could I actually not lose him?