Coveney, on your left!

Hearing his Alpha’s warning, the Head Enforcer of the Wyvern Pride turned just in time to block the jaw of the wolf, preventing him from aiming for his neck, but the shifter still bit his flank pretty hard and deep.

They were outnumbered, practically six to one - seven felines against three dozen wolves - but seeing his wound, Rye still ordered Coveney to get back to their pride house.

I can still help, the tiger said through the pride link.

He probably could, but at what price? The gash needed to be bound, or he’d bleed out at the entrance of their territory.

In other circumstances, Ola could have healed him, at least partially, but the lioness was currently relentlessly fighting against three females. Stopping to heal him right now was the equivalent of asking for a break, so she could make a cup of tea and eat muffins.

Go help Jas, Rygan replied, referring to their strongest female.

Jas hadn’t been happy about it, but she’d stayed behind, with the non-fighters and the children. She was too far for Rye to get a good reading on her through the pride link, but he sensed some distress, which meant that some wolves had made it past their lines of defense.

Fuck.

Coveney didn’t protest, presumably feeling the same call coming from the rest of their pride. Blood trailing him, he ran towards their homes.

Satisfied his Head Enforcer wasn’t in imminent danger anymore, Rye grabbed the wolf on his back by the scruff of his neck, his long fangs breaking the skin, and threw him at the nearest wall. He jumped on the one standing in front of him, claws digging in its back before his teeth closed on the wolf’s face. Now those were taken care of, he turned to Tracy. Ola was dealing with more opponents but Tracy was younger, and more vulnerable. His claws hooked on the flanks of one of the wolves attacking her, and tore through him.

Taking a second to observe their progress, he saw that his pride wasn’t nearly as outnumbered now. Rye had incapacitated at least ten wolves, but the real hero was Daunte, his crazy-ass Beta: the humongous, graceful panther was killing a wolf every other second. The others weren’t doing badly either.

They were winning.

Until they lost everything.

In the distance, Coveney roared, a gut-clenching sound that made them all stop and turn in the direction of their home. With some effort, Rye managed to push through the pride link, despite the five miles separating them, and asked his Enforcer, What is it?

Coveney shared what his eyes saw.

Fire. Their house was burning, each door and window reinforced, barricaded. No scream came from within.

Their pride members were already all dead.

* * *

Coveney cursed like a sailor, while Daunte punched the wall, enraged, sick to his stomach. The younglings in their pride, their submissive…they were all dead.

The only thing keeping them sane right now was the fact that it hadn’t happened. Yet. They were all gathered in the common room of their pride house, and there was no wolf in sight. But what they’d all seen would happen, if they didn’t change the course of their actions.

Blessing the day when their Seer had joined them, as he often did, Rye closed his eyes, tuning out his pridemates’ distress and trying to concentrate on finding a solution.

They didn’t have a lot of time; whenever Hsu had a vision, they needed to move their asses and act fast, if they wanted to avoid the outcome she’d foreseen. They’d ignored her once - because who would believe the word of a six year old child no one knew a thing about? - and they’d paid for it in blood.

Never again. Three years had passed since, and the child had saved their skins so often it was almost embarrassing.

“Can you concentrate for me, puppet?” he gently asked her.

It was a heavy burden to place on a child’s shoulders but what choice did they have?

Hsu nodded, and took his hand.

He ran through solutions; attacking first, blocking their gates, moving the pride, keeping some fighters behind…

No, no, no, and definitely not. Hsu shared her visions with him as he thought of different paths, and all he saw was more fire. Blood. He could even smell it, which meant that their little Seer was getting stronger.

Another issue for another time.

Suddenly, the child’s head snapped left, and she smiled - a rare occurrence. The kid was normally almost as serious as Rye.

“That will work,” she said, talking to Daunte.

Rye turned to his Beta, giving the man all his attention, but instead of merrily telling them all about his idea, the man seemed like a deer caught in headlights, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the next, and remaining silent.

Interesting. Daunte was normally an open book, and as Alpha, Rye had no issue reading him through the pride link. He couldn’t get his actual thoughts, but he got his cat’s feelings. Right now, the usually playful, easygoing animal was snarling at the Alpha, warning him to stay away.

Rye was surprised, and slightly miffed, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. When he’d formed his pride, he’d made it clear that he intended to run it fairly; his pridemates were entitled to their private shit, unless they were on trial.

Instead of pushing, as his instincts wanted him to, he asked, “What is it?”

“That was just a wayward thought. There’s… There’s somewhere safe. But the territory is claimed, and we wouldn’t be welcome there.”

He was hiding something, and again, the animal inside Rye rushed to the surface, urging him to push harder. Rye told his furry counterpart to shut it. Firstly, it wasn’t the way he ran his pride, secondly, there was a very, very good chance that Daunte would push back, and no one wanted that.

The Beta was one of the strongest dominant feline shifters he’d ever met, and he could have been Alpha of his own pack if he’d wanted. Rye could take him, but a confrontation between them wouldn’t be pretty.

“Hsu thinks it will work.”

“It might,” Daunte admitted. “But going there would mean I’d have to break my word, and lose a friend’s trust. Let’s run through other possibilities.”

Rye let it go, and they spent the next two hours thinking about a way to win their conflict with the pack of wolves who attacked them everywhere they went.

Fire. Blood. Water. Silver.

Hsu was white, weak, and holding back her tears after replaying the death of her friends over and over again; she also always became more agitated as the moment when her visions would come to pass drew nearer. Hsu never could tell when a prediction would occur, but the weather, and the age of the kids was a good indication; little Lola, their toddler, didn’t appear to be older at all in the visions, which meant that they were running out of time.

Rye was about to command Daunte to sort his shit out, but the Beta didn’t need him to say anything.

“Enough!” Daunte yelled, holding his hands up in surrender. “Enough. We’ll go. She’ll just have to deal with it.”

“She?” Rye asked, crocking an eyebrow.

Daunte sighed.

“The territory I thought about belongs to a loner no one in their right mind would cross. She may let us stay temporarily. If I ask nicely. After she kicks my ass.”

Daunte didn’t appear to be joking, which was intriguing. Female cat shifters were strong, fast, sneaky, and some could take a male in combat, although males were generally larger, more muscular. But his Beta was Daunte Cross, son of The Butcher, an actual feral shifter, with a reputation for chopping off heads more often than he spoke. He’d taught Daunte well, which made him one of the only males who came close to Rye’s level of strength and dominance.

But the Beta genuinely seemed to think that the female he spoke of could beat him.

“I only have one request. Let me deal with her. Whatever she does to me, don’t intervene.”

Ah. So, Daunte had a thing for the woman. That explained a lot.

“Consider it done.”

Moving was never pleasant but they were used to it; even the kids helped packing their belongings.

Rye didn’t have a lot of stuff; he shoved his clothes in two suitcases, and that was him done. Before going downstairs to help the others, he sighed, and grabbed his phone to do what he had to do.

“Hello.”

The phone call was unavoidable. If his family learned that he’d moved without telling them, he was in for a world of drama and guilt trips.

“Rygan,” his brother replied on the other end of the line, calling him by his full name.

“Colter.”

“I take it this isn’t a courtesy call.”

It never was. They weren’t the warm and fuzzy kind.

“We’ll be moving to Oregon tomorrow. I thought mother would want to know.”

They both knew it was their overbearing, controlling father who would have caused drama if he hadn’t informed him - although Rye was the Alpha of his own pack, his dad was still acting like he was under his thumb.

“Right. Hang on.”

The sound was muted on the other end of the phone for a few minutes, and then Colter was back online.

“Give us an address when you arrive. Dad says you can take his jet.”

Rye had to admit, tiring as family matters were, they had their perks.

* * *

Rygan let his tiger run free at dawn, hoping to feel more settled afterwards, but the animal was on edge. Unusual. The beast he shifted into was, for a lack of better word, a complete dork. It would have been happy spending all of eternity in a box, with a rope toy and a few trees nearby. His priorities were simple, straightforward- protecting his pack, playing. Not necessarily in that order.

Today, the tiger wasn’t interested in a run, or a dip in their pool. It wanted to get on the road, so Rygan shifted back and went to help, in order to speed up their departure.

Twelve hours later, he still wasn’t in the best of moods, all of his protective instincts working overtime as he was separated from the most vulnerable members of his pride. He really didn’t like the plan they’d come up with. Following them wouldn’t be hard; they’d left a trail a mile wide.

He got Coveney to fly with Ola, Tracy, Kim and the seven cubs they’d adopted into their fold; although Niamh would probably take offense to being called that. Since she’d turned twelve, the little girl had tried to grow up too fast, not caring about the fact that her lipstick and high heels were turning his hair prematurely gray. There he was, thirty-one, going on eighty-one thanks to the millions of duties falling on his shoulders. Being the Alpha of a pride was no joke.

Flying wasn’t too much of an issue - using his father’s jet meant that the wolves wouldn’t be able to track their details, like they would have if they’d taken a commercial transit. But the rest of them weren’t as discreet. Christine, their only submissive, was traveling on the back of his motorcycle; Daunte and Ian flanked his sides, while Jas drove a SUV with their belongings behind them.

He would have breathed easier if they’d made a detour to get any follower off their trail, but Daunte was adamant that they needed to arrive before the kids, so that they might settle things with the mysterious loner.

Every passing minute, Rygan was more intrigued about the woman who made his Beta stress out so much.

“Chill,” he told him at their last pit stop before they’d made it to the place Daunte had input into their GPSs. “If you can’t sweet talk her, we can pay her off.”

They might not be the biggest, oldest, or the most fearful pride out there, but they certainly didn’t lack funds.

Rygan had been given a fair bit of cash by his grandmother when he’d become Alpha, and he’d invested it wisely. Besides, unlike a lot of shifters out there - they normally kept to themselves, finding roles within their community, and shutting out the rest of the world - most of the members of the pride had businesses.

Christine handcrafted some girly shit that somehow sold - hats, scarves, Teddy Bears and god knew what - Coveney was a wiz behind a computer and pimped his skills as a PI, Jas had a popular travel blog, Ian invested in start-ups, Tracy wrote novels. Rygan didn’t demand it but they all pitched in, dropping some of their profit in the pride’s savings account when they could. Which was often. Last time he’d looked, the amount in their savings had a lot of zeros. No loner was going to turn up her nose at the kind of bribes they could afford.

But, surprising and intriguing him again, Daunte snorted, “No. Trust me, if she doesn’t want us in her territory, there’s nothing we can say or do to change her mind.”

Daunte was adamant, but he didn’t elaborate, to Rye’s annoyance.

They finished the last leg of their journey within the next couple of hours; by the time they stopped in front of a handsome plantation built at the heart of a wild, untamed forest, Rye was imagining that they would be met by a she-bear, a fearsome witch, or maybe even a damn vampire.

“Wow. This place is beautiful.”

It was; the location, the old house with ivy crawling up the walls, and those strong, high trees surrounding it were picturesque. His cat was seriously drooling over the untamed landscape, desperate to shift. He wanted to go play. Badly. But now wasn’t the time, and Rygan told him so.

Quiet.

The tiger inside him was normally more or less amenable - he understood that Rye let him have its say when he could - but today, it felt agitated. There was… something. He couldn’t place his finger on it. He scented something that made every part of him uneasy, unhinged.

Rye had no gift, but there was a fair bit of witch blood in his family tree - his grandmother had healing powers, like Ola, his aunt was a Seer, and his mother, a powerful empath - and he knew that meant he should listen to his instincts more than the average shifter so, he stayed vigilant, ready for the world to explode.

“Do I hear a waterfall?” Ian asked, and Daunte pointed west.

“Yep, that way. There’s a lake further into the forest, too.”

Ola shook her head and playfully bumped his shoulder.

“You’re in deep shit for not telling us about this place before. It’s perfect.”

They’d moved seven times over the last ten years, since he’d formed the pride, but they’d never settled anywhere nearly as nice; these kinds of places were normally packed with humans, but during their ride over, they hadn't come across even one house. This was the perfect location for a pride.

“Oh, he most certainly is in deep shit.”

They all tensed and turned away from the view and towards the direction of the beautiful, singsong voice, startled because none of them had felt or heard anyone approach, even though Rye had been on high alert.

Fuck.

Rygan had a hard time staying focused; the moment he saw her, his entire attention was captured by her.

The brunette who’d appeared on the step of the elegant home was small, petite, delicate, and dangerous. Her aura said so. The way she moved said so. The way his tiger clawed to the surface, urging Rygan forward, definitely said so.

His tiger had never paid any attention to a female before. Never. He didn’t form any words, but Rygan understood his feeling completely. Usually, when Rygan looked at women he found appealing, his animal was bored, finding them unworthy of his attention. Pitiful. Weak. He told him, play with it if you must, but don’t get me involved. Problematic, as no shifter could hope to form a relationship if their animal didn’t approve.

Right now the dumb tiger, who should have bared his teeth, jumped and said chase the pretty kitty.

Shit.

Daunte echoed his curse, holding his hands up, “Look, I can explain.”

He actually didn’t finish the last word, as her foot was kicking him ten feet back. The woman had effortlessly jumped to him, and she did it again, one of her knees colliding with his jaw, while the other wrapped around his neck. She did a flip that turned his Beta flat on the ground, all in a few seconds.

Jas was stepping forward, ready to defend her pridemate, but Rygan held her back. Normally, because of their difference in size and muscle mass, females fought females and males fought males, so it was understandable that the enforcer felt like intervening; but Daunte wasn’t letting the woman win out of courtesy. He was trying to push her, struggling to get up. She’d just beat his ass, fair and square, without breaking a sweat.

What. The. Hell.

“He told us to stay back,” Rygan reminded Jas, and the woman’s head snapped to his.

She’d caught his tiger’s attention immediately, but now she had his.

Damn. She was a fucking wet dream. Those fiery golden eyes turned cat - narrow irises and all - that pretty face, and every sinful curve her yoga pants and t-shirt weren’t hiding got him hard; almost as much as her display of dominance.

She narrowed her eyes as her gaze crossed his, and he couldn’t exactly place a word on what transpired there. He only knew one thing: she was hot. Very, very hot. He wanted her so bad it was almost painful.

Cutting their staring contest short, her head snapped back to Daunte, making Rye want to roar in protest. He’d never been so easily dismissed. Most females, dominant or not, would have nodded to him, at least.

He didn’t like her indifference to his status or his vibes. Not. One. Bit. His tiger heartily disagreed, seeing it as a challenge.

“You told them to leave us alone? Wise,” she sweetly said to his Beta, “What else did you say about me?”

Her knee dug harder into his Beta’s throat, and Daunte croaked, “Nothing, I swear. Dammit Aisling, I didn’t have a choice. We have cubs. A witch, a Seer, and five others. One of them is two.”

While she kept Daunte on the ground for another ten seconds, she then got up, letting him go.

“Talk.”

“Wolves. We fight them, but some of them stay back, and aim for the weaker members of the pack. They never make it. Our Seer’s just nine, but she’s gotten stronger and stronger over the last three years - what she sees happens unless we change our decisions. I just thought for one second that we could stay here for a while, and she saw we were safe if we did that. Do you really think I would have come to you if I had any other choice? I don’t actually enjoy getting my ass kicked.”

The woman glared, but the glow of her eyes slowly faded; they reverted back to her natural human gaze, an amber which was a little more normal, and just as mesmerizing.

“You could have called,” she grumbled, turning back towards the house without another word.

Rye looked - of course he looked. Fuck, she could walk away from him any day, with an ass like that.

Daunte got to his feet, and smiled, yelling after her, “We’ll be here a week, tops - downstairs, no one will go upstairs. Then, we’ll get a place nearby. We’ll stay out of your way.”

He wasn’t asking permission, and to everyone’s surprise, the woman he’d called Aisling just shrugged indifferently.

“You still run that bakery?” he asked, and somehow that must have been pushing his luck, because she turned, her eyes flashing gold again.

“We’ll order in bulk. Delivery. The entire pride will completely stay out of your way. That’s a promise.”

She turned again, and walk away, replying, “I’ll overcharge you.”

Daunte yelled back a, “Love you!” that earned him a growl.

Rygan wasn’t quite certain what had occurred, and apparently, he wasn’t the only one because Jas asked, “So, we have a place to stay?”

Daunte turned to her and winked.

“Yep. And more surprisingly, I still have my balls.”