Seven! the grey wolf, Ty-Ohni, reported. Dinner or snack?

Seven against the five of us.

They would feast on my pack if they killed us all, but I didn’t tell my brave wolves that. I didn’t want to hurt their feelings.

The first foe tore into my vision. He wasn’t an Angel—he had no wings—but that didn’t lessen the dread in me, especially when I saw how fast he moved.

In an instant, he grabbed my beta’s head, his hard face a foot from Blaez’s. He was a Dragonian warrior, yet not a pure blood.

The Dragonians were an engineering race. Hairless and blue-skinned, their eyes were cat-like, luminous. One of their tribes even had horns.

This Dragonian had light brown skin and lush hair. His amber eyes were fierce like a tiger’s and they shone in the stream of sunlight.

Metal plates clasped his broad shoulders and forearms, but his herculean upper arms were exposed. They were thicker than my thighs. His sculpted armor was like a second skin and couldn’t conceal his muscled chest.

He was a half blood. His Dragonian father must have mated with an advanced human woman.

Blaez’s eyes bulged under the pressure of the Dragonian’s strong hand clutched on his throat, but that didn’t diminish his hate-filled glare.

My wolves wouldn’t stand a chance in this fight.

Peeling my mind off Blaez, I roared and flung a dagger.

It flew toward the Dragonian’s eye like dark lightning. I’d never missed a target and didn’t expect it to flounder this time either.

The Dragonian hurled Blaez away and the white wolf hit a high branch before falling to the ground. The Dragonian raised his armored forearm and blocked my dagger.

The rest of my pack crashed into the other men. Teeth and paws against punches and kicks.

I charged toward the Dragonian, my remaining two daggers clutched in my hands.

He withdrew a steel barbell from his waist, twisting the middle, and the barbell lengthened from both ends. He spun it like a fucking showman. When I reached him and thrust my dagger toward his heart after a clever feign, he parried it easily.

A surge of rage beat within me.

He evaded my ferocious slashes, wielding his steel to meet my twin daggers, jumping back as if to play nice before lunging at me again.

He moved like a lithe leopard, which consumed me with envy and made me angrier.

“By the way,” he called toward his companions casually in Earth’s native tongue. “Don’t kill the wolves.” His bright gaze searched my face.

There was nothing for him to see except my dark, blue eyes spitting fury and my flaming red hair tangled in the wind.

He was their leader.

He’d ordered his gang not to kill my pack.

Just as the knots in my stomach loosened a little, he added, “Not yet,” studying me with amusement and a hint of fascination.

Well then, I would just have to amuse and fascinate him.

I tossed a dagger toward his neck as I lurched at him, my other dagger stabbing toward his heart. But before I’d blinked, my daggers fell to the forest floor.

I was weaponless.

I staggered back, snarling, and he gave me a taunting smirk. 

I was no match for his brutal strength. However, if I could get close enough to touch him with my bare hand, I would end him nicely.

My pack wasn’t faring any better. The brutes threw Ty-Ohni and Hó’nehe into the air as if they were toys, but I was pleased to see my wolves had left a few impressive bites on the vulnerable parts of their limbs.

A horned Dragonian had his massive arm tightly around Lenka’s neck and his other hand locked her jaw. One snap and he could break the she-wolf’s neck. The nasty Dragonian was only waiting for an order from their ringleader.

“Let her go!” I demanded in the common language.

“So, you can talk,” the ringleader said with a hint of mirth in his voice.

Did he really think I was a beast girl?

At my outrageous look, he flashed a grin—all even white teeth—that aimed to daze me. But he’d targeted the wrong woman. I was never easily dazed.

I regarded him with a cold calculation. 

He was over seven feet tall. All his men were. They proved to be formidable hunters, and he was the most fearsome. 

He eased his pose, but only appeared more dominant. My eyes dipped down to his muscular legs, half covered by his sculpted, asymmetrical armor, then his metal shin guards, then his military boots.

This one liked to show off his magnificent body.

Did I say magnificent?

When I tore my gaze from his sexy, powerful torso back to his face, I found his eyes turning molten gold.

He liked what he saw.

I bared my teeth and hissed, but my mind worked quickly to seek an exit for my pack and me.

I’d been on the receiving end of his explosive strength and violence. I’d seen that he could have easily delivered a death blow to my wolves, yet he’d held back. He’d also hinted that he reserved the rights to murder us. 

I scanned the rest of his gang: four pure-blood Dragonians, one shifter, and one advanced human.

Humans were divided into three subcategories: genetically advanced humans, average humans, and sub-humans that were closer to apes.

None of the gang had used a weapon against my pack, though they carried all sorts: angelic blades, mechanic bows, and phasers that they must have gotten from dead Angels during the war of Earth against the Heavens.

They could have just passed by my forest and decided to fight.

Blaez, Ty-Ohni, and Hó’nehe charged back toward the invaders as soon as they recovered. I threw a hand at them and put a mental leash to stop them.

They halted but snarled furiously.

Back off, I ordered. 

Why? they barked.

To live another day, I said.

We want to have their big bones for snack!

Sounds awesome, but not today, I said. Today, we’re cunning and patient.

My wolves stopped growling and laughed.

We’re cunning and patient, they agreed and allotted the snacks among themselves.

Blaez insisted on having the ringleader, who kept staring at me with such intensity it made my body feel alight with heat. The Dragonian hadn’t missed a beat on my mental exchange with my wolves.

I stabbed a finger at the horned Dragonian, who still held the she-wolf captive. “Let my wolf go now if you want to walk out of my forest alive.” 

“Your forest?” asked the horned Dragonian. 

“Are you deaf?” I said. I didn’t look at him but at the leader. “You have no right to trespass on my territory and harm my pack.”

“Call its name and see if the forest answers you,” the horned one said.

My wolves bared their teeth and snarled viciously in a show of loyalty and support.

Laugh lines jumped at the corner of their leader’s eyes. Did he think this was funny? Did he think we were a joke? He wouldn’t think so if I had a chance to cup his face with my bare hand and inflict pain on him no mortal could sustain.

Cup his face? It suddenly occurred to me how striking his features were when his amber eyes brightened like that. 

The horned Dragonian still held Lenka.

My fingers twitched, but I had no dagger to throw at him. I unfastened the steel chain from around my waist and dropped it at my feet to show them that I was completely unarmed.

The gang looked a bit surprised at my sudden change of behavior.

This trick had always worked in the past. As soon as the enemies believed I was surrendering, I struck. No one expected me to be the weapon.

I would approach the half-blood ringleader first. He would allow me near since I’d just showed him I was weaponless and thus harmless. I would bestow a gentle touch on him. When he fell to his knees in agony, his warriors would rush to investigate. I would use his corpse as a shield and take down the next prey.

My wolves would attack at the same time.

Not all of them would live through this, but if these men were determined to toy with us before killing us, then it was the only way to go. I would bring down their leader and take a few others with me.

“Ask nicely, wolf girl,” the leader said before I made it halfway toward him, “and we’ll release your pet.”

My pet? I was glad that Lenka couldn’t understand him.

“Sure, I’ll ask nicely,” I purred with a sweet smile reserved for my enemies. And I can give you an even nicer touch. “Would you let her go, please?”

Heat rose to his eyes at my purr. He nodded toward his man, and the horned Dragonian shoved Lenka away from him. 

“See, being nice is all I asked for,” the ringleader said with an easy smile. 

His words and smile didn’t charm the red she-wolf at all. She wheeled and lunged toward her former captivator. She flashed an image of her tearing his throat out into my mind. I wouldn’t object to it if we could win.

Lenka, I ordered, fall back in rank.

She snapped her head at me—she didn’t like it one bit, but she obeyed and retreated to stand beside the white wolf with a sequence of snarls.

My pack flanked me, two on each side, baring their teeth with drools.

I halted my advance and theirs.

“What are you?” the Dragonian leader asked.

I narrowed my eyes to slits, but I had to tilt my head to look at him. I was at an average height of five foot six, comparing to his seven feet. “What are you?”

He chuckled good-naturedly. “Are you a shifter? If you are, there’s no shame in that. We’ve got one right here.”

“No, she isn’t,” the sandy-haired shifter said. “She smells good, but she doesn’t smell like my kind.”

I gave him an once-over.

He was extremely good looking, in a boyish way. He was the youngest among his companions and I guessed he was a year or two younger than I was.

The shifter broke into a wide, friendly grin at my appreciative assessment. I could see he did that often, particularly to girls who checked him out.

“I’m Lucas,” he offered.

The half-blood leader gave him a hard look, and Lucas let his charming grin drop. The leader cleared his throat, trying to turn my attention back to him.

I let my gaze linger on the shifter a second longer before turning to the ringleader, just to rile him up.

“A human girl became a wolf alpha?” asked a hornless Dragonian. “How did that happen?”

There were three other Dragonians, and they all looked the same with the same blue skin tone at first glance.

I gave the horned one an evil look.

“She isn’t a pure human either,” the advanced human said. “She’s half blood, but I can’t pinpoint her other origin.”

Of course he couldn’t. No one, except the Angels who hunted me, knew what I was. I was the first hybrid of an advanced human and Angel, and not just any Angel—but the Angel King.

It was unheard of that a mortal could conceive offspring from the super race. When the Fey Empress had sent my mother to be her spy and the Angel King’s courtier, the Empress had gifted my mother Fey immortality, which must have altered my mother’s genetic composition. By a dark twist of fate, the impossible happened and I was the unwanted product.

If the Dragonians learned about my true origin, they would kill “the abomination” on the spot. Cold perspiration damped under my armpits.

I knew what I was when I could first form a thought. Even in my mother’s womb, I’d absorbed her knowledge and part of my monstrous father’s. I could assimilate the knowledge of those I touched.

“Good luck figuring that out,” I sneered to conceal my fear of being discovered.

“We don’t need luck,” a Dragonian said smugly. “We have science. Our Atlantis lab can decipher any genetic chemical letters.”

I hissed. Like hell would I let them drag me to Atlantis and throw me onto the operating table to dissect me. Death’s dark light danced in my eyes; I would let death kiss them one by one.

My wolves snarled, attuned to my mood. One silent command and they would go for the enemies’ throats again.

Halt, I ordered.

They threatened you, Freyja, they barked. We must tear them apart.

Cunning and patience, remember? I asked.

They snarled more aggressively, yet remained beside me.

The ringleader studied us.

“You’re prettier than any human girl I’ve ever seen,” the shifter said, trying to ease the tension in the air. “You aren’t half Fey, are you? You don’t have pointed ears. And you’re more vibrant than a Fey.”

Thankfully, I had no wings, so no one here could make a connection and attribute my angelic face and dark blue eyes to the angel race and the Angel King.

The ringleader sent the friendly shifter another harsh glance. He didn’t share the shifter’s flirting style.

“We have no intention of harming you, wolf girl,” the leader said.

“Then I’ll allow you to pass by my forest in peace,” I said. “Be gone now.”

“We’re leaving,” he said, his eyes never taking off me, “but not without you.”

I blinked. “What?”

“You’re coming with us,” he repeated.

I gave a high-pitched laugh. “Very funny.”

“It’s not a joke,” he said. “I’m asking nicely.”

“If I refuse?” I cocked my head to the side, my eyes cold.

“Then we’ll kill your pack and drag you in chains behind us,” he said, steel in his voice. The former lightness and amusement had deserted him completely. This one wasn’t used to anyone disobeying him. His amber eyes turned to ice, as if he wasn’t already intimidating enough. “There’s an easy way, and there’s a hard way. You choose.”

Another round of fighting would end us. I hadn’t expected to live long ever since I was a child, but I would do anything to preserve my pack.

“You saw the odds,” the leader continued, softening his tone. “Make the right choice, wolf girl. I can see that you’re a practical one.”

My eyes narrowed; my mind wheeled. Were they the Angel hunters’ pawns? They couldn’t be. The Dragonians hated Angels even more than Fey. The war of Earth against the Heavens decades ago was the reluctant alliance of the Mysthian Fey and the Dragonians battling King Agro and his Reaper army, with the assistance of the Angel High Prince’s Fallen Angels.

That period of history was epic, bloody, and complicated.

“Who sent you?” I demanded.

“Who could send me?” the leader asked with pure arrogance.

Only a Dragonian warlord would use this tone and sound so offended at my implication that someone else was above him.

“The Fey. The Angels.” I tested him. “They’re mightier than your kind, and you’re only half Dragonian.”

“If she knows whom she’s insulted—” a Dragonian murmured but stopped abruptly at his leader’s stern look. I could tell these three hornless Dragonians apart now. This one had a bluer skin than the other two.

The shifter smiled. “Unlike others, the lovely wolf girl isn’t afraid of you, Ares.”

Afraid of him? The ringleader might think he was death, but he had no idea what I was.

I feared not death but something worse—something the Angel hunters had planned for me. 

“Wild and untamed, but she’ll learn manners and discipline,” the leader said confidently, the heat in his fiery amber eyes was blatant. 

Many men looked at me with desire when I removed my cloak and exposed my face. Those who had tried to force themselves on me had brought a dark end to themselves without me having to raise a finger against them.

I was untouchable. I couldn’t wait for the day to see the agonized look on the half-blood Dragonian’s handsome face when he dared to lay his hand on my bare skin.

The image of his large, rough hand running over my body caused me to shiver.

“You’ll learn yours sooner than I,” I said. I spoke the truth. Only he didn’t know the truth, which would be too costly for him to learn. 

I gave his hot body another quick scan. What a shame.

“We’ll see,” the leaders said. “Go pack if you have anything to pack. We’re leaving.”

“Are you sure she’s the one we’ve been looking for?” asked the horned Dragonian.

“Positive,” the leader said. The hard look had departed his eyes, which now sparked with delight, as if he believed he’d found a treasure. “The Oracle said we must find the wolf girl first, and this—” he jerked his chin in my direction, “—is our wolf girl.”

Shit! It was never good when an Oracle was involved.

“What makes you think I am the wolf girl you want?” I said. “There’re dozens of wolf girls out there. You’re wasting your time taking the wrong girl.”

“Dozens?” the ringleader snorted and his men snickered.

My wolves gnarled.

“We’ve been hunting you for nearly four months,” the leader said. “We’ve swept over every forest, and you’re the only girl leading a pack of wolves. Wolves don’t obey a human or a half-human. They regard humans as a delicacy.”

My wolves thought him a delicacy.

The ringleader arched an eyebrow. “How did you get mixed up with the beasts?”

“Beasts?” I said. “They’re better than any of you, and you aren’t worthy to lick the dirt under their paws.”

His men exploded into laughter. Their leader didn’t share their belly laughs, but a bright smile wheeled in his eyes.

My pack and I weren’t amused. They growled. 

While my face burned in rage, my heart sank into ice.

Now not just King Agro’s surviving sentinels knew about my existence, but the Oracle as well, and the Oracle had betrayed me to these brutes. Had the Oracle led the Angels to me in the first place? Had the Oracle told this man more about me other than me being the wolf girl?

“What Oracle?” I demanded.

“That’s not your concern,” the leader said. “All you need to do is lead us to the First Witch.”

My hands grew cold, and I willed my heartbeat to resume its normal tempo. They would suspect I was more than I appeared if they detected the turmoil inside me.

“Then you’re out of luck,” I said blankly. “I don’t know anything about any witch or where she is. As you can see, I live in the forest and have no connections to the outside world. You’re wasting your, and my, time.”

“The Oracle said you’d take us to the First Witch,” the leader said. “She’s never been wrong. So you’ll do just that.”

So, the Oracle was female. When I had a chance to hunt her down, I would shut her up once and for all, so no more hunters would come my way.

“Let’s go,” the ringleader said. “No more stalling. We’ve wasted enough time just to find you.”

He gave a piercing whistle.

Vast wings appeared above the forest, casting dense shadows. I looked up and drew a sharp breath as they shot toward the edge of the forest.

My wolves howled in hostility.

I hadn’t been mistaken when I thought I’d glimpsed wings soaring overhead. Except they didn’t belong to Angels but some sort of creatures. And the Dragonians rode them.

I dashed toward my daggers on the forest floor, but the Dragonians were faster.

“We’ll keep them for you for now,” the leader said.

I snarled at him, and my pack barked furiously.

The leader turned, not bothered that I could send my wolves to go for his throat, and he expected me to follow.

My nostrils flared at his sheer arrogance.

When he didn’t see me tag along after several yards, he glanced at me over his shoulder and frowned. “What now?”

“After you help us find the First Witch,” said the shifter, “you can return to your wolves and you’ll be bountifully rewarded.”

I didn’t trust anyone’s promise.

“Yes,” the ringleader said impatiently, “you’ll be rewarded riches beyond your wildest dreams.”

What could gold do for my wolves and me? All I wanted was my pack’s safety and me to be left alone. Once again, I had to fight for my freedom. My only choice was to lead the barbarians far away. When the opportunity came, I would finish the lot one by one in their sleep. 

“We’d love to have you among us,” the shifter continued to smooth over things. “What’s your name, wolf girl?” 

I ignored him.

“Now can we go?” the Dragonian leader asked. “Or must I carry you like a bag of potatoes?” 

I trailed after the jerk as I silently and sternly commanded my pack not to follow me.

Let him think he caught me. If he knew whom he’d really abducted, he would have run from me as fast as he could, screaming all the way.

I stared at his backside with a wolfish smirk.