Coveney, on your left!

Hearing his Alpha’s warning, the Head Enforcer of the Wyvern Pride turned just in time to block the jaws of the wolf, preventing him from tearing into 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 tree. 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 screams 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 immediate future.

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, poppet?” 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 other, 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 up. 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 pride 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 few 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 own 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 pride, 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.