Chapter Twenty-One
Dominic
He had to admit, Olivia was a clever and brave. With a knife pressing into her throat and dangerous men surrounding her, she found a way to not only distract the poachers but also get Dominic in a better attack position. Every time she caused them to stumble, Dominic’s heart lurched forward in fear that the knife was going to end her, but she managed to do it all with enough grace that he didn’t even place another cut on her throat.
When the lead poacher turned around to find the commotion, it gave Atticus the chance to shift and Dominic wasn’t going to wait another second.
He knocked out the man’s legs and out of the corer of his eyes saw Olivia go flying as he let her go. Fiercely he swiped at the poacher, clawing at him, ripping into his flesh. This man was going to be lucky if he came out of it alive; he was the one who was holding Olivia hostage, he’d held the knife to her throat, and Dominic was ready to kill him. But as he pummeled the man on the ground, another jumped at Dominic’s back.
Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Olivia running and he hoped she was getting back to his cabin and locking the door to ensure her safety, but he was certain that she was too stubborn just to run away. But he couldn’t turn to see where she was going, he had too many men to fight off.
Atticus was fighting hard but the old Alpha couldn’t do nearly the damage that Dominic could do. And the poachers seemed to know that it was Dominic that was the threat. The game may have been to capture and kill the Alpha, but they weren’t going to be able to do anything unless the destroyed Dominic first.
Man after man jumped him, wielded their knives, sometimes striking him but often missing him. Thankfully, though, even when they did catch him with a knife or a good punch, Dominic barely felt it at all. His adrenaline was coursing through him and he was sure that he could handle anything that those men could do. There was no chance he was going to lose the fight, not when it came to protecting his pack. But most importantly, protecting Olivia. He’d let her get captured and nearly killed once, he wasn’t going to let anything happen again.
Suddenly there was even more commotion from the circle and Dominic didn’t need to look to know what Olivia had done. Once she’d gotten free she’d gone to the other cabins and rounded up the rest of the pack. The fight had become poachers versus an entire pack of angry shifters.
As far as anyone knew, there wasn’t a pack who had wholly survived. It hadn’t even seemed like those packs had even had much of a chance at a fair fight. But this pack had a chance. They lived on the outskirts of the kingdom for a reason. At one point they were all fighters, intense, strong, and wild. They may have been getting on in age, but it was clear from the snarls that were coming out of the shifters and the screams from the men, that the pack was winning.
Dominic flung one man off his back and heard the body land with a hard thud. That man would be off of him for a while, he knew, and moved on to the next who had just ran full force into his rib cage. The hit knocked Dominic off balance and the world toppled over and landed on his side. It didn’t hurt but the scene before him did.
Being pulled up on to the porch, the body looking lifeless was Atticus. Olivia was talking to him, murmuring comforting words.
“Please, Daddy, you’ve got to be ok. Stay with me ok? I’m going to get you cleaned up. Please, Daddy.”
Dominic felt his heart shatter, not only for Atticus and what he feared was the Alpha’s death. But he’d never heard Olivia so vulnerable, not even calling him Atticus but ‘Daddy’ instead. He wanted to go to her and comfort her. He wanted to know that Atticus was ok.
But while he was distracted, the leader of the ring came at Dominic on the ground and was able to get the knife to slice between Dominic’s ribs.
He let out a howl that ripped through the night.
Suddenly Dominic felt a monster come out of him, just like the fight with his brother. Blinded by rage Dominic flipped the poacher onto his back and clawed at him, ripping clothes and skin, blood seeping into the earth below them. He didn’t know if it was his own or the poachers, but it didn’t matter.
Everything about his life spun through his mind. Being the lesser twin and therefor the lesser prince, not being named the next king, the fight with his brother, seeing Olivia with the knife at her beautiful throat, and now Atticus possibly dead a mere few feet from him.
This was his life and it had never turned out the way he wanted. It wasn’t fair. And this poacher was going to take all the pounding he could handle.
It wasn’t until one of the shifter came over to Dominic, and put a hand on his shoulder. Dominic stopped for a moment and looked around him.
The poachers were gone and the shifters had mostly gone back to their human form. They were ragged, out of breath and many were bleeding. The poachers had abandoned their leader who Dominic saw was severely injured but still alive. He looked down at the man, his eyes wide with fright.
“If any of you ever touch a pack again, I will personally come and kill you all. Do you understand?” he growled.
The man underneath him nodded wildly, words of pleading burbling out of him. For good measure Dominic gave him one last swipe against the man’s chest before letting him up off the ground. As fast as his injured body could take him, the final poacher hobbled out into the night.
Exhausted, yet exhilarated that they had won, Dominic looked around again and saw that all of his pack was intact. Everyone except Atticus, who was still lying motionless on the floor of the porch.
Olivia was laying with Atticus’ head in her lap and she was still pleading with the Alpha to be ok. Out of respect, most of the pack stayed on the ground while the closest neighbors ran for supplies to stop the bleeding.
Everyone but Dominic who made his way up to the porch, still to riled up to shift back to human form. Instead, he lay on the porch next to Olivia like a faithful dog.
“Please Dominic, do something,” she begged him
Dominic knew he would do anything in the world for Olivia. He would have died trying to save her if he had to. But he watched Atticus on the wooden porch floor and saw there was still a little breath left inside of the Alpha. Though it was shallow, it was there.
He nodded to the pack below and they followed Dominic’s lead, hoisting the man in their arms and taking him inside. His wolf was calming and he as he changed back to being Dominic, he quickly threw on his clothes from his pack and followed them inside.
Atticus hadn’t yet had the strength the make the change back so they carried his wolf inside and set him in his own bed, pulling the blanket around him. When Dominic walked into the man’s room, his pack was gathered, his daughter at his side, all prepared to say goodbye to their Alpha.