The Werewolf Affair [DeWitt's Pack 14] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (12 page)

Phillip was an alpha. He would handle this.
“There is no cure for you.”

“Liar!”

“Killing the one to infect you for a cure is just a myth, and it makes no sense anyway. Why would my death reverse the effects of the lycanthrope venom that I put into your body?”

Luke made another swipe at him, and his angry growl showed off his powerful teeth, and Phillip’s wounds ached as he looked at them.

Christ, he was surprised the wolf hadn’t bitten him in half.

Then, wait, Phillip was the one to transform him. Unintentionally, sure, but he was still this wolf’s creator.

It was hard as hell, and every inch of him ached, but Phillip stood straight. He raised his head and showed off his teeth to the other wolf.
“You will stand down.”

Luke actually paused in his next step forward.
“What?”

“I am your alpha, and you are not going to attack me. You will stand down. Right now.”

Phillip approached the other werewolf, all the while keeping his hackles raised.

Luke took a step back, his angry and snarling face suddenly unsure. Then the anger returned to his eyes, and his lips pulled back up as he began advancing once more.

Just in case it was a strange game of chicken, Phillip didn’t back down.

“Stop. I said stop!”

Luke didn’t respond this time or give any indication that he’d heard what Phillip had said.

The connection was broken. Almost as soon as Phillip realized it was there, it was gone. Of course, Luke was an alpha, and an enormous one at that. It would be easy for him to break away from the instinctual command he felt for the other alpha that created him, especially with the blood dripping down Phillip’s paws.

He saw no other option. He ran for his life.

Luke howled and gave chase. Phillip did not look behind him as he went, stretching and pushing his broken and wounded muscles as hard as he could. His paws beat against the ground as the sounds of snapping trees echoed behind him.

Luke was like a bulldozer with rocket packs. He was fast, and he was powerful, and this time he wasn’t about to let Phillip live.

Lead him away. Get him away from the pack, Phillip thought as he made a sharp turn around a group of large rocks. That did nothing to gain him some ground on the giant wolf. If anything, it got closer.

The sounds of Luke’s breathing and the rumble in the ground as his paws pounded the earth behind Phillip let him know that his end was nearly here. He wasn’t going to be able to outrun the monster behind him. He was too injured and slow, and despite the many trees that Luke ran into and broke, they hardly did a thing to slow him down.

Snapping teeth caught hold of his tail, and Phillip yelped at the pain that lanced up his spine.

A stroke of luck and Luke stumbled on something. A dip in the ground, maybe, but he opened his jaws in shock and released Phillip before he could bite the tail off.

He kept on running, and Luke righted himself and followed eagerly.

Images of Sammy flashed through his mind. He was going to miss his son’s first birthday because he was going to die.

He would have a birthday if Phillip could just get Luke away from the pack. He had to distract the wild wolf long enough for Trevor and James to gather every spare alpha they had to fight.

Sammy would survive. Trevor would, too.

Trevor…

The pounding against the ground suddenly stopped. Phillip had been so focused on running that he hardly noticed at first, and he was at least fifty feet away before he managed to make himself stop.

His wounds caught up with him, and his stop was more of a stumble, a fall, and a roll on the ground before his body finally skidded to a halt.

He pushed himself up with a groan, curious as to why the giant wolf had stopped busting down birch trees and young pines in an attempt to eat him.

Luke was looking down at Phillip. His giant mouth wasn’t even open and panting from the run.

Phillip’s tongue was out and his lungs and throat burned as he tried to cool himself off. He’d been running on fumes just then. If Luke decided to stop playing whatever game he was on, Phillip didn’t know how much farther he’d be able to run.

Suddenly, the larger wolf turned his head and looked behind him, at the trail of broken trees he’d left behind. Then his glowing gold eyes turned back to Phillip.

Phillip had never seen a more sinister smile on a wolf’s mouth than he did just then. Luke bent his head, eyelids going to half-mast and what kind of looked like a smirk pulling up the one side of his mouth, revealing those sharp teeth.

No. He knew. He’d figured out that Phillip had been leading him away.

Phillip scrambled to all fours, and then cried out when he fell back on his stomach.

Luke released a disgusted snort, and then turned and ran back to the direction of DeWitt’s pack.

No! Sammy! Trevor!

Using his claws and scratching up dirt in the process, Phillip pulled himself back to his paws. He forced his legs to obey him, and he pushed the pain and blood from his mind as he shot after the large wolf with more speed than he’d had when he was running for his life.

Luke stayed ahead of him. Phillip didn’t know what he was going to do if he somehow miraculously managed to catch him, but he had to keep going. Even if his last act was to catch up to the wolf just to claw out one of his eyes, well, at least he would help to weaken him and to give the other alphas more of a fighting chance when the battle for their lives came.

He had to get to him! He couldn’t let him hurt his family just to get back at him. He wouldn’t!

They were nearly halfway back to the main area of the property, and Phillip was starting to fall behind. His paws were numb, and though he commanded his legs to move faster, to not stop, they were starting to disobey him.

He was going to fall again. He was going to bleed to death right there on the ground, and Luke was going to attack the only two people in the world that Phillip loved.

He felt his body start to give out. He felt himself falling. Luke fell first.

Another ball of fur, dark black this time, flew on top of him, startling the larger wolf into falling and rolling.

Phillip did the same before he could crash into the monster, though, in retrospect, that was probably a mistake since he wanted to catch up to the rogue werewolf.

He couldn’t even pick himself up off the ground. Dust flew everywhere from the two crashing shifters. It went into his eyes, ears, and even up his nose. He sneezed several times for that one.

Even before the dust settled and his nose and eyes cleared up, he already knew who the mysterious wolf was that attacked Luke.

When the flying dust cloud did finally settle, he was proven right, and his heart sank at the sight of his mate. His mate who was an alpha, and a large alpha at that, look like nothing more than a skinny omega next to Luke’s massive power.

Trevor was snarling at the larger shifter, his teeth bared and hackles raised as he stood in the way of the path leading back to the pack.

“No. You’ll die,”
Phillip tried to say through their link. He wasn’t even sure if the message made it to his lover, because Trevor didn’t so much as flinch or look over at him.

Maybe it was because he was too busy growling and circling the dangerous wolf in front of him.

That had to be it, because as Trevor barked and bared his teeth at Luke, Phillip could hear the thoughts in his head. They were thoughts that Luke wouldn’t be privy to, but Phillip still got them loud and clear.

“Kill you. I’ll fucking kill you if you go near that kid.”

He was talking about Sammy, Phillip realized. Trevor was focused on protecting Phillip’s child. He wasn’t even thinking about the pack.

Only then did their eyes meet, and Phillip knew that Trevor had heard his earlier command. He was ignoring it, and he was going to die for it.

Luke barked back at Trevor as though he had heard the nasty threats going through the smaller wolf’s head.

Trevor was forced to take a step back as Luke advanced.

Phillip fought and struggled to put himself back on all fours, but his bones felt liquefied. He could hardly control the shaking in his body or stay upright.

“Trevor, run back to the pack. Take Sammy and get out of here. I’ll distract him,”
Phillip commanded.

“No,”
Trevor replied, again not looking at him as he faced down the threat before him.
“I won’t let him kill you.”

But what was Phillip supposed to do if Luke killed Trevor?

His guts sailed up into his throat as he watched the two charge each other. Luke’s mouth opened, and Phillip was faced with the horror that he was about to watch his mate, no, the man he loved, get scooped up by those teeth and eaten.

Phillip released a loud cry. No!

Trevor fell onto his stomach and slid beneath the giant wolf that charged him just as Luke’s teeth came down and missed.

Trevor used his claws and managed to turn himself around, and in a motion so quick that Phillip nearly missed it, he leapt on top of Luke’s back, then jumped up to his neck and started biting down on his face and what was left of his ears.

Luke howled and bucked, but Trevor somehow managed to keep a firm grip on him and wouldn’t be shaken off so easily. Or at all.

He seemed to be doing just fine, and Phillip even allowed himself to hope that Trevor might be able to take out the larger wolf’s eyes and bring him down, helpless, easy to take out.

Luke seemed to get smart just as Trevor climbed farther up, nearer to his eyes. Phillip’s heart stopped as he watched Luke reel back, throwing his entire head back and then slamming his body against the ground, and Trevor’s with it.

Phillip howled and shot forward, as quickly as he could go as he watched Trevor’s wolf form hold on for the first smashing against the ground, and then let go limply at the second, and then not move at all to defend himself or even try to get to safety when Luke did it a third time.

Phillip managed to half crawl and half run over to Luke before the behemoth of a wolf noticed that his attacker was down and wasn’t getting back up. Luke’s tail thrashed wildly, and Phillip bit down hard, his teeth somehow making it past all the fur and catching the long tube of flesh and bone beneath.

Luke reeled up again, but this time, he howled in pain, right before Phillip went on the ride of his life.

He’d never ridden a bull before, or even been on one of those machines that made him feel like he was on that animal, but he imagined this was what it felt like. The world swirled around him, he couldn’t focus on anything but just keeping his teeth locked down, and as everything spun, his body started to react. He became nauseous and dizzy. It was almost like he was on a ride in a carnival, only this wasn’t fun.

At least he’d managed to take Luke’s attention away from Trevor. Phillip only wished he could look down and see if the man was all right, breathing, alive, anything, but he still couldn’t focus on anything.

He didn’t realize it when it happened, but when his body slammed into the heavy base of a pine tree and then fell through the prickly branches, he knew something had given out.

There was still fur in his mouth, and the taste of blood on his tongue, but it took him a second to realize that there was nothing else under his clenched jaws.

The skin and fur must’ve torn off, and with all the struggling and spinning, Phillip had slid completely off the tail he’d been biting onto.

He felt the vibrations on the ground as Luke approached him, but the earth spun beneath him, and he couldn’t so much as tell from which direction the other wolf was coming.

“Trevor?”
He tried to locate his mate, he tried to seek him out with his nose and eyes, but everything was off kilter. He couldn’t find Trevor, and he still didn’t know if the other wolf was alive. Trevor wasn’t answering his mental call.

Warm breath that smelled of blood and filth wafted hard and heavy over his body. His vision was blurred, but even he recognized that there was a giant mouth breathing down on him.

A big wet something splashed over his fur. Christ, Luke was drooling over him. He was actually going to eat him.

“Trevor.”

There was a growl, and Phillip felt the pull of those giant wolf lips around his body when they were suddenly and without warning yanked away.

He managed to open his eyes. They were heavy, like there were small rocks taped to his lids, but he got them open and managed to focus past all the swirling.

There were no less than ten other alphas on top of Luke. Some were in human form, and most in their wolf forms. Phillip recognized each and every one of them from DeWitt’s pack, as well as a few of the members formerly belonging to his own.

“Come on. Let’s get you out of here,” someone said above him.

Two pairs of human hands worked their way under his body and started lifting him. He recognized the scent and wanted to groan.

The hunters. The former hunters, at any rate. Isaac Foster and Everett King. Phillip had helped to save Everett’s life not too long ago, and though he wanted nothing in return from a man who used to kill werewolves, it seemed now the debt was finally going to be paid for him.