Saved by the Enemy

*Rowan*

I rush across the open ground, dodging others who are fighting nearby, making my way to the snarling wolf that has just hauled himself up off the ground. As I approach, I don’t hit the brakes at all. Instead, I plow ahead, knocking him off balance again, and he goes tumbling backward with me on top of him. We roll further into the valley, hitting a few rocks and bushes, until we come to a rest on somewhat flat land.
With my nose buried in his fur, I can smell the stench of char that I assume came from my mate blasting him with her powers earlier. I want to laugh, but I can’t do that easily in my wolf form, and there’s no time for that anyway. He’s not quite as large as I am, and he’s a bit older, but he’s strong. He digs at me with his back legs, trying to get enough leverage to knock me off.
I’m ready to rip his throat out, though. I bury my back feet in the soft earth and use my front left paw to knock his head to the side. His hind claws rip into the soft flesh of my underbelly as he attempts to gain some sort of ground, but I ignore the pain, insisting on ending this now.
My fangs drip with saliva as I lower my muzzle to the exposed vein in his neck. I can practically hear his blood rushing through that artery, as if it’s begging me to rip his flesh open and lap it up. With a snarl, I sink my teeth in, ready to end the man who prevented me from helping my father.
‘Alpha! Watch out!’
I hear shouts from several of my warriors in my head all at once, but as I lift my head to see what’s happening, I’m slammed into from my right side. It’s not just one wolf either–it’s several. I go flying through the air and slam into the trunk of a tree hard enough to have the wind knocked from me.
Pain radiates up my left side and courses throughout my entire body. I need to get up; I need to move before the wolves that just rescued that asshole are on me. A few of my own warriors rush in and cut off the advance, but there are still several bastards headed at me. Two of them are headed right for me, and they are huge. I put one paw on the ground and try to push up, but I can’t suck in enough breath to get my body moving. I see the rabid looks in their eyes as they salivate over the idea of killing their king’s rival while I lay helpless on the ground.
Fucking assholes! This was an ambush. They clearly set me up. These wolves were waiting in the wings for me. They lured me out, making me think this would be a fair fight, and now they’re breaking all of the rules.
I try again to stand up as the first one is within a few feet of me and manage to get off the ground, but I’m not ready to fight yet. In a moment, they’ll be on me, and I’ll have to fight for my life.
Well, I’m not ready to die today.
Just as the first wolf reaches me, a flash of fur enters my peripheral vision, and a huge dark wolf comes flying in from the direction of the mansion. For a moment, I think it’s Hezzlie. The fur is the same color, after all. But this wolf is much larger than her, and when he rips into the two wolves that were trying to take me out, I see that he has also been trained to fight. Trained well. As I manage to stumble to a mostly standing position, he kills them both and turns to snarl at the others.
Immediately, every other wolf on the battlefield, other than my own fighters, freezes. I glance around and don’t see Zeb anymore. I think he must’ve disappeared before this wolf showed up. It’s quite clear that he’s ordering all of them to get the fuck out of here, and they turn and run back toward Darsky’s castle at a fast pace, leaving me no doubt who it is I’m staring at.
It’s got to be Aiden.
Even though his father is the Alpha King, it’s quite clear he has the Alpha command capability over these warriors, at least when someone like Zeb who has a direct connection to the sitting king isn’t on the field, and it’s pretty clear he took off after his asshole friends knocked me off him. I can still taste his blood in my mouth, and it’s too fucking bad I didn’t get a chance to rip his throat out.
Now that the enemy is gone, I take a look around. We’ve got three bodies we’ll need to carry back to our own territory. I know those warriors, and it makes me sad to see they’ll no longer be fighting with us.
Even though it’s been a while since we’ve had a skirmish, my people know exactly what to do. Several of them shift and gather up our dead. The wounded manage to make it back through our gate. I follow along in my wolf form, going to check on the wounded and seeing that no one is in rough enough shape to need immediate attention from a healer.
I need to speak to Aiden, but before I can, I get a flurry of messages from my leaders at other points of interaction, mostly Dean, letting me know they were in the middle of a battle when, suddenly, the enemy left the field. I tell him I know and not to worry about it. They won’t be back tonight.
He asks me, ‘How do you know?’
‘I know,’ I tell him and scan the area around me, looking for Aiden, but I don’t see him now.
I shift and pull on a pair of sweats handed to me by an assistant. I want to make sure we’ve got everyone, the gate is locked, and a fresh batch of guards are posted along the border before I shift back into my wolf form and make my way back to the mansion. It takes a few hours, and by the time I shift again, get dressed, and walk inside, the sun is beginning to rise above the trees.
I’ve handled everything I need to, but I still make my way to the infirmary where James is finishing up with a few stitches on some of the wounded. Overall, we lost seven warriors, compared to twenty-four that we killed, according to the statistics I’ve gathered. We clearly got the best of them. I hope it’s enough to discourage Darksky from coming back at us, but I know how this goes, and he’ll be back. Next time, it won’t be so easy.
It wasn’t so easy for me this time. I’d probably be dead if Aiden hadn’t shown up when he did. I need to find him, and I need to thank him. I had reservations about letting him into my home, even though I think he’s probably the only one who can fix my sister. I wasn’t sure if I could trust him. Now, I not only know I can, I know he can help us.
I know he’s got my back.
Once I’m sure my warriors are fine, I head off to find Aiden to have the candid conversation with him I probably should’ve had the moment he walked into my house.
It’s not hard to find him. I just follow the sound of the violin.