Pip was a practiced liar when it came to her wellbeing, so I inhaled the wind again.
Not much blood, so it probably is just a scratch.
Pip’s personal scent—a sweet but dangerous scent I could only really describe as a silver dagger wrapped in wild roses—tickled my nose.
“Just go handle it.” Pip rolled her forest green eyes. “And watch out—I think he’s feral.”
I peered in the wolf’s direction with a little more interest. It was standing again, and already it was staggering its way toward town, seemingly uncaring of my presence. “Sounds like fun.”
I ran after the wolf in my human form. Even though fighting wolf against wolf would have been easier, the shift from human to wolf took about thirty seconds. Thirty precious seconds in which a lot of fighting could happen. With a city full of humans, I didn’t have that kind of time.
I jumped, landing on the wolf’s back and flattening it.
It writhed underneath me, trying to bite at my legs. I picked it up by the scruff of its neck, despite the fact that it weighed over two hundred pounds—werewolf strength at its finest—then slammed it down into the ground with enough force that its body made an imprint.
“Enough.” I let just enough of my power loose to make the wolf listen to my words.
The wolf ignored me and thrashed in my grasp, snapping as it rolled its sickly, clouded eyes.
Pip’s right, he doesn’t have a scrap of humanity left.
That meant he was either entirely feral, or there was a thin possibility he was under a spell.
I leaned in, trying to sniff out any magic on him as he struggled fruitlessly in my hold.
It wasn’t terribly hard to hold him; he was pretty scrawny compared to most of the wolves in my Pack. But his frantic strength didn’t seem to match his underdeveloped muscles.
What is going on?
I caught it after a moment—a faint whiff of magic. It wasn’t like anything I’d come across before. It smelled old—like ancient metal that hadn’t been cleaned—and oddly made my teeth ache.
It’s not fae magic—that always smells like honey. Wizard magic is more earthy. Could it be the work of a dragon shifter? But I’ve come across dragon shifters before, and they smell more like smoke and sulfur…
The wolf twisted out from underneath me, but I caught it before it could clamber to its paws again and slammed it back on the ground.
I took the opportunity to wrench one of Pip’s daggers free from it, clenching my teeth as the silver in the blade made my fingers tingle. I tossed it over my shoulder at the hunter.
“Thanks!” Pip called in the friendliest tone she’d addressed me with in months.
“All I need to make you happy is daggers, is it? I’ll stow that tip away.” I studied the blood that matted the strange wolf’s fur, trying to figure out how much was soaking his undercoat. “He’s going to bleed out.”
“Can’t you make him submit to you with your Alpha powers?” Pip called out.
“Not quite,” I said.
I could use my powers as Alpha to choke a wolf until he couldn’t breathe with enough ease to be disturbing. But he wasn’t my wolf, so I couldn’t make him submit like I could my own Pack—forcing an outsider to heel required said outsider to be capable of thought, not a slobbering monster.
The wolf was panting now. Its gums were turning an unhealthy white, and I could tell it was getting weaker.
I don’t want him to die—I need to know what he was planning, and who bespelled him.
I tried smashing its head with a careful amount of power—I wanted to addle it, not kill it—but the wolf didn’t even pause in its thrashing.
I impatiently looked around the park.
Ember had been with me when I’d heard Pip’s whistle. I’d thought she’d be right behind me, but I couldn’t scent her—or hear her, but that would have been hard given the intruder’s never ceasing snarls and growls.
Behind me, Pip squatted on the ground and cleaned her daggers.
The wolf’s wriggling was starting to slow—not because it was giving in but because it was dying from blood loss.
He’s going to die before we figure out what’s wrong with him. The knowledge made a muscle in my cheek twitch with irritation.
“Is the wolf bad?”
Pip and I looked up in alarm as the two kids Pip had mentioned earlier—both girls who appeared to be under the age of ten—peered at us as they gripped the poles of the park swing set.
“What are they doing here? Didn’t they run?” I snapped.