Chapter 16

Zac’s pov

Now I was pissed.

Using my super speed, I zoomed through the forest as the forest parted. I felt the sting of underbrush on my legs, but that didn’t stop me from sniffing them out.

They’d shot an actual fucking arrow at me.

I wasn’t afraid at all. Just pissed off, though it was the wicked kind of rage that drew power from its own insult.

I caught the bastard within minutes.

Lunging godward, I grabbed his neck and slammed him into the forest ground as shockwaves passed through the grounds.

He was pathetic. He was no match for me. I was an alpha and he was… he was whatever he was.

“You picked the wrong alpha to mess with,” I muttered as I slung him to the ground again.

The ground cracked as more shockwaves ripped through the forest floor, sending the trees around to shake as his body slammed with a wet crack.

He started to cough up blood as I heard his bones starting to heal up again after what I had done.

He struggled against my one hand on his throat.

With my free hand I pulled the very arrowhead that had nicked past me earlier, its edge sharp under my fingers. I rammed it into his side. Not deep enough to kill him but to send a message.

“Who sent you?” I asked, my voice low, almost calm. Calm talks made them more scared.

He spat blood at me and tried to sneer. The idiot was shaking so hard his teeth clattered together. “I’ll… never tell.”

I scoffed. “Tryna be the bad guy huh,” I laughed a bit louder as I leaned in to whisper to him. “It’ll just make your last few minutes that much more… painful.” I pushed the arrow in deeper in a slow twisting way.

A scream cracked through the still of the forest as I turned to see someone slicing a blade towards me. Using my super speed, I zipped out of the place my head would have been as I stood at swords length from the new guy who was standing over his fallen friend.

“And who are you?” I asked as another strike came behind me. But this time I caught it. My hand closed on the sword blade midstrike, steel groaning and sending up showers of sparks as I held it in place.

I looked up at the third man, some idiot with scars etched across his face. His sneer fell when he realized I wasn’t bleeding.

I sighed, almost bored. “Careful there. You might cut yourself with that.”

I shoved him back, hard as he stumbled backwards.

The first mans stood up as I could tell the poison on the tip of the arrowhead was working.

His lips had gone the color of ice.

“Careful,” he muttered to his friends. “The bastards an alpha.”

I scoffed. “Smart move buddy. Tell your friends about me.”

The other two went to each other as they stared at me in rage.

“You guys should listen to your friend. He knows best. He’s the smart one I think.”

The poisoned one rushes stop me to stab me with the arrow as I held his neck and took the arrow from him to stab him back.

Staring into his eyes as his eyes slowly closed made me feel something more primal as I let him go like a sack of garbage, instantly setting my sights on the next two.

“Well that was disappointing,” I said. “Thought he was the smart one.”

The first of the remaining two was in front of me and stepped into the clearing. He was tall, broad and his smile was too wide.

“Looks like we caught a big one,” he said, his voice oily.

I frowned. “You caught nothing.”

The two of them lunged together. Good. I hated dragging it out.

Their blades flashed silver under the moon. My body slid between them like water. One swing sliced empty air where I’d been a second ago as I grabbed the hilt mid-swing, twisted and cracked my elbow into the man’s ribs. He crumpled with a grunt, spit flying out.

The second one screamed and tried to swing down as I rolled out of the way and kicked his legs under him which had him crashing face first into the dirt.

“Rogues,” I muttered under my breath as I pinned one boot down on his chest. “Always desperate. Always sloppy.”

He wheezed, clawing at my boot. “So… who sent you?”

Neither answered. They looked at one another and for an instant I wondered if one of them would make a reply. Then they both laughed in a low and hard manner.

“Rogues you say,” gasped the man beneath my foot, his bloody grin split with broken teeth. “Rogues we are. That’s all you need know. We take over packs and kill who we want.”

The word was spit like venom.

I closed my jaw in a hard way. Not because I feared them, but because rogues were never alone. If I’d run into three, there were more.

I pushed my foot down harder, feeling the ribs crack under my heel. His scream tore out then in a loud way.

“Wrong answer,” I told him.

The other one, the big one, spat blood onto the ground. “Doesn’t matter… You’ll know it soon enough.”

“I’m only asking who sent you.”

“And we’ve told you… we are rogues. That’s all you need to know.”

He laughed again. It was twisted and insane.

I snarled. I hated rogues. Hated the way they spoke like they had secrets, like their chaos meant something.

I raised my hand, ready to finish it when a scream pierced through the air.

It hit me that I knew that sound. I knew who had screamed. It was Freya.

The rogues laughed beneath me, but I couldn’t care, not now. Leaving them broken and bleeding in the dirt, I shot through the forest at a speed my kind would envy.

Branches caught at me. Leaves tore in my path. The ground sped by as her scream came again.

It didn’t take long before I zoomed into a clearing to see her held by her neck to a tree while another held Zara and was about to throw Zara into the fire.

There was a third and a fourth somewhere in the clearing laughing and watching as I didn’t know when my wolf slowly emerged, tearing my clothes without control.