FAZER LOGINChapter 39 The female Alpha’s hunting arc closed like a noose made of moonlight and steel. Riven felt the shift in the air before the first Ironridge scout stepped within fifty paces of the fallen log. The bond went razor tight. He pressed Kai and the child lower into the hollow beneath the timber, his own body forming the final barrier, and mouthed a single word that needed no sound. Silence. The new party moved with professional care. They had expected to meet Vael’s successful extraction team and collect the purchased Omega. Instead they found bodies at the ford and the lingering scent of Blackthorn claim mixed with a child’s fear. The female Alpha directed her wolves with small, precise gestures. Two circled west. Two east. The rest advanced down the center of the trail in a loose net designed to flush anything still breathing. Kai kept one arm locked around the boy and the other free for the knife. The child’s breathing was too fast against his chest. Riven’s blood had soake
Chapter 38They left the pass under a sky the color of wet ash.Riven walked because stopping was not an option. The field binding around his ribs was already dark with fresh blood. Every step sent a sharp pulse through the bond that Kai felt as clearly as his own heartbeat. The remaining fighters formed a tight diamond around them. Two scouts ranged ahead on the southern trail. The rest stayed close enough to catch the Alpha if his legs finally gave out.Kai matched Riven’s pace without being told. The claim bite still carried the imprint of the last hard press of fingers. The chemical burn of the broken vial lingered at the edges of his senses, but the worst of the fog had cleared. He kept one hand near the knife at his hip and the other ready to steady Riven if the Alpha’s balance failed.The southern trail followed the old river bed, dry this late in the season and cut with deep ruts that made speed difficult. The Ironridge group had a head start measured in hours, but they were c
Chapter 37The high ridge erupted with movement at the same moment Riven started toward Vael.Arrows hissed down into the pass. One of Riven’s fighters dropped with a shaft through the shoulder. Another took a glancing hit and kept moving. The Ironridge wolves on the ridge began their descent in a controlled slide of stone and steel, the net and the vial clearly visible in the lead wolf’s hands. The trap had closed from both ends.Riven’s reaction was instant. He seized Kai by the arm and dragged him into the partial shelter of a fallen boulder while the rest of the team adjusted under the new assault. The bond burned with cold calculation and rising fury. Riven’s wound from the dens had reopened. Fresh blood darkened the bandage under his shirt. He ignored it.“Stay behind the rock,” he ordered. “If they reach you use the knife and do not stop until I am there.”Kai pressed his back to the stone and nodded once. The claim bite pulsed in time with the Alpha’s heartbeat. Outside their
Chapter 36Morning light cut through the smoke still hanging over the dens.Riven did not sleep. He kept Kai locked against him through the remaining hours of dark, one arm banded across the Omega’s waist, the other resting over the claim bite as if the contact alone could hold the bond steady after the night’s near loss. Every time Kai shifted the Alpha’s grip tightened. Blood from Riven’s side had dried in dark patches across both of them. The wound needed cleaning. Neither of them moved until the first true light reached the broken doorway.When Riven finally rose he pulled Kai up with him. He checked the bruise on Kai’s cheek with careful fingers, then the rest of him, slow and thorough, before allowing any attention to his own injuries. Only after he was satisfied did he let Kai help strip the torn shirt away. The cut along the ribs was deep but clean. Kai cleaned it in silence while the bond hummed with the Alpha’s constant, possessive awareness. Riven watched every movement of
Chapter 35The consortium Alpha took one more step into the den and the temperature in the room seemed to drop.Riven did not waste breath on threats. He launched forward in a blur of pure lethal intent, both blades already moving. The first of the consortium fighters met him and died in the space between one heartbeat and the next, throat opened in a clean red arc. The second managed to raise a short sword before Riven’s second blade punched up under the ribs and twisted. The body had not finished falling when the remaining four closed ranks around their leader and the real fight began.Kai stayed exactly where Riven had placed him, back to the far wall, knife ready, the claim bite throbbing in time with the bond’s furious pulse. Smoke poured through the broken doorway. Outside the dens still burned and the pack still fought, but inside this single room the only thing that mattered was the distance between the consortium Alpha and the Omega he had already paid to own.The stranger mo
Chapter 34They ran.The strike team abandoned all pretense of stealth and covered the return distance in a hard, punishing drive through the dark. Riven kept Kai within arm’s reach the entire way, one hand periodically checking the claim bite as if the contact alone could keep the bond from fraying under the dual pressure of the burning dens and the buyers still somewhere in the trees. The orange glow on the western horizon grew steadily brighter. Smoke began to reach them on the wind, thick with the scent of burning timber and the sharper, uglier smell of charred flesh.The outer dens came into view just before the second hour. The southern gate they had repaired only the day before was gone, replaced by a wall of flame. Figures moved against the firelight in chaotic patterns. Some wore the pack’s colors. Others did not. The internal signal had been answered by a second insertion team that had waited for the dens to light up before striking.Riven did not slow. He hit the edge of th







