Page 105 of Omega Hunted

Ronan. His good hand clawed through the snow, fingers stretching towards the rifle lying only a few feet away. Every inch cost him. Blood followed him in a dark trail as he dragged himself forward inch by agonizing inch.

The hyena saw him too.

It turned its head, and it sprinted towards Ronan.

I ran, and my left foreleg almost folded beneath me, but momentum carried me forward. I threw everything I had left into the impact, slamming broadside into the hyena less than a yard from Ronan’s outstretched hand. We crashed together across the clearing, rolling through churned snow and broken branches until neither of us knew which way was up.

There was no room left for tactics now.

Only survival.

The hyena writhed beneath me, twisting its body into angles that no wolf ever could. Its hind claws tore across my stomach before I could shift my weight, opening fresh wounds that burned white-hot. I answered with a savage bite across its muzzle, feeling teeth crack beneath the force of it.

The animal jerked backward, blood pouring freely from its mouth, and it laughed again. Wet. Broken. Mad.

For one brief second, the sound unsettled me badly enough that I hesitated.

Both hind legs drove into my chest with astonishing force, launching me backward. My already weakened shoulder gave way beneath the impact. I hit the ground awkwardly, trying to recover, but my leg refused to answer me. Too slow. One heartbeat the hyena had been beneath me, the next it was on top of me. Its jaws closed around the back of my neck, not deep enough to kill but with enough pressure to force me where it wanted me. It shoved hard, driving me through the snow until my spine slammed into the trunk of a fallen pine.

The dead tree shifted under the impact, one shattered limb dropped across my back, and another pinned my left rear leg beneath its weight.

I shoved upward, and nothing moved, the trunk settling another inch deeper into the snow until it had me pinned. Pain exploded through my trapped leg, but worse than the pain was the look in the hyena’s eyes. It had planned this. It hadn’t stumbled onto an opportunity, it had been herding me toward this exact spot since the fight began, and now its forepaws settled heavy on my chest and it stared down at me with yellow eyes gone almost calm, barely even breathing hard while every breath I dragged in scraped through bruised ribs and blood soaked into the snow, my vision narrowing at the edges no matter how hard I pushed against a weight that wouldn’t give an inch.

Behind the hyena, Ronan made a sound, weak and hoarse, trying to drag himself back into the fight, and the hyena didn’t so much as glance around. It already knew Ronan wasn’t getting up again.

My wolf refused to stop struggling. Soren. Asha.

For the first time since Raff had died, I believed this was how my story ended, not in some last stand, just here under a fallen tree on a frozen mountain because one hunter had been patient enough to wait until I had nothing left to fight with.

The thought that hurt worst wasn’t for me, and it wasn’t even for Raff. It was for Soren, curled safe around Asha behind a steel door, trusting me because I’d told him I’d come back. I’m sorry. I love you.

My wolf bared his teeth one last time. Protect.

The hyena lowered its head and opened its jaws.

Then the light disappeared. A shadow fell across both of us, so enormous that for a heartbeat I thought another storm cloud had crossed the sun. The hyena’s ears snapped back.

For the first time since the fight had begun, uncertainty crept into its posture. It didn’t lift its weight from my chest, but its attention shifted past me, its eyes tracking something emerging from the trees behind us.

A low rumble rolled across the clearing; the biggest grizzly I’d ever seen stepped out of the trees.

His shoulders stood higher than the hood of my truck. Winter-dark fur covered a frame so broad it made every wolf I’d ever fought seem insignificant by comparison. Fresh snow clung to his back and steamed gently where it touched the warmth of his body, while old scars crossed one massive shoulder, disappearing beneath thick fur that had clearly healed years before.

Whether desperation or arrogance drove it, I couldn’t tell, but instead of backing away the hyena snarled and threw itself at the bear with a shrieking laugh, jaws wide and claws extended, aiming for the throat as any predator would.

The bear barely moved.

One enormous foreleg lifted almost lazily.

The paw met the hyena in mid-air.

The sound echoed around the mountain.

Not a slap.

A crack.

Bone.