Filed to story: Cara Nelson The Guardian: Werewolf Book PDF Free
It doesn’t take long before she comes back into the room, smiling from ear to ear. “Well, Luna. you’re exceptionally healthy.”
“So, it’s just stress, like I thought?” I ask.
She looks me in the eye. “You’re pregnant, Luna. Congratulations!”
I’m pregnant. It finally happened. My hands go to my stomach, a huge smile stretching across my face. I can’t believe it. I’m ecstatic for two seconds before reality comes crashing down on me. The hunters are coming, any day.
I look at Sirona. “Don’t say anything to Eli. I want to make it special.” I tell her. But I also know that if Eli finds out I’m pregnant, he won’t let me fight, and they need me.
I won’t risk losing my mate. I won’t let my pack fall because I’m pregnant. I can’t fail them.
Three days later, the hunters arrive.
The hunters are coming. We know it, they aren’t even being secretive about it. Every day I become more fearful of losing Grace. I know she thinks she’s the key to us winning this battle, but I can’t lose her. I won’t.
I
When I get the mind link that the hunters are nearly here, we’re ready. We’ve been planning this for weeks. I would never tell Grace this, but I’m glad she’s not pregnant yet. I don’t know if I could focus on the fight today if I knew I was not only fighting for my pack and my mate, but also my unborn child. My fear of losing Grace has made my protectiveness almost unbearable as it is. I know it irritates her that I need to know where she is at all times, so I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if she had gotten pregnant.
The hunters have chosen to attack us near our three borders, so we have an hour’s run to get to them. The sprites had alerted our patrols and they are the ones that sent the mind link. We’ve chosen to stay quiet so the hunters don’t know we’ve seen them. This will help to keep our patrol wolves safe, knowing the hunters won’t attack right away and our packs are on the way.
“Grace, I’m heading over with our warriors. Make sure the groups start their evacuation procedures then join us. Please be safe. I love you.” I mind link her as I shift and order the warriors to head to our meeting place.
“I’m right behind you.” She tells me.
When my pack arrives, we see Rik’s pack is already there and Liam’s is coming in right behind us. Cara and Angel shift, turning to me. “Where is Grace?” They ask in the mind link.
“She’s on her way.” I tell them, and honestly, I’m surprised she’s not here yet. Maia is fast and should have caught up to us by now.
As one, Cara, Angel, Liam, Rik and I turn our heads at what sounds like an army coming through the forest. I lift my nose in the air, trying to count like Grace does. She’s better at it than I am, but I’m easily getting thousands of hunters.
“Grace?”
Grace opens the mind link to her sisters, their mates and me. “I’m nearly there. I’ve counted 5002 hunters. That puts us at nearly 1:5 ratio of werewolves to hunters.” She says and she sounds like she’s breathing heavily.
She’s right, we only have about 1000 wolves in fighting condition with the baby booms we’ve been having in our packs. Five to one are not good odds. A strong warrior can take that many, but our weaker warriors can’t. Unless we can take them out quickly, we’re going to have a hard time winning this battle today.
“We need to spread out. We need to flank them. We can’t go head-to-head with that many hunters.” Liam says.
“My pack will stay front and center, you both take your packs and flank them on either side. Hopefully we can take out a bunch with a surprise attack.” Rik says..
“We’ll stay here and wait for Grace.” Cara and Angel say.
“Our pack will need the most protection up front anyway.” Cara adds.
I send the order and we begin to quietly move around the left side of the hunters, creeping up on them. I never doubted Grace and her ability to ‘count’ based on smell but seeing 5000 hunters is completely different than hearing the number. For a moment, I let myself feel overwhelmed. Then I reign it in. They are here to kill us. They are here to kill my mate. For that, they will die.
We get into position, effectively circling them and nearly connecting with Liam’s pack on the other side. We have them surrounded. This is our best chance for attack.
The moment Kai, Rik’s wolf’s, howl goes up, we attack. In the moment it takes for the hunters to realize that we have surrounded them, we are able to take down hundreds of them. As soon as they realize it though, they shift and turn their attention to attacking us.
Shots ring out all around us and in an instant, I know what they learned in their experiments on the rogues. They’ve figured out a way to not just incapacitate us, but to kill us quickly. I watch as a wolf beside me takes a shot to the shoulder. The silver bullet immediately ‘melts’, turning into liquid silver and spreading into his system. The initial wound takes him down, but as I watch, I can see the silver spread. The minute it gets to his heart, I feel his life snuff out through my Alpha bond.
Louis howls is anger and pain and we turn with renewed vigor back to the battle. Not only are we outnumbered, if any wolf takes a hit from a bullet, it will kill them. The Guardians and their mates have a resistance to silver, but I don’t think that will save us today. We are all going to die on this battlefield. But before that happens, I’m going to take down as many as I can.
The battle is bloody. Hunters lay dead and dying all around me. Louis slicing through their bodies easily with his claws. We’ve ripped arms from bodies, throats from necks and his fur is covered in blood, making his black fur look even darker.
From every direction, I hear wolves howling in pain as they take a hit from a bullet and I’m feeling my own pack members dying through my bond with them. It’s making it harder and harder to fight.
Louis yelps as we’re hit in the hind leg by a bullet. I feel the burning pain of the silver as it starts to melt and spread, causing him to limp. We now have to fight on three legs. It will take the silver awhile to get to my heart to kill us, but before that, I’m killing more hunters.
Somewhere in the fighting, I realize that Grace has joined. She and her sisters are taking out hunters, blowing them apart. But as fast as they are taking them out, more are appearing. There are just too many of them.
Louis and I move to get closer to her. Our need to protect her is so strong that it draws us to her in the battle. We won’t let anyone hurt our mate while we are still living. We can still feel the silver making its way closer and closer to our heart. I don’t know how much time we have left, but we will make the most of it.
As we bring down another hunter, I feel a bullet hit my side, punching through our lung. The cilver leaks out making it hard to breathe. Louis coughs before jumping on another hunter. There are so many, and there are fewer and fewer wolves every minute.
I felt Alpha Christopher’s tether break a moment before Alexander’s. Noah’s broke earlier, having taken the first wave of attacks against the hunters. Without a wolf, Carlos has been able to survive the bullets, but I can feel him fading in my mind, as my own tether to Grace starts to wane. I cant feel the agony of the mates in the bunkers at the loss of so many mates.
Across the battlefield, my eyes connect with Grace. She can feel me dying. Her eyes are wide as she stares at me, horrified. Beside her, I see Cara on the ground, hovering over someone. It takes me a moment to realize it’s Rik. He’s lying dead in her arms. It seems Cara’s grief is providing a buffer to the Guardians as the three of them seem uninjured. I’m glad to know my mate is safe.
Even if I couldn’t be the one to do it.
As I watch her, I feel a bullet hit my chest. The liquid silver melts into my heart and with my last breath, I reach out in the mind link. “I love you, Grace.”
As the darkness sets in, and my surroundings fade, I see more than hear Grace screaming.
That was intense. Don’t pull out your pitchforks just yet. I promise an HEA. And I wouldn’t be so cruel to leave you with this as a cliffhanger.
I’m glad when Eli says he’s heading to the battle and for me to join him after getting the evacuations set. I can’t shift being pregnant. I’ll have to run in human form to get to the battlefield. Eli would know something was wrong if he saw me.
It takes me longer to get to the battle than it would if Maia was running. We’re much faster on four paws than two feet. As we get closer to the battle, I smell them. I’m counting them in my head when Eli reaches out to me. I open the mind link and let them know I’m nearly there, and how many hunters there are.
When they decide to spread out, I know I won’t be fighting beside Eli. I have to be with my sisters. That’s the only way I can make sure we win today.
Before I arrive, I hear Kai’s howl for the battle to begin and immediately all hell breaks loose. Almost instantly, I feel tethers from our pack breaking.
“Maia, we have to hurry. We can’t lose our pack.”
Maia’s pain at the loss of our pack members is as strong as mine, especially since Noah is one of the first to die. Instantly, we feel Sirona’s pain at the loss of her mate.
When we finally arrive on the scene, I realize that Eli’s fear was justified. It’s not that we’re outnumbered that is giving the hunters the advantage, it’s the silver. I slow my run as I look at the dead around me. I can see the silver leaking out of their bodies from the bullet wounds and I know we’re in trouble.