Rogues

WILLOW

The siren shrieked through the trees like a banshee’s cry.

It shredded my skin and tunneled into my core. One moment, it was me and a gaggle of muddy-faced kids sitting in the classroom. The next, they were running out the door, and I was struggling to keep up.

“Stay together!” Asha barked, her voice sharp with panic.

Little legs stumbled. Some of the kids scraped their knees and cried. But nobody stopped—except me.

Because the air had shifted—tensed, almost. Something ancient stirred in the marrow of my bones, something that knew danger was near.

Moving closer to Asha, I herded the smaller ones forward in sheepdog mode. “What’s going on?”

Her jaw clenched, and her knuckles went white as she gripped the arm of a kid in diapers. “That’s the rogue siren,” she said. “Attack protocol. We need to get these pups to the pack house.”

~Rogue?~ “What’s a rogue?” I asked.

A look of incredulity crossed her face before she realized I genuinely didn’t know. “Wolves without packs. The bondless kind. Without an alpha, they go feral. They hunt anyone and anything that moves. Especially those who do belong.”

I blinked, processing that. Travis’s role in the pack suddenly made sense. ~No wonder he went all psycho on me—he must’ve thought I was a rogue.~

As if my thought had triggered it, a wolf—massive, gray-and-red, foaming at the mouth—crashed through the tree line. With teeth glistening like knives and eyes rolling back, it charged straight toward the stragglers.

Straight toward the kids.

Time slowed, and a switch flipped inside me. I threw off the leash of confusion and bolted into action. I couldn’t fight the rogue in my wolf form, but that, surprisingly, didn’t bother me.

In fact, all fear drained from my being the moment my training kicked in.

Or rather, detonated.

The wolf didn’t see me until I was in its path. I leapt forward and slammed a heel into its ribs with every ounce of my weight.

~Crunch.~

It snarled midair, having been thrown off its charge. I landed in a crouch, pivoted, and drove a roundhouse kick straight to its skull. Bigger, stronger, and wilder than me, it recovered faster than I’d expected.

But I’d fought worse. And every bruise, fracture, and broken bone had etched the rules of combat into my muscle memory.

I feigned left then slid under the rogue as it lunged. My elbow smashed into the underside of its jaw, sending its teeth clacking shut with the snap of a steel trap. Blood sprayed.

Mine? The rogue’s? It didn’t matter.

Momentum propelled me into a roll, and I grabbed a broken branch on the way. Spinning, I jammed the jagged end into its side. It howled, causing the kids to scream.

My gaze darted to them. While Asha dragged them uphill and away, I shouted, “Go! Don’t stop!”

With crushing force, teeth sank into my calf.

Agony erupted, but I buried it the way I always did and fought on. Twisting, I drove my other knee into its throat. Its jaws didn’t budge. So, I punched its snout over and over until my knuckles bled, and it released me with a whimper.

I spun away and stood, panting, readying myself for its next attack.

The rogue snarled, shook its massive head, and stared at me for a moment before lunging again. Its foaming mouth was aimed straight at my face.

Everything inside me howled—the girl, the soldier, the wolf I hadn’t yet met. All of us screamed one word, “~Kill!~”

CONNOR

The siren rang while I was midsentence.

The shrill, soul-splitting wail carved through the meeting room, and everyone stilled. But I was on my feet before the second blast. Chairs scraped. Voices rose. Tension spiked.

“Rogues!” Carl shouted, already moving toward the door.

Halfway down the hall, I linked my warriors, “~All units to defensive positions. Prioritize civilians. I want border updates every sixty seconds. Ben, get eyes on the southeast quadrant. Now.~”

The front doors of the pack house blew open ahead of me, and I stormed out into chaos.

People were running. Families, elders, trainees—everyone in the immediate area sprinted toward the pack house just like they were supposed to.

We held quarterly attack drills to prepare for this exact situation, but that didn’t stop some from panicking. Screams echoed through the town as dust rose from the pounding of a hundred frantic feet.

I scanned the distant buildings—and froze when I saw a rogue fighting a member of my pack near the tree line, too deep into the territory.

“~How the hell did they get in this far?~” I growled through the link. “~Someone talk to me! They should’ve been stopped at the border! Where are our sentinels?~”

“~We’ve got a breach at the western border!~” Travis’s voice cut in, sharp and rattled. “~They’re already in the forest, fast and rabid. Five, maybe more~.”

Without waiting for backup, I sprinted toward the outer buildings, zigzagging through the incoming flood of civilians. Those who looked at me ran faster when they recognized my face. My alpha aura surged, urging obedience. Urging survival.

As soon as the crowd passed, I spotted the kids.

They were huddled together, ducklings in a storm, their teacher ushering them forward. Asha’s arms stretched wide to shield the slowest ones, and I cursed myself for not finishing the bunker near the schoolhouse.

“Move!” I bellowed. “Get them inside! Now!”

She looked up, wide-eyed, nodded, and kept dragging the littles toward the safety of the packhouse.

But one kid suddenly darted in the opposite direction, toward the trees.

No, not a kid.

~It’s Willow~, I realized, my heart leaping into my throat~. What the fuck is she doing? ~And that’s when I saw the rogue—massive and dead-eyed—barreling straight at her with a foaming mouth. “No,” I choked out, my pulse spiking. “Willow!”

I launched forward, but I was so far away. Too fucking far to help her. I could only watch, stunned, as she charged the rogue, closing the distance like a trained operative.

No, like a predator who’d just locked onto its prey.

The rogue lunged. She ducked and pivoted and kicked, driving her foot into its ribs before jamming a stick into its side, right where a liver would be on a human. She twisted it with precise intention—a move I’d only seen performed by high-level enforcers.

Wheeling on her, the rogue capitalized on the distraction of the pups’ screams, dove at her, and locked its jaws onto her calf. Without screaming or showing any signs of pain, she punched it in the snout until it let go.

The two stared at each other, squaring off, and I pumped my legs faster, hoping to reach them before the rogue attacked again. But it quickly reared back and jumped, its razor-sharp teeth aimed at her face.

My heart stopped, and the world slowed.

But then came her shift—not full or elegant but a shift nonetheless.

Her bones popped. Her arms lengthened. And her hands became claws. With a roar, she raked them across the rogue’s throat, clean and deep. Arterial spray painted the air before the beast collapsed midsnarl, twitching, dying.

I ran harder, desperate to close the gap. But I was still too slow, and two more rogues exploded from the tree line.

One flanked her. The other went low, its teeth bared.

“Willow!” I shouted again, feeling utterly helpless. But I shouldn’t have, because it was clear she didn’t need my help.

She spun, fluid and deadly. One rogue caught a claw to the face, another a knee to the ribs. Bones cracked. Fur tore. More blood sprayed. She wasn’t fighting to survive; she was fighting to kill.

And she showed no signs of stopping.

With all three attackers down, she didn’t fall back. She didn’t retreat to safety. She ran toward the sounds of the fight at the border.

“Shit!” I cursed, shifting midsprint. My wolf surged forward, bolting after her, and my mind stormed. I couldn’t link her, couldn’t call her back, but I saw her.

Gods, I saw her!

Soaked in blood, she was chaos wrapped in muscle and rage, striking down rogues with a brutal, practiced grace. She was better than my enforcers, and faster than Travis or Ben or Carl in their wolf forms.

Faster than me too, it seemed, because I didn’t reach her until the last rogue had fallen.

My warriors had shifted back to human form, panting and bruised but alive. Willow stood in the center of them, her chest heaving and eyes bright. She was radiant.

A patrol wolf whistled. “Nice work, Luna.”

She blinked and then smiled.

I stepped toward her, fury and awe battling in my throat. “Willow,” I snapped. “That was reckless.”

Her smile faltered. Her shoulders slumped. Her claws retracted.

Before I could feel bad about bringing down her high, Lisa appeared, brushing back loose strands of hair.

“Those were some seriously sick moves, Willow!” she said, still catching her breath. “Could you always do that?”

“Well, sure.” Willow shrugged. “Doesn’t everyone here know how to fight?”

“Pfft! Not like that!” Lisa clapped her on the back, beaming.

But Lisa’s words caused a sudden unease to twist deep in my gut. Fear gnawed at me as I had to admit that my mate might indeed be the threat I’d told myself she couldn’t possibly be.

Why could she fight like that? I had to know.

Crossing the space between us in two strides, I gripped Willow’s shoulders. “Willow,” I said, locking my eyes onto hers, “who taught you to fight like that? And why?”