Hold the line! Kade roars through the pack bond, his physical voice a deafening thunderclap that shakes the courtyard.
Lyra and the remaining integration school wolves form a tight, defensive phalanx around the central stone fountain. They are not using magic; they are using brute, biological force. They are faster, stronger, and infinitely more vicious than the alien soldiers.
A Praetorian raises its rifle, aiming at a young wolf named Jax.
Kade intercepts. He throws his massive, failing body into the line of fire. The silence blast hits him in the flank.
I scream in the bunker, my hands flying to my side as the phantom pain of his dissolving muscle tears through my nervous system. Through the merge, I feel his wolf form stutter, the black fur turning gray, the muscle atrophying. But
