Page 1 of Don't Howl At Me
Chapter One
Wolf
“This motherfucker won’t get away with this shit.” My hands flew across my laptop keys. “This bitch is going down.”
“Another hacker?” My brother stood beside me. Bright beams of purple light arched from Rayne’s hands and combined with our cousins’ energies. The warding bubble that surrounded our facility strengthened with their efforts.
“Don’t worry. I’ve got them. Do you need help with the energy attack?”
“Not yet.” Rayne adjusted his stance and shifted his focus to another area of the ward. “But this shit is getting old.”
That was a fact. The Survolar-Romano Training Center had been the target of too many attacks lately. And we hadn’t tracked down the source of it. Rage and anxiety mixed in my gut over the situation. Intuition said this was a personal attack on someone here, not the training center itself, but we didn’t have any solid leads. This would not end well for whoever dared to cross the Survolar-Ramano family. But focus was needed on the current assault.
We were being hit from multiple sides and in various ways. I was in charge of defending us against the system hacking and was shutting that shit down. Rayne and a few cousins from our coven had the energy attack handled while several pack members dealt with the battle’s physical aspect. This is why we trained as we did, to understand our strengths and where we would be best during a battle. As children, the actual danger was kept from us, and we were kept safe. But the training started while we were young and was extensive. We knew we had to have all areas covered when we grew up.
“Done.” I blocked all attempts into our security systems and beefed up the protection levels. No one was getting in today. Now I would focus on helping my brother with the magical attack. The sting of acidic energy flavored my tongue, a sign this foe was somehow unbalanced. Physical, mental, or spiritual imbalance made an individual’s power taste like a battery. This fact was added to my mental list of things to consider in our search for the enemy.
I examined the lines of the guardian ward, encountering no compromised spots. They were strong and would keep all the magical danger outside the territory. But if you hit the same target enough times, you’d get a weakened area, which we had to watch for. We would fight a different battle if the adversary magic could get past our defenses.
I looked at the cousins responsible for watching Rayne’s and my backs while we worked. I gave them a look that hopefully reminded them to stay focused on keeping us safe. A year ago, they let Rayne get hurt. That sort of mistake could not occur again.
The physical assaults were slowing down. Our side had the upper hand. Grunts from the assailants filled me with satisfaction. These fuckers deserved the pain after interrupting our day. Most opposition must have been tied up and led to the interrogation unit. I would help Rayne keep the barriers strong, adding offensive magic to send warnings back to whoever was behind this.
“Why do you think someone is after us this time?” I asked my brother while we weaved our magic into a web to catch the culprits. His purple light and my teal lines blended to strengthen the barriers.
“We should find out soon. I blended in a tracker spell so that we could follow the crumbs back to them.”
The purple and teal hues of our energy swirled in the air, fierce winds picking it up and carrying it where it needed most. The barriers grew impenetrable. We were trained together to build powerful spells. Besides being siblings and a part of the Romano coven, our training enabled us to be so in sync that we read one another’s intentions without words. We knew the other’s next steps and could easily blend our magics without discussing the plans first.
“They seem dedicated to getting into the Survolar-Romano Training Center. But I have doubts that’s their ultimate goal. We can’t find enough leads; this is the month’s fifth attack. We might need to contact GSC for backup.” I filled in a pinprick-sized hole in the wards.
“Exactly my thoughts on this matter.” Rayne pushed harder at the energetic protections. “Now, let’s take these fuckers down.”
Boom.
The ground rumbled, and the scent of smoke wafted over to us from a nearby explosion.
“Sorry,” Nikolai shouted out. He was a dragon shifter, magic trainee, and brother-in-law to Rayne. And the cause of many accidental explosions lately.
“What’s he doing out here?” I focused on my task, not the additional chaos my trainee was causing behind us.
“Don’t know.” Rayne looked like he was reaching his exhaustion point. “But let’s get these safeguards solidified and the tracking spell sticky enough to stay with the enemy. Then we can find out who let him out of his cell.”
“Ha. Ha.” I faked a laugh. “I don’t keep him in a cell, but he isn’t ready for this type of fight. And your mate might go ballistic if he finds out his brother accidentally blew himself up during an attack.”
“He won’t blow himself up. Maybe just slightly burn himself.” Rayne intensified the strength of the tracker and let it escape the shields without allowing anything in. “Let’s finish this bitch. I think the babies have decided to make an appearance.”
“What?” My focus dropped for a millisecond. I zoned in on my brother. I tapped into my abilities, smelling the stink of fear and seeing the murky gray essence of pain clouding around him. He was not joking. He was in labor during an attack. His mate was going to lose his mind over this.
But that was when I noticed another nearly microscopic hole in the ward just north of his head. Something was trying to get in. “Fuck. We have a breach. I’ll handle this. But you’d better keep those babies in for a bit longer. Zander wouldn’t forgive me for letting you have them in the middle of a fight.”
Slimy black tendrils of energy reached out from the broken barrier and tried to leach onto me. They sought power sources. That was what the culprit must have wanted—our power. Luckily, we trained to fight all types of enemies, especially idiots. Borrowed or stolen power only lasted so long. And it was limited if they used someone else’s ability to get to us. Unfortunately, it also meant the tracking would be a bit more complex than we first thought. But we would handle the obstacles as they came. Right now, that meant keeping them out, putting the tracker on this energy, and ensuring my brothers’ eggs were delivered safely.
“Got it,” I shouted over the noise. Our cousins were celebrating our success a bit too zealously. I directed my attention to my brother. “How are you doing over there?”
“The tracker spell is effectively attached to the retreating energy and should stick until it returns to the source,” Rayne grunted out. “Now get me to my mate so I can beat the shit out of him for knocking me up again.”
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