Tempted By my Evil Lycan Stepbrother novel Chapter 69

Chapter 26 thu Motter More

+15 Bonus

across a shelf its own kind formally wouldn’t have touched. Another beast followed, then broke off again, not toward the escape route but toward the eastern dark.

That was when something clicked if my head.

I counted the bodies again.

“Silas,” I whispered abruptly, not taking my eyes off the basin. “Where are the fernales?”

He went still beside me.

Odin frowned from behind. “What?”

I pointed with two fingers. “These are all males. The heavy shoulders, the crest lines along the spine, the size. But Mooncrowns don’t travel like this. Not at this time of year.”

Silas sucked in a breath. He got it.

“The females are close,” he said.

“And the cubs,” I nodded.

The three of us looked at each other and instantly a new plan formed without saying:

If these wounded Mooncrowns could lead us to their females and cubs, that would be an easy win. Because the males were already exhausted by Ezra’s team and the females were much easier to hunt.

Just then, a new cry split the dark.

It came from beyond the basin, higher and sharper than the males’ roars. Then another answered it. Then three more, different angles.

all from

Shapes burst from the rocks almost immediately leaner bodies, lower to the ground, moving like streaks of shadow with silver eyes. A young one leapt onto a boulder and screamed back at the fight below. A female shot down the eastern slope so fast she looked like moonlight herself.

Everything changed in an instant.

The neat control Ezra’s team had built shattered the moment the rest of the pack entered. The wounded male bolted again, but this time he wasn’t fleeing blindly. He was calling them.

That was exactly what I had hoped for.

I shifted back from the ridge and looked at the others.

“It’s time.”

Odin made his move.

Γ

He sprang up on the left ridge just long enough for the Stalker to see him and slammed the butt of his spear against the rock. The crack rang through the basin like a shot.

The wounded male’s head snapped toward the sound, and its body twisted away from that side at once.

A heartbeat later, Silas triggered the slingstones.

Hidden cords snapped loose in the dark. Two heavy stones came whipping down behind the beast and smashed into the cliff face with a burst of sparks and broken shale. The impact echoed through the basin. Startled, the Stalker jerked again, now cutting away from the rear path too.

I lit the resin braziers with flint and steel. Fire crawled up the shallow bowls in two sudden bursts, low and bright, and bitter smoke rolled over the narrower exits. The nearest female Stalker recoiled with a violent hiss. The wounded male pulled back

Chapter 6 YOU Matter More

+15 Bonus

too, lips peeling away from its teeth.

Mooncrowns hated flame-

That left one route clear.

The one I wanted.

But the beasts gathered at the narrow entrance, hesitating. The females and cubs stirred restlessly behind the males, reluctant to move forward. They seemed to smell the trap ahead and didn’t want to go in.

“They need a push,” I said abruptly. “I go lure them in and you two begin the hunting when they are all trapped!”

“NO!” Silas blurt out. “It’s too dangerous. The trap can hurt you too. Don’t go!”

He reached out to grab me. But his fingertips missed my sleeve. And I set out to the only lane left open.

“Come on!”

I yelled at the pack of Mooncrowns as I ran, keeping my distance. Not close enough to challenge it. I gave it just enough of me— my silhouette, my scent.

“Come and get me!”

One of the males’ eyes locked on me immediately.

Then it charged.

Fast enough to make the ground jump under my

boots.

I ran for the stone shelf.

The ledge curved out over a basin of loose shale and pale rock, exactly where we had wanted it. I could hear the Stalker behind me, hear claws tearing over stone, hear loose gravel skittering into the drop below. The whole mountain seemed to narrow to the pounding of my pulse and the roar at my back.

“NO!” A furious roar came from behind me.

I turned around and looked.

Across the basin, Ezra’s head snapped toward me. His body went tight in away I had never seen before, like someone had driven a blade straight through whatever calm he’d been holding on to.

“Riley!” he roared, furious. “Do you want to get yourself fucking killed?”

Maybe I would have laughed if I’d had any breath left.

The shelf shuddered under the Stalker’s weight before I could answer.

The first crack came sharp and ugly, running through the stone under my left foot. Another split shot out from it and raced forward like lightning through dry wood. Shale started sliding away in sheets.

Ezra moved.

He had the perfect angle to go for the beast.

If he’d lunged straight toward the basin, if he’d taken the clean line instead of chasing me, he could probably have ended the hunt right there and claimed the game.

He didn’t.

He came for me.

+15 Bonus

I saw him vault a broken ridge, drive off the stone with all that terrifying strength of his, and close the distance like he meant to

outrun a collapse.

The Stalker hit the weak part of the ‘shelf first.

The ledge gave way beneath it in a crashing wave of pale rock. The beast tried to leap clear, but its wounded leg failed under the shift. It dropped with a scream, dragging half the shelf down with it. Shale poured into the basin in a roaring avalanche, and when the dust burst up again, the Stalker was buried to the shoulders, twisting and thrashing but unable to climb free.

It had worked.

For one wild second, triumph surged through me.

Then the rock under me broke.

My right foot slipped into empty air. The edge gave way under my weight, and the whole world tilted.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify