Claiming the Spare Twin novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Ford

Tilda's POV

We were waiting at the ford when the riders came down the Cold Creek road.

Dorran had stood me behind a boulder at the water's edge and told me to stay there.

I had told him I would stay until I didn't want to.

There were twelve of them, men I had grown up beside, in trucks and on two quad bikes.

Each had a dart rifle across his lap.

They stopped at the far bank and saw us, and for a moment nobody moved.

"Alpha Ironwood," the lead rider called. He was a big pack enforcer who had once carried me home on his shoulders after a skinned knee.

"We're here for Tilda Marrow. Her father wants his daughter home."

"Her father can ask her himself," Dorran said.

"He's asked. She's sick, Alpha. We'll take her gentle."

"With dart guns."

The man's face did not change.

"Fire," he said.

The first dart hit the boulder an inch from my ear.

The second took Dorran in the arm, and he tore it out and threw it in the river without a sound.

I did not decide to shift.

The wolf came up through me before the third shot, and my clothes tore away.

The water struck my belly cold.

I was white and huge and I was running across the ford.

A dart hit my shoulder, a stinging punch, and I felt the root go into my blood.

It burned.

For two strides my legs went thick and slow, and the white wolf inside me stumbled.

Then I remembered the cup.

Fourteen years of it, every morning, a bitter swallow I had drunk down while my sister watched.

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