They attacked as one—and all at once, hell was unleashed.

Kershov’s ears flattened at the grating feline screeches that assaulted his senses, answering their banshee calls with another furious roar of his own. In his peripheral vision he captured blurred snapshots of Grey Wind and Mabbit falling upon the male cat; his own merciless lantern was lit upon the female. Adrenalin sped up his lightning focus until the high voltage scene seemed to slide into slow motion. He watched himself snag the cougar’s tail in his jaws, felt each muscle in his jaw clamp down hard, and then just as his knives felt the sweet crackle of bone between his teeth the filthy thing pivoted—

He pushed off the ground on his forepaws to avoid her fangs buried in his throat—

And the cougar miscalculated anyway, her trap closing on the King’s left wrist. A sick crumbling of his own skeleton sent agony shooting up his forelimb. She’d definitely broken something. Too bad the Alpha didn’t have the luxury of backing down, not when he had his pride and his precious pack to defend.

Snarling, Kershov used the paw unfettered by the puma’s teeth to attempt to land a blow on the back of her skull. He couldn’t tell if he’d missed or not; already the feline was switching her vicious attention to the two warrioresses on either side of the dragga. Ker landed awkwardly back on his feet, wincing angrily at the sharp ache throbbing from his injured paw. Well, damn. That made things difficult. Difficult—yet not impossible. One need only glimpse the horrific scars mangling one half of the Czar’s face to realize that the white dragon had suffered worse and still survived.

Azula and Halina were on the defensive now. Kershov growled in savage satisfaction when Halina managed to burst one of the cat’s eyes, creating a wonderful opportunity for her pack to advance. Azula was quickly on the move, utilizing her compact and lithe form to maneuver carefully out of the cougar’s swiping range. Halina had thankfully shaken off her own pounding, and was slithering into position. In his present state, Kershov was unable to dance with such speed—but he still had bulk, and determination, and blood lust howling with blizzard intensity in his breast.

Just as Halina leapt for the female’s spine, Kershov threw himself forward, directly into the cat’s space, hoping that by utterly eliminating the puma’s range of motion he would buy more time for his comrades to decimate their enemy. He tucked his cranium against his chest, offering the shield of his thick ruff and hard-muscled back to the cougar’s possible attacks. He braced himself for the shredding of deadly claws or the hard crash of a paw into his side—counting on his wolves to either hit their marks to further tip the she-cat off balance. Without all four limbs to support himself, he could not throw his weight into a reckless attack; instead, the colossal wolf manipulated his own wild momentum to turn himself into a flesh-and-blood cannon. Should he connect with the cougar, he would push off on his hindquarters to batter his shoulders into her chest, completing the motion until he landed on his side and was able to roll away from danger.