The wolf that Marco had killed before – the one who had tried to kill Shilo – had been different. It was a lone beta who had been much too cocky for his own good. This was was a full fledged alpha of a pack. Instinctively speaking, the alpha was stronger than he was. While he had a beta of his own – his Shilo - he was still nothing compared to the alpha fueled with an almost feral rage.
The alpha had tried to corner Marco – to separate him from Blake, so that he could take him himself; in hopes to take him down. Somewhere in the scuffle, Marco had lost his gun – laying in the clearing next to the tree had used prior to hold himself up; smeared with the blood of his own that had clung to his finger tips.
He had no choice but to use his inner beast to fight the other, baring his fangs with a cry that carried through the woods – even as he heard Blake calling for him; perhaps his snarl was enough to catch her attention. The other alpha was too far gone, and Marco hadn’t heard a word from him outside of animalistic noises, but it was no matter ; it didn’t matter, Marco would take him down one way or the other. This alpha, and his pack, had caused his little sister pain. And that was all the fuel that Marco needed.
He watched the other alpha prepared itself to lung, and Marco took the weight of it willingly ; allowing it to drop him to the ground. Once down, ignoring the searing and pulsing pain up his lower back, he pivoted his legs from the ground enough to wrap around the alpha’s chest and shove him back and off of him – so that Marco now hovered above him ; Marco’s crimson eyes baring down upon ones that he could swear were a deeper and blood soaked red than his own.
He only spared the other alpha another growl, another flash of his fangs, before he was ripping across his throat just as he had the beta — and if it was deeper, if it was more ragged and less agile ( with less care and less finesse of a human ), Marco paid no mind to it.
He rolled himself off the alpha with a grunt, wolf features slowly fading as adrenaline pulsed beside pain ; and the human half of him took the brunt once more of the pain.
He heard her call again, using another nearby tree to haul himself to his feet – looking to where his hand pressed into his side; where a slash mark was still bleeding steadily against his palm, “Merida,” he hissed under his breath, leaning the whole of his weight against the tree and letting his head settle against it with a pant.
“Blake! I’m here –”
She could hear the growls, and a surge of hope sent her tripping over roots as she entered the edge of the clearing, bumping her side - broken rib screaming with pain enough to cause the release of a whimper from her - against the tree as she passed it. Blake ripped through the bushes until she found another clearing and the heavy copper scent of blood scrunched up her nose.Â
Wide eyes flitted across the area around her until she found him, Marco’s shape collapsed against a tree with a body not far from him. She started to move towards him, his name on her lips, until she felt her body lift from the ground and across the clearing with all the force that the last of the alpha’s beta’s could muster. She cried out as she hit the ground, another rib cracking - maybe more.Â
He hadn’t seen Marco yet, as he advanced on Blake, and she planned on keeping it that way. She scrambled to her feet, trying not to wince with the pain of the movement before she was bearing down for the collision of the betas body against hers.Â
The beta was heavier and larger than her, knocking her to the ground beneath him. Blake struggled with him, using one arm to keep him from tearing her throat out - going so far as to shove her arm in his mouth because a bite on the arm was better than the throat. Pain ripped through her as he tore at her flesh, her other arm scrambling for the knife trapped between them.Â
Finally, she freed it, stabbing him admittedly more than once before he went limp. Rolling him off of her, Blake stood, eyes scanning the area for any other betas before she was fixing her gaze on Marco again - a desperate, pain-blurred look in her eyes.
