by Sadie Moss
There was plenty to be gleaned from body language, howls, and yips—but they weren’t great for communicating the finer details of a covert mission.
Our progress was slow, and as the sun began to dip below the horizon, my nerves ratcheted up. Where were Marcus and Walker going?
West led us in a circuitous route, our path bending and curving until I was completely turned around. Only the purple glow of the fading sunlight in the west gave me some idea what direction we were heading.
Suddenly, West stopped, lifting his nose to sniff the air. He snuffled at the ground again, starting to move in one direction before veering off in another. Then he halted again, an agitated whine spilling from his throat.
Cautiously, I smelled the forest floor too. There was pine, the nose-tingling scent of fresh dirt, rabbit, and…
There it is!
As I picked up Marcus and Walker’s scent, I immediately realized why West had stopped. Several trails criss-crossed over each other, not a straight line but a jumbled mess of olfactory information. It was as if they’d walked over this spot a half dozen times, leading off in different directions every time.
Damn it. They must’ve done this on purpose, either because they knew they were being followed, or as a precautionary measure. But either way, we’d lose precious minutes sniffing down every potential trail to find the right one.
Should we split up? It might be faster, but it’d be a lot more risky.
I was about to shift back so I could confer with Rhys and Noah when a sprinkling of dried pine needles fluttered down in front of my face like strange, sharp snowflakes.
I shook my head.
That was—
The thought didn’t even have time to fully form in my brain before I realized something was wrong. I looked up into the high branches of the tree that loomed over us, and my breath caught.
Marcus was draped over a limb, his arm cocked as he aimed a knife toward Rhys’s back.
Chapter Seventeen
My dark-haired mate was conferring in low tones with Noah, his back to the tree where the traitor waited.
He couldn’t see the threat.
With an angry howl, I launched myself forward, slamming into Rhys as hard as I could. He went down, hitting the forest floor and tucking into a roll. I followed him, but not fast enough. The knife glanced off my hindquarters, the blade stinging as it cut into my flesh. It wasn’t a good angle, so the wound was superficial.
Rhys was already back on his feet, gun in hand. He fired several rounds into the tree, but Marcus scrambled over the branches, slipping around to the other side of the thick trunk.
A shout behind me drew my attention, and I swung around.
Walker was in another tree a few yards away, brandishing his own blade. Noah pulled his gun and fired, but instead of hiding behind the trunk, Walker launched himself toward the ground, shifting to wolf form as he did. He landed with a thud and threw himself at Noah, knocking the weapon out of his hand.
“Fuck!”
Noah shifted quickly, his white wolf rising up to meet the threat. He and Walker clashed in a flurry of teeth, claws, and fur.
Two more shots rang out as Rhys went after Marcus again, circling the tree and making him scramble as Jackson’s wolf waited beneath the branches, teeth bared in a growl. West leapt into the fray with Noah, clamping his jaws around the attacking wolf’s hind leg and making him howl in pain.
A snarl curled my lip. I wanted nothing more than to tear Walker’s wolf from limb to limb. But we needed him alive, not dead. We needed answers. So I slipped back to human form, pine needles and rocks digging into my feet as I sprinted toward the patch of earth where Noah’s gun had landed.
I snatched it up, aiming it at the three fighting wolves. “Walker! Stop! Or I’ll fucking kill you.”
My two mates heard my warning and immediately broke away from the traitorous shifter, leaving him exposed to give me an open shot. He made a move to lunge toward them, but I fired at a spot right in front of his nose, making him pull up short. He swung his big head to look at me, obviously trying to gauge what kind of chance he had of taking me out before I could shoot him to death.
West and Noah moved quickly to stand next to me, growling at the other wolf.
Across the small clearing, several more shots sounded, followed by a groan and then a loud thump. I flicked my gaze over to see Marcus lying on his side at the base of the tree he’d been hiding in, clutching his shoulder as he tried to suck breath into his seizing lungs. Jackson stood over him, growling.
I turned back to the wolf in front of me, keeping my hand and my voice steady. “Shift back. Do it. Now.”
He whined, his paws dancing agitatedly as he searched for some way out of this. I fired at the ground near his feet, anger making me bold and decisive. We already had one of these men incapacitated. We didn’t technically need them both alive.
My stomach twisted unpleasantly as I realized what I’d just told myself. I wasn’t the type to kill anyone in cold blood—or at least, I hadn’t been. But these men had betrayed our trust. We’d stood up for them, vouched for them, and all they’d done in return was try to hurt people I cared about.
Walker’s gaze darted to his fallen comrade, and that, more than my words, seemed to convince him. Maybe he realized he truly had no backup anymore.
His body shivered as the shift rippled through him. A second later, I had my gun aimed at a lanky, nude man with sandy blond hair. He raised his hands over his head in the universal gesture of surrender.
“Over by your friend.” I flicked the barrel of the gun in that direction. “Go. Get down on your knees.”
He walked gingerly over to the base of the tree Marcus had been hiding in. Rhys hauled the shorter man up to his knees too, keeping his gun at the ready. Marcus’s shoulder was stained with blood, and his face was pale in the hazy twilight, but he seemed to have gotten his breath back, at least.
Rhys and I stood in front of them, and my three other mates flanked them, still in wolf form.
“Well, I guess we don’t have to wonder anymore whether they’re fucking traitors,” Rhys spat.
His black curls had been secured with a tie at the back of his head, but they’d come half-loose when he’d rolled over the ground. He shoved the strands out of his face, glaring down at our two captives.
Walker licked his lips nervously but didn’t say anything. Marcus kept his gaze down, refusing to meet our eyes.
“What the fuck are you up to?” Rhys pressed. “You started that fire at the base, right? Why?”
The two men remained silent.
With an impatient growl, he lunged forward, grabbing Walker by the hair and tilting his head back, pressing the barrel of the gun under his chin. “Listen, you fucker. Every person in the world I care about lives at that camp. And you put them all in danger. The only reason you’re still alive right now is because you have information we need. But if you don’t start talking, you’re gonna become expendable real. Fucking. Quick.”
My heart lurched in my chest. I knew Rhys meant every word he said—hell, I’d had a similar thought just a few moments ago—but I didn’t want us to become those people. I didn’t want to watch him kill a man in cold blood.
I stepped up beside my mate, keeping my gun fixed steadily on Marcus’s face and resting the palm of my other hand on Rhys’s forearm. When he glanced over at me, I shook my head slightly.
Although it seemed to cause him physical pain, he withdrew the gun from under Walker’s chin and stepped back a half-step.
Great. So these men were still alive, but how the hell were we supposed to make them talk? Whether out of fear or a misguided belief in their cause, they seemed determined not to tell us anything.
Without warning, the power of my wolf swelled in my chest.
These men were omegas. They’d made it perfectly clear when they’d arrived at the Lost Pack base, and whatever other lies they’d told, they couldn’t fake something like that.
And omegas didn’t get to disobey.
I leaned down in front of Marcus, putting us eye-to-eye. His face was clenched tight with pain, and the hand he held firmly to his shoulder was stained dark red.
“Do you know what Jackson always says?” I asked softly, taking in his expression with my wolf’s eyes, searching for the animal within the man. “He says shifters have to stick together. Did you not get that memo? Or do you think betraying your own kind will somehow make you different? Make you better than us?”
Marcus blinked, surprise and something almost like remorse reflecting in his eyes. He pressed his lips together firmly though, staring me down with a hard look.
“Why did you come here? How did you find us?” I repeated.
He shifted his gaze away again, but I growled softly, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look at me.
“We won’t—” he began, but I didn’t let him finish.
“Tell. Me.”
The words fell from my lips with the weight of a command, and Marcus’s eyes flew open until the whites showed all around his irises. I could practically see his wolf rolling over onto its belly, whining pitifully as it tried to make itself smaller.
In human form, this man was at least six inches taller than me and had several dozen pounds of muscle on me. But I wasn’t talking to the man. I was talking to the wolf. And his wolf knew I was more powerful than he was.
I could feel Rhys’s intense gaze shift to me, sense my other three mates watching me with surprised awe, but I didn’t take my focus off Marcus.
His mouth opened once, twice, as if he were trying and failing to resist the command. Finally, he choked out, “Strand… sent us.”
My fingers dropped away from his chin and I stood back. The air seemed to rush out of my lungs, and I couldn’t pull in any fresh oxygen.
I’d known this was coming, hadn’t I? I’d spent the past weeks waiting for the other shoe to drop. And after the fire, after seeing Walker sneak away to bury the lighter, hadn’t a part of me known it would come down to this?
Just like it always did.
Strand.
Before I could open my mouth to speak, Jackson shifted, his hazel eyes flashing with anger. He circled around and stormed between me and Rhys, grabbing Marcus by the front of his shirt, nearly lifting his knees off the ground. The lanky man let out a grunt of pain as Jackson shook him.
“Are you telling me you’re both fucking lap dogs?”
“N-no!” Walker shook his head vigorously. “We were test subjects in the Wyoming facility. Just like you.”
“You’re nothing like me, you asshole,” Jackson snarled. “I don’t sell my people out for a shot at—what? What did they offer you?”
“Freedom.”
Marcus’s voice was low. Jackson still held him by the shirt, and the blunt-faced man looked pale and exhausted.
“Freedom?” My mate scoffed. “You could’ve had actual goddamn freedom if you’d come to us with honest intentions. Shit. You two might’ve made it out of Wyoming, but from where I’m standing, it looks a hell of a lot like Strand still owns you.”
“That’s not—” Walker swallowed down whatever he’d been about to say, then continued in a more subdued voice. “This isn’t our freedom. That was going to come after. Once we did what they wanted.”
“And what was that?” I asked quietly.
Jackson glanced at me over his shoulder, a look of chagrin crossing his face. He released Marcus’s shirt from his clenched fist and stepped back, letting me take the lead in questioning again.
“To infiltrate your pack.” Walker stared at the ground as he spoke. “To learn how it functions, what you all do, and what your plans are.”
“You started the fire, didn’t you?”
He dipped his head once.
Rhys cursed under his breath, readjusting his grip on his gun and raising it slightly. “Why?”
“Because they told us to.” The captive shifter shrugged, as if that was the end of it.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Jackson shook his head in disbelief. “I take it back. You’re worse than the damn lap dogs. At least they’re fanatics for a cause, however fucked up it might be. They don’t try to kill people just because someone told them to.”
Marcus’s face fell, a look of deep pain passing over his features. I didn’t want to feel anything but anger, maybe hatred, toward these men. But the look on his face nearly broke my heart. He didn’t look like a lap dog.
He looked like a beaten dog.
An animal so used to being mistreated it had learned to lick the hand that struck it, to mistake small kindnesses for true caring. Nothing could excuse what these two had done and the deaths that could’ve resulted from their actions, but I understood better why they had done it.
“Was anything you told us true?”
I stepped closer to Marcus, letting my wolf speak to his again. His gaze snapped up to my face as if pulled there by some kind of magnetic force.
“Yes. Yes! Strand is planning to consolidate all the current test subjects into one facility to make room for new experiments. That’s true, as far as I know. And Beth really did come to our complex. They weren’t able to get everything they wanted out of her… so, they killed her.” Marcus rushed on hurriedly, maybe worried that bringing up Beth’s death would make us more inclined to end his life too. “We know more! We can tell you. Anything you want.”
“Pretty fickle there, Marky,” Jackson grumbled. “If you flip that easily on your Strand bosses, who’s to say you won’t flip on us again the second you get the chance?”
I glanced over my shoulder at him. He still looked furious. Jackson was usually so laid-back, but I knew that was an act half the time. And I was starting to learn that the one thing he hated more than anything else was disloyalty. Shifters betraying their own kind.
“I don’t expect we’ll get a chance to,” Marcus said softly. The blood from his shoulder wound had seeped all the way down his sleeve, and the dark liquid glistened in the waning light. “I know you can’t let us go alive. If we’re going to die, I’d rather die knowing I did one thing right.”
Jackson blinked, a muscle in his jaw twitching. I caught a slight softening of his expression before his angry bluster returned.
“Yeah, pretty speeches are all well and good, Marky. But if you’re gonna help us, then help us. Tell us every damn thing you know.”
“We shouldn’t do this here.” Rhys looked around at the darkening woods. “I don’t want to take them back to the base, but we should at least get them somewhere more secure.”
My gaze followed his, and I nodded. “Yeah. Good idea.”
I waved my gun at Marcus, gesturing for him to stand. He rose awkwardly to his feet, gangly and unbalanced with one arm incapacitated. Rhys hauled Walker up, and we kept the captured men in front of us, the two wolves in front of them. We had them boxed in. If they tried to make a break for it, either a bullet or a sharp set of teeth would stop them.
“Damn it. We’re gonna have to tell Alpha Elijah about this now. He’ll shit a fucking brick.” Jackson grimaced.
I huffed a humorless laugh. That was exactly what the alpha would do. Whether he’d follow it up by kicking all of us out of the pack was anyone’s guess.
“Well, I nominate Noah to tell him,” I said. “I’m pretty sure both me and Rhys are on his shi—”
I broke off, my brows drawing together.
A tiny red dot had appeared on Marcus’s back, right between his shoulder blades. It jittered slightly, like a butterfly searching for the perfect place to land.
What the…?
Too late, I realized what it was.
Chapter Eighteen
“Get dow—!”
My scream was cut off by a dull whump as a bullet slammed into the stout wolf shifter’s back. The red dot moved, shifting up and to the right. Another shot hit Walker, and he collapsed like a puppet with the strings cut. A spray of blood cut across my body before he went down, a
nd when his body hit the forest floor, I stared at it in mute shock.
No. No, no, no!
I spun, scanning the dark trees around us, but before I could get a good look at anything, Jackson was shoving me behind him and Rhys was at my other side, their bodies blocking me from danger.
A crunching, rustling sound came from the right, and more noises joined it, coming from all around. Shadowy figures stepped out of the trees—men dressed in black tactical gear, their hair covered by black knit caps that let them blend even further with the darkness.
“Look at how they protect her. She really is something special.”
That voice.
I’d only heard this man speak a handful of words, but I would know his voice anywhere. He talked to me in my dreams, shot me over and over with poison darts, crouched down to examine me as sunlight haloed his head.
Nils.
He walked toward us, his gaze locked on me as he spoke to one of his hunters. There were at least six of them, and although none were as huge and muscled as the blond Terminator, they were all massive men. Or wolves. Maybe he wasn’t the only lap dog here.
“Motherfucker,” Jackson growled under his breath, his arm pressing back against me protectively, as if he could somehow shield my entire body.
The circle of hunters closed in around us, and West’s wolf let out an angry, warning growl. Most of the men were armed, and one with a scar on his upper lip carried the gun that had killed Marcus and Walker. The red dot from his sight now rested squarely on Rhys’s chest.
“We need the girl alive. Take the men alive too, if you can. Doctor Shepherd will want to study the mate bond between them,” Nils instructed his men.
Panic blazed in my chest. Fuck. We were outnumbered and outgunned. And I had no doubt at all that the hunters would kill my mates without mercy if we didn’t find some way to get out of this. Soon.
“Did you send these shifters into our pack?” I blurted, stepping out from between Jackson and Rhys. Hiding behind my mates only put them in more danger. I was the only one Nils and his hunters didn’t want to kill. If anything, I should be protecting them with my body. “Why?”