Wolf Freed

by Sadie Moss

  Disappointment.

  For a suspended moment, our gazes locked, and I felt the hurt coming off him like a physical punch to the gut.

  Then Rhys turned toward Doctor Shepherd, who was sprawled on his stomach near the wall, blood pulsing in small rivulets from his ear.

  “Shit.” He ran a hand through his messy hair. “Jesus Christ, I can’t even think straight. We gotta do something about this motherfucker.”

  His words snapped everyone else back into action. West and Noah strode over to haul the unconscious man up as Jackson shifted back to wolf form, turning away from me.

  He padded toward the door, sticking his head into the hallway beyond to keep watch. I wanted to go after him, to bury my fingers in his soft white fur and beg him to be okay with this. But there wasn’t time. We were still in the Strand complex, in some secret sub-basement Doctor Shepherd had had built for his own private experiments.

  And if Doctor Shepherd had figured out we were here, it couldn’t be long before hunters would arrive too.

  “Put him on my back.” I jerked my chin toward the man in question.

  His limp body sagged between Noah and West, and at the moment, he looked frail and weak. I didn’t let it fool me though. He was intelligent, cunning, and extremely wealthy. In a fight between animals in the wild, the most important thing might be brute strength, but in the human world, money held its own kind of raw power.

  “Are you sure?”

  Noah looked like he hated the idea, and I gritted my teeth. It was already happening. They were worrying about me, trying too hard to keep me out of danger.

  “Yes,” I insisted. I pointed to the desk. “We need to bring his computer with us, and anything else we can find. If he backed up whatever got destroyed in the fire, maybe it’ll be in there. I can carry him in wolf form while you guys grab everything else. We’ll take it somewhere safe and look through it. Did you find anything else worthwhile in the rest of the complex?”

  West shook his head. “No. Nothing. We spent the past two hours searching for you.”

  “How did you find me?”

  Unbidden, my gaze flicked back to the large metal table I’d been strapped to. The thick chains hung off the edges like dead snakes, and I suppressed a shudder. If my mates hadn’t come when they did…

  I pushed that thought away. Stop it, Alexis. They did come. They always will, if they can.

  “We were combing the second level for you.” Noah’s face hardened with remembered fear. “We couldn’t find anything at first—it was like you’d just vanished. Then Rhys figured out the wall in Doctor Shepherd’s office was false, and Jackson hot-wired the mechanism.”

  “Then we heard the screams.” West glanced down at Doctor Shepherd like he was considering picking up where Rhys had left off with his fists. “And we ran toward the sound as fast as we fucking could.”

  My heart squeezed, but before I dissolved into an emotional mess, I called my wolf to the surface. She burst forth easily, anxious to stretch her legs after being trapped on the table, bound inside my body by the pressure of the chains. It felt good to have fur covering my body for the moment. The room was cool, and the sweat from my struggles had chilled my skin.

  Rhys’s lips curled with anger as he watched his two mates drape Doctor Shepherd over my back, but he didn’t voice any objections. I knew what it must be costing him to keep them inside, to suppress his urge to lock me in a tower so nothing could hurt me.

  We’re way beyond that though. And he knows it.

  I was the alpha of a shifter pack, dedicated to taking down the corporation that had created us. Safe wasn’t a part of my world right now.

  My stomach clenched as the men hastily gathered up Doctor Shepherd’s computer and the copied files they found in his desk, destroying anything we couldn’t take with us. I glanced up at the ultrasound machine’s screen seconds before Noah shoved it over, and guilt flooded me.

  No. My life isn’t safe right now.

  Which meant neither was my baby’s. Thank fuck, I was worth more to Doctor Shepherd alive than dead, or who knew what he might’ve done while he had me helpless on that table. There clearly was no line he wasn’t willing to cross in the name of “research.”

  My lips curled in a snarl, and I felt the weight of him on my back more acutely. Physically, carrying him was no strain, but having him so close made my skin crawl.

  Jackson whined from the hallway, probably anxious to get moving while the coast was still clear. I stepped forward quickly.

  “Wait.”

  Rhys’s voice stopped me, and I turned back to face him as he picked up the syringe Doctor Shepherd had been about to inject me with when my mates had arrived. Wearing a grim expression, he marched over and grabbed the man’s arm in a rough hold.

  “Hey! We don’t know what that will do!” Noah held his hand out, eyes widening.

  “I don’t. Fucking. Care.” Rage vibrated through Rhys’s voice.

  I understood it. He’d used every bit of restraint and patience he could dredge up when it came to the man who had threatened his mate, and like a rubber band stretched too thin, it had finally snapped.

  “It’s probably a sedative. Give it to him. If he wakes up before we get out of here, it’ll only make things harder,” West threw in.

  Noah chewed his lip for a second then nodded, stepping back.

  Tightening his hold on Doctor Shepherd’s arm, Rhys jabbed the needle in so hard I felt the force of the blow rock his entire body.

  “Sleep tight, motherfucker,” he muttered under his breath.

  His voice was gruff, but the hand he ran through my fur was gentle, and a sudden burst of warmth expanded in my chest.

  Rhys was rough around the edges, there was no denying that. And he could be truly terrifying when he was angry. His harsh exterior had irritated me when I’d first met him, particularly because he’d seemed to hate me so much. But what I hadn’t realized back then was that Rhys loved even more intensely than he hated—and for those lucky few who made it into his inner circle, it was like being bathed in warm, bright sunlight.

  Jackson huffed and whined again from the hallway, interrupting my thoughts. His wolf’s nails clicked on the hard tile as he paced back to us, poking his head into the room.

  “All right.” West scooped up the last stack of files from a drawer in the desk. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Doctor Shepherd’s private “office” was two stories below the room with his name on the door on the second floor of the complex. It was nestled between the spokes that extended out from the central hub and had small passageways that appeared to connect to the main facility’s lower levels.

  I shuddered to think what kinds of experiments Doctor Shepherd hadn’t wanted even the Strand staff to see.

  We picked our way carefully up the stairs and back into the main complex. Doctor Shepherd’s limp form kept almost sliding off my back, so Jackson walked beside me, nudging the man back into place with his nose. I tried to catch my mate’s amber gaze in the dim ambience of the flashlight beams, but he refused to look at me.

  The three men still in human form had spoken with Carl over the comms as we left Doctor Shepherd’s exam room. I’d only been able to hear one side of the conversation, but I’d gathered that Carl had no idea how Shepherd had gotten in without being picked up by the cameras, and that he was pissed as shit about it.

  He’d promised to find a secure place for us to interrogate our captive and told the men he would meet us with the van when we made it topside.

  As we headed up the final set of stairs to the ground level facade, my nerves prickled. What if this had all been some sort of elaborate trap? What if the entire complex was surrounded by hunters? Maybe they’d already taken Sariah, Molly, and Carl.

  A warm tongue licked my face. I jerked, startled.

  Jackson’s amber eyes glowed as he blinked at me, and I realized my footsteps had slowed as I played the dark game
of “what-if” in my head. He nuzzled his nose against mine briefly, the comforting gesture soothing me—not just for what it was, but because it came from him.

  No matter how mad he might be right now, he was still here for me.

  Things were always simpler, clearer in wolf form. Our wolves didn’t seem troubled by the same doubts, fears, and misunderstandings that plagued us as humans. They saw things in more black and white terms, painting the world in broad strokes of threat or safety, friend, lover, or enemy. I licked Jackson’s muzzle, wishing things could be this simple in our human forms.

  But they couldn’t. I knew that.

  The messiness was part of being human, and like I’d told Elijah, I wasn’t ready to give that up.

  We padded softly toward the door we’d entered from, flanked by Rhys, West, and Noah. When we reached it, West plastered himself to the wall before cracking the door to peer outside.

  “Don’t see anyone,” he reported in a low whisper, before adding, “Carl? Where you at?”

  I couldn’t hear the response, but my mates all nodded in satisfaction. West pulled the door open a little wider, and after a few moments, he flung it wide.

  “There he is. Go, go, go!”

  He and Rhys held the door while the rest of us raced forward, and as soon as we were through, they followed us, sprinting around the side of the building. There was a screech of ancient brakes as Carl slammed the van to a stop in front of us. The back door opened, and Molly and Sariah hopped out, grabbing Doctor Shepherd off my back. They staggered slightly under his limp, awkward weight, but Noah helped them shove the unconscious man onto the middle seat.

  Jackson and I shifted as Rhys and West caught up to us, and the four of us crammed ourselves inside the vehicle as fast as we could.

  “We’re in! Drive!”

  West didn’t even have the door closed before Carl punched the gas, peeling out in a trail of rubber.

  The van was big, but it felt tiny with this many of us crammed inside it. Doctor Shepherd’s prone body was bunched up awkwardly on the seat, and Molly and Sariah crouched on the floor in front of him, holding onto whatever they could as Carl swung wildly around corners.

  No one was after us. No one had shot at us. I hadn’t seen any hunters.

  But my heart still pounded hard in my chest, fear eating at my stomach like acid. We had just abducted the head of Strand. It was only a matter of time before his hunters realized he’d been taken.

  I was crowded into the back seat, sandwiched tightly between Noah and Jackson. West and Rhys hunched awkwardly by the door until West crawled up to sit in the front passenger seat, still clutching the laptop and hard drive we’d taken from the exam room.

  “You sure wherever you’re taking us is safe?” he asked grimly, turning to Carl.

  “Safe as it can be. I’ve only stopped by once since we moved here, so it won’t pop up on Strand’s radar easily if they go searching.”

  “Good.”

  My skin seemed to buzz, the faux-leather of the seat cold and sticky against my bare ass. Noah kept a firm grip on me, keeping the jerky movement of the van from tossing me around.

  The motion steadied as Carl drove farther out of the city. When we turned onto a smaller country road, he switched the headlights off, slowing down a little.

  As we drove, we filled him, Molly, and Sariah in on everything that’d happened inside the complex. As if by some unspoken agreement, none of us mentioned my pregnancy, but when Sariah shot a questioning gaze at me, I nodded slightly. She glanced at Rhys, biting her lip as concern flickered across her features. He was deep in conversation with Carl and West though, trying to work out our next steps.

  And what were those supposed to be, exactly?

  We’d gone into the Strand complex hoping to find some clue, some scrap of information—and we’d left with the head of Strand himself.

  But now that we had him, what the hell were we going to do with him? Could we get him to talk? Would he tell us where the shifters were being moved to? Where this mysterious Source was located?

  I was practically vibrating with nerves, and Noah tightened his arm protectively around me.

  After another twenty minutes, Carl cut down a long gravel drive and pulled up in front of what looked like an abandoned farmhouse. We were far enough from the road that I couldn’t see it anymore, and several large trees around the house blocked it from view even more.

  We all piled out, and Carl immediately headed around to the back of the van, yanking the doors open and pointing at the equipment piled inside. “This all needs to go in. There’s a basement where you can stow your doctor. Oh, and, uh—here.”

  He grabbed two stacks of clothes and tossed them to me and Jackson, almost hitting me in the face with mine because he wasn’t really looking at me. The man might live most of his life on the wrong side of the law, but he still held himself to a personal moral code, and that didn’t include ogling other women. Besides, he was head-over-heels in love with Molly and only had eyes for her.

  Jackson and I dressed quickly then joined the others in hauling stuff into the safe house. Carl had brought laptops of his own, as well as more weapons, lights, and generators. The power inside the house was off, and the windows were so grimy they blocked out almost all the moonlight.

  We left most of the equipment in the dingy kitchen, and Rhys and West carried Doctor Shepherd downstairs before tying him to a chair with ropes Carl provided. I held the flashlight while they worked, staring at the man’s pale face in the bright beam.

  His ear looked awful, and the sight of it made my own ear throb with remembered pain. I hated having even that small thing in common with him. His head drooped, lolling to the side, and a purple bruise blossomed around one puffy eye.

  He looked so helpless, so… regular, that my stomach churned. Don’t fall for it, Alexis. Evil comes in all kinds of packages, even bland ones.

  Maybe if Doctor Shepherd had sported a creepy mustache or looked more like Nils, I would’ve seen through his lies sooner. But for almost half my life, I had looked up to him, trusted him. Been grateful to him.

  “You okay, Alexis?” Molly asked, hanging a lantern on the wall and flooding the room with soft white light. Her worried gaze scanned my body.

  “Yeah. Just bruised. Nothing broken.”

  “Good.” She came to stand beside me, resting a soft hand on my shoulder before glancing between me and my mates. “You want me to do something about the doctor’s injuries? Carl’s getting the generators set up, so we should be able to start going through the stuff you guys grabbed soon.” She jerked her chin toward the man before us. “But I can fix him up a little before he wakes up.”

  “Yeah. Do it.” I licked my lips. The sight of his ear was starting to make me slightly nauseated.

  “You want to help me?” She glanced back at Sariah, who hovered at the base of the stairs, chewing on her lip.

  My heart jolted, and Rhys’s probably did too. I would’ve had a hard time playing nurse to the man who had done this to us. There was no way Sariah was ready for that. My dark-haired mate took a step forward, but before he could tell Molly this was a really bad idea, his sister nodded slowly, stepping off the last step.

  “Okay,” she said in a quiet voice.

  Molly made a satisfied sound, and the two of them went to dig through the small medical supply kit she’d brought. I heard her murmur something about showing Sariah how to do stitches as I walked over to Rhys. He looked torn between worry, anger, and pride, and I understood every one of his emotions.

  But this was Sariah’s journey.

  Not his. Not mine.

  If healing the man who was responsible for her years of captivity brought her more peace than hurting him, who was I to argue with that?

  I slipped my hand into Rhys’s, leaning into him and pressing a kiss to his taut bicep.

  “Molly will look out for her,” I murmured. “If it gets to be too much, she’ll find an excuse to send her away.”
>
  He swallowed and nodded jerkily, the muscles in his jaw jumping as he clenched his teeth. “How is she still so damn…”

  “Good?” I finished on a whisper, and his blue eyes met mine. I shook my head. “Because you protected her, Rhys. She’s seen the worst of the world, but she saw less of it because you stood in front of her every chance you got. You became the fighter so she could be the healer.”

  He jerked at my words, his brows drawing together. His gaze flicked to Molly and Sariah again before he looked back to me. Then he palmed the back of my head and leaned down to kiss me hard.

  When he stepped back, my knees wobbled a bit. Between the lingering effects of the sedatives and the ups and downs of adrenaline in my system, I still felt a little loopy.

  “I’ll go help Carl set up,” he declared, shooting one more look at Sariah before he turned and headed up the stairs, West with him.

  I lingered for a few moments, watching the two women clean Doctor Shepherd’s ear. But the churning in my stomach continued—whether from the sight of the ragged flesh or from seeing a man I hated so much treated kindly by someone he’d hurt, I wasn’t sure. I’d been the one to tell Molly she should patch him up, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.

  Slipping out of the basement room, I tromped upstairs and poked my head into the kitchen. Carl was calling out instructions as three of my mates hooked up computers and flipped switches. But the fourth was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where’s Jackson?”

  Noah glanced over at me. “Upstairs, I think. He’s doing a sweep of the rest of the house, just to be sure.”

  “Okay. I’ll help him.”

  I picked up a flashlight that’d been left on the table and followed its dim light through the house until I found a set of stairs leading up. They creaked softly underfoot, and I wondered who had lived here last, and why they’d left. It was strange, taking over the abandoned part of someone’s life like this.

  It was easy to find Jackson. I just followed the dusty footprints on the hardwood. But when I stuck my head into what looked like an old bedroom, he wasn’t poking into corners or peering out the windows. Instead, he sat slumped on the bed, his elbows resting on his knees and his head hanging. He looked up when my flashlight beam crossed the threshold, and I saw tears glisten in his eyes.