by Sadie Moss
He relaxed slightly, and so did Elijah. The Lost Pack shifters milled around us with anxious energy, some slipping back into human form and looting dead bodies for weapons.
“I can explain more later, but there’s no time right now,” Elijah added, glancing toward the door of the bunker. “What’s your plan?”
Rhys breathed out a satisfied puff of air as the old alpha deferred to me on the decision, some of the suspicion fading from his eyes.
Good. We’re running out of time to complete this mission; we don’t have time to fight amongst ourselves too.
“We need to get inside the complex. I’m sure there are more guards inside, but hopefully we took out a large portion of their numbers out here. Doctor Shepherd mentioned a cave where he found the Source, so I think our best bet is to go down.”
“Makes sense. Should we split up?”
“No.” I shook my head, accepting the gun one of the Lost Pack members shoved into my hand. I wouldn’t bother trying to scrounge up clothes or shoes—the odds were high I’d have to shift again soon. “It’s too dangerous to divide our forces. We’ll stick together and take on any guards we find as a pack. We hunt best that way.”
“So be it.”
Elijah stepped back, gesturing to the Lost Pack wolves to follow as he let my mates, Sariah, and I take the lead. The gesture was meaningful, even if I had no desire at all to be the first through those doors. But that was the price of leadership. I couldn’t ask any members of my pack to do something I was too scared to do myself.
Trying to draw strength from the feel of West and Rhys walking beside me, I stepped toward the open door, hand steady as I held my weapon poised. West peered through the entrance into the massive fortress-like building then held up his hand and twitched his fingers forward, signaling the all clear.
As we crept cautiously inside, my heart thundered in my chest. The singular purpose of this building was readily apparent in the way it’d been designed. No money had been wasted on aesthetics or ornate touches. The walls were plain and bare, the floor a solid stone slab. The entrance room was large, with an empty security desk in the middle and a set of double doors on the back wall leading farther into the depths of the building.
Picking up speed as the urgency of our task drove me on, I fired twice at the locking mechanism of the door as we approached.
I’d been right. There were more guards inside.
They’d barricaded themselves behind the door, and as soon as we broke through, they fired on us. But Rhys, West, Elijah, and I laid down cover fire while our pack mates bounded forward, eviscerating the guards in a flurry of teeth and claws.
We made our way through the building like that, working as a unit, isolating and attacking guards the way we might hunt deer.
I stayed in human form, borrowing a spare gun from Rhys when my stolen one clicked empty, but I could feel my wolf within me, watching out for her pack.
“Your left!” I called out, and two wolves who’d leapt forward to join the fray against the pocket of guards veered to the left as a guard shot at them. The bullet grazed fur, and I fired over their heads, catching the man’s bicep. His weapon clattered to the floor, and he tried to lash out with his other arm, but the brown-coated wolf clamped her jaws around his limb as her pack mate went for his throat.
We pushed forward, thundering down two flights of stairs before we came to a door that made me stop short.
It was big, made of dark steel that shone with a glossy sheen. And carved into the metal was the same image Doctor Shepherd had tattooed on his wrist. Three triangles, points touching, with an intricate spiral pattern in the middle. Now that I knew what to look for, I could see the numbers hidden within the pattern.
“There.”
My voice was breathless and tight. I stepped forward, tugging on the heavy door, and to my surprise, it gave slowly, swinging open. Rhys and I shared a glance, and his eyes narrowed with concern. Then he and West stepped into position as I pulled open the door, their weapons trained on the widening gap.
“Holy fuck,” West murmured, peering into the space beyond.
“Do you see anyone?” Rhys muttered.
“No. Doesn’t mean they’re not in there though. Keep an eye out.”
They slipped through first, and I followed, flanked by Noah, Jackson, and Sariah. Elijah remained behind, holding the thick door for the rest of the pack and making sure no stragglers got left behind.
“Holy fuck.” The words fell from my lips on a whisper, and West looked back at me, a single dimple appearing as he grinned crookedly.
“That’s what I said.”
Well, he’d gotten it right. There were no other words to describe the space we had just stepped into.
The rest of the bunker was all sleek steel and smooth concrete, cold and man-made, but as soon we’d stepped through the door, we had entered a new world. The steel of the entry door stood out starkly against the rough stone wall it was placed in. There were no other straight lines or smooth surfaces to be found in here—nothing made by the careful calculations of a human architect.
This was the cave Doctor Shepherd had told me about, and it was massive. Steps carved into the wall led down to the floor of the sweeping space, which was the size of a stadium. Large boulders and jagged rock formations jutted up from the cave floor, making it hard to get a good view of the entire space. The door in the wall was over a hundred feet above the bottom of the cave, and my heart skipped a beat as I peered over the edge of the rough staircase at the cliff face dropping down below.
Rhys grabbed my arm in a tight grip, his nostrils flaring with worry.
I swallowed hard. I’d never been afraid of heights before, but prickles of unease danced over my spine as we picked our way single-file down the steps.
My gaze kept darting around the huge cave, searching for signs of more guards lying in wait for us. Had we killed everyone in the bunker? How many guards did Doctor Shepherd employ here?
And if we hadn’t killed everyone, where were they?
The large space amplified every sound, echoes bouncing back and forth between the soaring ceiling and the walls like rogue ping-pong balls. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, mirroring the rock formations that rose out of the earth. As we worked our way around the wall, descending ever lower, my eyes caught on something new.
A pool.
It was small, relative to the size of the space, probably not more than fifty or so feet across. It was nestled in a natural basin made of stone that opened up in the floor. One side of it was flanked by a large slab of rock that rose up over forty feet high; that was what had kept me from seeing the pool immediately. The water looked shallower at the edges and deeper in the middle.
And it… glowed.
The liquid in the pool was the bright, shimmering blue of the Caribbean Ocean—the version I’d seen in travel ads and movies, anyway. It would’ve been striking near a sandy beach, lit by the bright rays of the sun in a cloudless sky. But here, in a dark cave lit only by glowing sconces tucked into nooks and crannies along the wall, the blue water looked otherworldly.
My pace faltered as I neared the base of the stairs, one foot hanging suspended over a step while I stared down at the enchanting pool.
It was beautiful, but imposing somehow. Power seemed to radiate from it—as if molecules of water had evaporated and spread around the entire space, clinging to every surface of the cave and hanging heavy in the air.
“Is that it?” I whispered. “The Source?”
No one bothered to confirm or deny my question. No one in my pack had any more answers than I did. But I didn’t need anyone to tell me. The truth was as clear as the crystal blue water in the pool.
This—this—was the source of everything. Of my anguish. Of my fear. Of my curse.
Of my blessing.
For one wild, mad moment, I considered that maybe we shouldn’t destroy it. Maybe, if we could just stop Doctor Shepherd, stop Strand, we could put the power of the So
urce into the hands of people who would treat it gently. We could create more shifters, not to be tested on, used as weapons, or bought and sold. But to live peacefully, in harmony with those of us who already existed.
Then I thought of the look in Doctor Shepherd’s eyes as we’d spoken in the safe house basement.
His callous pride. His insanity. His heartlessness.
If it wasn’t him, it would be someone else. As long as power like this existed in the world, there would always be someone willing to step up and abuse it.
The only way to make sure no more humans were experimented on, forced to undergo a DNA change that was as likely to kill them as transform them, was to take away the thing that made it possible. The remaining Strand labs might still have some of the serum in their vaults, but Doctor Shepherd had named this pool just what it was—the Source.
Without it, this would all be over.
My dirty, bloody skin prickled with goose bumps, but I squared my shoulders, walking the last few steps down the stairs. “Let’s set the charges and get out of here.”
“Amen,” West muttered softly. He walked toward a large boulder near the pool, shifting the hefty bag off his back and setting it down to reach inside. Rhys dropped down a few feet away from him and did the same.
My nose twitched.
The air smelled almost tropical, the scent too sweet for a craggy underground cave. It reminded me of lilies, and it was strongest near the pool. But there was something else underneath it.
What is that?
As West and Rhys began removing the charges from their bags, I shifted back to wolf form, shooting a glance at Jackson as I did. He lifted his nose into the air too, drawing in deep breaths.
Lilies. Dirt. Blood. Stale air.
There… there it was. Underneath everything else, faint but distinguishable, another smell.
I knew that scent. I’d spent the past two days locked up in a van with that scent.
Doctor Shepherd.
My head whipped up, and I shifted back to human form quickly, searching the cavernous space as my pulse skyrocketed.
But before I could move, before I could call out a warning, the mad doctor lunged forward from behind the boulder, wrapping his arm around West’s neck and pressing a gun to his temple.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Lost Pack wolves growled in unison, some of them starting forward, their teeth bared.
“Back off!” Doctor Shepherd shouted, the calm composure long gone from his tone. “Tell your dogs to back off!”
I held up a hand, signaling a stop. It was all I could do. My mouth wouldn’t form words as I stared at the shiny black barrel pressed to West’s mocha skin. Every nightmare I’d ever had about my ‘mother’ shooting me in the head flooded my memory, and the hand I still held in the air shook like a leaf in the wind.
“Don’t hurt him,” I whispered.
A snide, triumphant smile spread across Doctor Shepherd’s face at the raw desperation in my voice.
“That’s it?” He laughed hoarsely. “Don’t hurt him? If I don’t, will you walk away from here? Can it really be that easy to turn you away from your path?”
My stomach twisted as my gaze flicked to West’s. His hands gripped the doctor’s forearm, and his eyes were wide but not wild. His chest rose and fell as he drew in deep breaths.
Doctor Shepherd was almost as tall as him, but West was bigger. Broader. He could overpower the lanky man.
But could he do it before a bullet pierced his skull?
“That’s the difference between you and me, kiddo.” The man I’d once looked to as a savior grinned condescendingly at me, his swollen eye no more than a puffy slit. “You believe in your cause… until it’s time to make the difficult choice. Then you break. I don’t break. Do you think I wanted to kill Terrence? He was my partner; my friend. But when he decided he didn’t have the stomach for our research anymore, I did what had to be done. That’s why the gods chose me. Not him. Not anyone else. Because they knew I wouldn’t hide from the responsibility of carrying out their will. I. Wouldn’t. Break.”
I clenched my jaw until my teeth ached, fighting back tears of helpless rage. I was supposed to be the leader of the entire pack of wolves behind me, and I couldn’t let them know how right Doctor Shepherd was.
Because I would break.
The Source needed to be destroyed. I still believed that. And if it were me Doctor Shepherd had in his grasp, I would risk my life to make sure we didn’t fail in our mission.
But I couldn’t let him kill West.
Not the gentle soul he had already left scarred and damaged. Not one of the four pieces of my heart.
Rhys made a strangled noise beside me. He had his own weapon trained on Doctor Shepherd, and I knew he was making the same calculations I was.
He was a good shot. And his bullet would be fast. But would it be fast enough?
“I dunno, doc,” West murmured, his gaze latching onto mine and holding, his dark eyes burning brightly. “I don’t think Scrubs is as breakable as you’d like to believe she is. Did she ever tell you how she took down your best lap dog? How she killed Nils?”
I blinked, a creeping feeling of dread gathering in my stomach as I remembered the events of that night.
Oh, God, West. No. Don’t.
“It doesn’t matter. He was… an asset, but I’ll make more,” Doctor Shepherd bit out. “She won’t win.”
“You should’ve seen it.” West’s eyes warmed, and a small smile tilted his lips. “Nils had her in a hold just like you’ve got me, see?”
Oh fuck.
My heart drummed in my chest, and Rhys’s body tensed, coiled like a spring.
“Shut up!” Shepherd bellowed, moving to tighten his grip—just as my mate shifted, his wolf form bursting free.
The force of the shift shoved the tall man away, and two gunshots sounded almost simultaneously. I saw West’s body fall to the side as the bullet from Rhys’s gun slammed into Doctor Shepherd’s shoulder, driving him backward. I was already in motion, shifting as I charged forward to latch onto the doctor’s arm with my sharp teeth.
He dropped his gun with a shriek, and I yanked him off his feet with a hard tug, throwing him to the side. His body hit the rough ground and rolled, his hands scrabbling for purchase as momentum carried him over the edge of the pool. He sank beneath the surface of the shimmering blue liquid, the blood from his wounds rising up in a hazy red cloud around him, but I didn’t even watch him go down. I barely registered the snap of pain as I shifted again, racing across the uneven ground toward my mate’s prone form.
“West!”
My other mates followed me as I sprinted toward the gray wolf. He was sprawled on the ground, and I threw myself down beside him, running my hands over his fur as I searched for blood, for a wound.
His muscles and bones shivered, and a second later, my palms skated over smooth skin instead of fur. He rolled over onto his back, blinking up at me before looking down at my hands groping his naked body.
“You can… keep doing that… all you want.”
A sobbing laugh burst from my throat as his words registered. A bright red line cut across his chest where the bullet had grazed his body, inches away from piercing his heart.
“You asshole!” I smacked his stomach lightly as my stunned heart lurched back into motion. “You almost fucking died! Do. Not. Ever. Do that again.”
“Learned it from you,” he shot back weakly, sitting up. But the teasing look on his face vanished as his gaze fell on something behind me.
Unsettled whines and growls came from the Lost Pack wolves around us, and Elijah called out, “Alpha Alexis! Look out!”
I spun.
The serene, almost preternaturally beautiful pool was churning violently, the blue water burbling and sloshing over the sides. Dark blood gave it a reddish tinge, and as we watched, Doctor Shepherd heaved himself out of the water, stumbling toward the edge. His ash-brown hair was slicked to his head, and the b
andage had come off his ear, leaving the ragged pink flesh exposed. A red stain smeared the right side of his chest where the bullet had hit the meat of his pec, and his right arm had deep, ragged gashes from my teeth.
White foam gathered around the edges of the wounds, like peroxide poured on a cut.
He froze suddenly in the shallow edge of the pool, where the water was only a few feet deep. His burning, furious gaze had been focused on me, but without warning, his head tipped back as a scream—a roar—tore from his lips.
The sound made every hair on my body stand on end. It was almost a howl, but more wild, more terrifying. It seemed too big for his body to have created it, like the sound itself would shred his vocal cords like glass.
The Lost Pack wolves shuffled uncomfortably, whining as they stepped back.
Then Doctor Shepherd shifted.
His body ripped itself apart from the inside out, bones snapping like twigs as muscles strained and stretched. His mass doubled, and his clothes tore away from his massive frame. Fur sprouted unevenly on his body, his nose and jaw elongating to an almost snout-like shape. He thrashed, agitating the water even more as he crawled out onto the surrounding rock.
“Rhys…”
My voice was a low whisper, but my mate didn’t need any more prompting than that. He raised his gun and fired at the dripping monstrosity that was Doctor Shepherd.
The bullet caught him in the gut just as he rose to his feet, sending him careening back into the pool.
But he didn’t stay there long.
Almost as soon as his body hit the water, he shifted again. Not back to human form, but into another almost unrecognizable shape. His form stretched taller and wider, muscles bulging all over as his teeth dropped into long, curved fangs. His limbs were a strange melding of human and animal features, and he surged out of the pool again on all fours, a snarl tearing from his throat.
“Holy fuck!” Jackson breathed, and as if called by the sound, Doctor Shepherd’s head whipped toward us.
He roared, leaping toward us in a single bound.