They’d better, Trick thought. He checked on her through their bond. Fear was a living thing inside her. The drive to get to her pounded through him, but he couldn’t answer it because of that damn bastard out there.
Trick hissed out a breath. “Fuck. I’m going to enjoy killing this motherfucker and his sorry excuse for a pack.” He used his sleeve to wipe at the blood dripping down his face and then shoved open the dented door, leaving bloody fingerprints. Glass tinkled as it dropped from his lap to the ground.
The others slid out of the SUV too, but Trick kept his eyes on the wolves glaring at them from the wide, rising steps. The air was bone-dry and smelled of rock and dirt.
A gray wolf let out a low howl, as if calling for his Alpha. Morelli appeared at the top of the quarry moments later, a wide grin on his face. Descending the steps, he clapped. “Damn, I wasn’t sure if you’d survive.” He said it with admiration, like they’d crashed for the thrill. “That’s one hell of a drop.” He stopped halfway down the wall and petted the head of the closest wolf.
“Hiding behind your pack, Morelli?” taunted Trey. “Is that what Alphas do now?”
Dominic snickered. “You’re forgetting, Trey—this guy’s no Alpha.”
Trey’s lips pursed. “Valid point.”
Morelli’s face tightened, but then he smiled. “Must we really resort to insults?”
“No,” said Trey. “You could fight me, Alpha to supposed Alpha.”
Trick’s wolf growled, not liking that idea. He wanted to be the one to end the bastard.
“Prove to me and your wolves here that you’re what you claim to be,” continued Trey. “Prove to them that you’re worth following. Prove to them that you’re worth dying for. Because they will die if they come at us. Come on, show them that you’re willing to protect them from that and let’s settle this, one to one.”
Morelli’s smile hardened at the edges. “But that would be depriving them of the luxury of killing the people who burned down their homes.”
“You blamed it on us?” Ryan grunted. “We thought you might.”
“It was a good idea,” said Trick. “Burn the buildings down, pin it on us, and then propose to the others that you all lay low and come up with a plan. Well, it’s not like you could tell them you wanted to hide. I’m curious, though, have you told them all that you work with an extremist?”
Morelli froze, and his wolves became edgy and restless. Trick knew why. The animals wouldn’t understand the words, but the people within them would. The human emotions would bleed out onto the wolves, making them agitated and confused.
“Drake had plenty to say before he died,” Trick told him.
Morelli snorted. “And I’ll bet he found delight in talking bullshit to you—it was really the only way to fuck with you at that point.”
“He was telling the truth,” said Trey. “You know it. We know it. By working with an extremist, you’ve betrayed your kind. You deserve to die for that alone.”
“Such bravery from someone who’s outnumbered, weakened by injury, and has no chance of a rescue.” Morelli sighed, pulled out a cigar, and lit it. “I gotta hand it to you, Trey, you really do have balls. I honestly do like you. It saddens me that you have to die tonight. We could have been allies.”
“We would never have been allies.”
“But if you’d just agreed to give it a shot, you wouldn’t be about to die, your territory wouldn’t soon be invaded, and your other pack mates wouldn’t be given the option of joining me or dying.” Morelli shrugged. “You only have yourself to blame. But while your death will sadden me, I really am looking forward to taking over that territory of yours.”
A growl rumbled out of Trick. “We won’t be the ones who die here tonight,” he warned as he and his pack mates shed their clothes, ready to shift. Sure, they were outnumbered and injured. But they were also filled with the need for vengeance. For Trick and his wolf, this fight was personal. And now that the motherfucker effectively stood between Trick and his mate when she needed him, there wasn’t a chance in hell that Morelli would survive this fight.
Morelli took another drag on his cigar and then sat on the step, settling to watch the show. Wolves sat on either side of him like sentries. “Can’t say I agree with you on that one, Trick. It really was nice knowing you all.” He signaled the waiting wolves, and then they were scrabbling down the walls.
Trick shifted. With his pack mates around him, the wolf charged at the other pack, paws thudding into the dirt. Colliding, the packs brutally slashed at each other.
There was growling, snarling, and yelping as they battled. Claws scored deep. Teeth bit hard. Blood sprayed and splattered. Dust and dirt clouded the air, causing eyes to itch and nostrils to tingle.
Adrenaline pumped through Trick’s wolf, helping him ignore the injuries from the crash. He raged as one enemy clawed at his flank while another attacked from the front. The wolf fought them both—lashed out with his big paws, snapped his powerful jaws, slammed his large body into theirs.
One attacker toppled over. The wolf pounced and tore into his throat, letting blood gush into his mouth. He didn’t take time to enjoy the victory. He whirled and lunged at his other opponent with a snarl.
The enemies were strong. Sneaky. Agile. But they hadn’t been trained to fight. Lacked the stamina and speed that the wolf and his pack mates had. Still they fought, determined. The Phoenix wolves showed no mercy. Never hesitated.
The scents of fear and rage fed the wolf’s bloodlust. As he took down yet another enemy, a heavy weight barreled into the wolf’s side, sending him crashing into a stone slab. His vision blurred. The world tilted.
His opponent was on him in a flash. The wolf swiped out his paw, clawing at his attacker’s muzzle, sinking his claws deep. Warm blood spurted. The enemy jerked back with a yelp. Taking advantage, the wolf quickly righted himself. They both pounced.
The wolf hurt. Claws and teeth ripped through skin, tore muscle, and scraped bone. His opponent was brutal. He fought just as brutally. Each yelp of pain and spray of blood from his enemy spurred the wolf on. Paws repeatedly attempted to grab the wolf’s neck and wrestle him to the ground. The wolf fought every attempt.
It was hard not to be distracted by his mate’s fear—and his fear for her. But he had to shelve it, just as he shelved his pain. His focus needed to be on the enemy in front of him, who tore yet another strip out of the wolf’s side.
With a snarl of rage, the wolf lunged. He wrestled the enemy to the ground and used a rear paw to slice open his belly while he bit down on his throat. Under him the body went lax and the heart thudded to a stop.
Triumph flooded the wolf. He leaped to his feet in time to watch his Alpha pin an enemy flat on its back and clamp his jaws around a throat he quickly he tore out. The wolf growled his approval.
He took a moment to look around. Through the dust clouds, he saw the savaged bodies sprawled on the ground, throats torn out, bellies slashed open. None belonged to his pack mates. They—
He heard a familiar yelp. Turned to see his pack mate, “Ryan,” being savagely raked by two enemies. One of the scents wrenched a snarl out of him. Morelli.
Laughing hysterically, Cruz said, “I fired at your feet on purpose, in case you’re wondering. I didn’t miss.”
Frankie’s wolf bared her teeth. “Then why bother shooting at all?”
“Once I kill you, it’s over. I’m enjoying your fear. There’s power in causing such fear in another person.”
“Christopher wouldn’t have wanted this,” Lydia said, shaking her head sadly.
“But he’ll forgive it,” said Cruz. “He loved me, like I loved him.”
Frankie snickered, an angry flush marking her cheeks. “You can stop with this bullshit about how much you loved Christopher. You killed him, and then you framed him for my mother’s murder.”
His eyes hardened. “I wouldn’t have had to if Caroline had just left like she was supposed to,” he snapped, defensive. “She di
dn’t care that she was making him live a lie. Didn’t care that he wouldn’t have been happy with her in the long run.” He shook his head madly. “She fooled him into thinking they were true mates. But I knew that wasn’t true. I told her that. I tried to reason with her, tried to make her see that she didn’t belong here, just like her parents and her brother did. She said I was crazy and that Christopher would never be mine. Before I even thought about it, I’d pulled out the gun.”
As Frankie looked down the barrel of this gun, muscles tight with fear, she had a pretty good idea of how Caroline had felt.
“Oh, she changed her tune then,” he went on with a chuckle. “Promised she’d leave and take you with her if I’d just put the gun down. I believed her. I was going to lower it. But then she dived at me with that damn knife, knocking the gun out of my hand. The next thing I knew, I was stabbing her in the chest with her own knife. But she was making too much noise, so I had to shut the bitch up.”
Frankie’s chest went tight as she pictured it—her mother bleeding, struggling, gasping for breath, scared out of her mind as big hands squeezed her throat. Frankie wanted to kill this motherfucker so bad. “Why kill him? Why?”
“He must have felt her pain through their bond, because he barged inside. She was dead by then, and he was weaving all over the place—the breaking of the mating bond hit him so hard, he could barely walk, let alone think straight. I talked to him, told him that her death was for the best, but it was like he couldn’t even see me. He just kept sobbing her name, begging her to wake up. He thought he could save her. Pulled the knife out of her chest and tried CP fucking R.”
And in doing so, thought Frankie, he’d gotten Caroline’s blood all over him.
“Then he seemed to snap out of it. He twisted and grabbed the gun I’d dropped on the floor. I knew he’d shoot me. He wasn’t thinking straight, you see. I came up behind him and gripped the hand holding the gun. I tried wrestling it from him. He might have overpowered me if he wasn’t weak and disoriented from the breaking of the bond.
“He wasn’t supposed to die. You hear me? He wasn’t. I just twisted his hand so that he was pointing the gun at his own temple. I did it to get his attention. To make him stop, think, and listen. To make him realize that he didn’t want to hurt me. But he kept on struggling and . . . it just went off. And then he was dead.”
Lydia whimpered, and Frankie risked a quick glance at her. The female’s body was trembling, and her breathing was quick and shallow. God, they needed to get out of there. Frankie’s muscles twitched with the need to act—to fight, run, hide, lunge, anything.
An ominous groan of wood made her stomach churn. The cabin shuddered, and dust sifted down through the cracks in the wooden beams of the ceiling, hitting her face and creeping down her collar. She couldn’t even bat at it. If she moved her hands, he’d fire.
The building was becoming more and more unstable by the minute. Every now and then she’d hear something twist, crack, or splinter. It was going to collapse, and then they’d all be trapped down there—that was, if they weren’t immediately killed by the impact.
There were other noises too. She could hear people outside—running around, shouting, and hopefully doing fucking something. Wanting to keep Cruz distracted, she said, “And you were heartbroken by Christopher’s death. So damn heartbroken that you confessed to the crimes. Oh no, wait, you blamed it all on him.” She ignored his growl. “Why didn’t you kill me too?”
“I would have,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were there at first. But then I turned and found you standing in the doorway. I wasn’t sure how much you’d seen, so I told you that your daddy killed her and himself and that I was here to get help. But then you ran, and I knew you’d seen something. People crashed inside—they’d heard the gunshot. I didn’t have time to go after you.” He tilted his head. “I don’t know why you never said my name and told people what you saw. Maybe your little mind just wanted to block it out. Maybe you didn’t know which of the triplets I was.”
Maybe she’d been experiencing the same choking, incapacitating, logic-stealing fear that was riding her now. It wasn’t just fear for herself and Lydia, it was fear for Trick. Frankie took a deep, controlled breath. God, she needed to think, plan, and—
Frankie heard the scrape of wood and a muffled curse. Someone was trying to clear the mess blocking the door, she thought. Hope briefly sparked in her belly . . . until she realized that Cruz had heard it too.
He roared. “If anyone tries to come in here to save these bitches, I’ll shoot their fucking faces off!”
Silence.
More dust slipped through the cracks in the ceiling and poured down on them. Squinting, he coughed, putting a fist to his mouth, lowering his hand for just a moment. It was the opening Frankie needed. She leaped at him and reached for the gun.
Flattening his ears, the wolf sprang at “Morelli.” With a renewed vigor, he slashed and bit as he fought. By now blood matted his fur, just as dirt muddied it. His rake wounds burned. His ravaged ear stung. His ribs—still sore from the crash—hurt with each heave of his chest.
Pain and blood loss were slowing him down. He didn’t care. His opponent would die. He would howl in agony. He would—
Something thudded into the wolf’s stomach. No. His mate’s stomach. An echo of her pain rippled through him. The wolf’s heart jumped. Panicked, he froze. His opponent took advantage and slammed into him. The wolf crashed to the ground, vulnerable, and—
Howls rang through the air, and then a number of wolves were running down the sloped walls. Not his pack mates, the wolf quickly realized. Their allies.
His enemy fled, taking him by surprise. The wolf jumped to his feet and pursued him, who scrambled over piles of rubble, kicking up dust. The wolf sneezed and growled, eyes itchy with the dust. He didn’t let it stop him.
He kept chasing his opponent. Wove through the construction cones. Ducked under the ropes. Leaped over wooden pallets. Hopped over wires. Almost crashed into scaffolding.
Pebbles and gravel dug into his paws. He ignored the pain and the wooziness. Kept running and running. His enemy slipped on a loose piece of shale, lost his footing. That was all the wolf needed. He lunged, maneuvered the other wolf onto his back, and—
Jaws clamped around the wolf’s leg and heaved him aside, allowing his opponent to leap to his feet and race away. Growling, the wolf spun and tackled the interferer onto his back. He delivered the killing bite, tasted blood. Dark satisfaction would have filled the wolf, but panic for his mate was still riding him.
He backed off the corpse, breaths sawing in and out of his heaving chest. He glanced around, searching for “Morelli.” Most of the other enemies had been taken down. He shook his fur, ridding himself of dust and dirt.
A sudden rumble filled the air, followed by the heavy scent of exhaust. The wolf whirled, narrowed his eyes. His opponent, back in his human form, was inside a truck. The engine revved. Something beeped. And then the truck charged him.
The wolf ran with the truck hot on his heels. He made a sharp turn. Tires screeched as the truck tried to follow. “Morelli” made the turn, but it slowed him down.
The wolf repeated the pattern. Ran. Sharply turned. Evaded and slowed the truck. On the third run, the truck didn’t turn fast enough. It clipped a crane. The large piece of equipment shook. Wobbled. Then toppled on top of the truck.
Trick leaped to the surface, wincing as every injury on his body blazed with agony. He hobbled to the truck, dragged a dazed Morelli out of the driver’s seat, and tossed him on the ground. The other shifters gathered around Morelli, some still in their wolf forms. All were breathing hard and covered in bites, rake marks, and blood. And all were glaring at the bastard with hatred and lethal intent in their eyes.
“I wanted to be the one to kill you,” Trick told him. He’d dreamed of it, fantasized about it, planned just how much pain he’d exact on Morelli. But right then, vengeance didn’t seem so important. Not when the pull to b
e with Frankie was so much more powerful.
“Is that so?” Morelli didn’t try to rise. He shot nervous glances at the growling wolves, eyes hard, chest heaving.
“Yeah. I wanted to take my time with you, make you suffer long and hard. But I don’t have the time for that, and there’s no fucking way I’ll give you a swift execution. Tonight, three of my pack mates and several of my allies could have died. Our mates would probably have died along with us. You would have killed other members of my pack—including the pups—and then stolen our territory. So I’d say all these wolves here have the right to make you bleed.” As one, the wolves leaped at him.
Trick turned his back as Morelli screamed and gargled while the wolves growled and snarled. He had something much more important on his mind. “I gotta get out of here,” he told Trey, who was currently being healed by Ally. “Frankie’s been shot.”
“Shot?” echoed Trey.
Not giving a shit that he’d be leaving them an SUV short, Trick hiked up the rough, sloped walls. Each step he took hurt like a bitch, pulling on his rake wounds and sending pain blazing up and down his fractured leg.
“Wait!” Ally called out. He didn’t stop, but—uninjured—she easily caught up to him and put a hand on his arm, sending healing energy trickling through him as she spoke. “Taryn should be with her by now, Trick.”
“Taryn?”
“Yes. She called us after she got Ryan’s alert—our territory was closer to your location, so she asked us to go to you. She wanted to get to Frankie. Apparently Cam called Taryn to tell her that Cruz was keeping Frankie and Lydia trapped in the basement of her old cabin. If she’s been shot, Taryn will heal her.”
Reaching the top of the incline, Trick made a beeline for the nearest vehicle. “She’s hurt and she’s scared. Taryn hasn’t healed her, which means Cruz still has her at what I’m assuming is fucking gunpoint, considering she’s been shot.” Trick spit on the ground, grimacing at the tastes of sand and blood. At least his pain had lessened. “I need a phone so I can call Taryn.”
Just as Ally handed him her phone, the others joined them.
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