by AJ Blackburn
One down, I send to the boys.
Two, comes Hunter's reply.
Three left, Ryder answered. I move back to the right, coming behind the next hunter, but this one is quicker than the last. He turns and gets a few shots off. Trouble with guns is, when your target is too close and coming at you, they are harder to hit. My front paws hit him in his chest and send him sprawling, his gun skidding across the forest floor as my jaws clamp down on his throat. Blood fills my mouth as I feel and hear him gargle his final breath. I jerk my head to the side when I hear more shots go off. Silence. My powerful grey wolf strides through the trees towards me, blood dripping down from his jaw to stain his front legs. Then a black wolf joins him. Shifting back, I wipe the back of my hand across my mouth and spit out the blood. Gross.
“Well, that worked better than I thought it would,” I state as the boys shift back and do the same as me to expel the blood from their mouths.
“The others shall be on higher alert now,” Ryder says. He's like some military warrior.
“Round two.” This time, I’m bait. Shifting back we move towards the warehouse again.
Chained, muzzled, hobbled. Are they that incompetent that two weakened wolves scare them so much? Laughable. Elliott and I are pulled out of our cages and out of the room. A few hobbling steps down the corridor and I start to feel stronger already. The suppression caused by the wolfsbane in that room is much stronger than I’d thought it was. I press into Elliott and he presses back, the feel of him against me with no bars is amazing, but I don’t have too long to soak him in.
I’m coming, Phoenix. I stumble in my hobbles. Gus gives a hard yank on the chain around my neck, unknowing the reason I’d stumbled is because it’s the first time I’ve heard my sister’s voice in weeks.
EMBER! I yell as loud as I possibly can through our connection, but my voice bounces back at me. We are dragged into another room. The blinding light glares off the white walls, the smells of cleaning liquids and hatred saturates the air. Cassandra has her back to us clanging bottles of God knows what, and I’m not planning on sticking around to find out.
Are you ready sweetheart? Elliott’s voice is smooth against my mind.
Yes. I whine shaking my head side-to-side, then I begin to stagger. Firstly, to the right then I stagger to the left, bashing into Elliott, who in turn crashes into Dave and sends him backwards. Gus tugs hard on my chain again, I go limp and slump to the floor. There’s a commotion going on around me, but I stay still, taking tiny shallow breaths.
“What the fuck, did you tranquillise her?” Gus is bellowing, he comes closer and rattles my chains. I lie there, limp on the floor. I can hear Elliott’s wolf whining and scratching the floor fighting to get to me, all part of the act. Gus kneels by me, baffled as to what has happened. Dumb shit.
“Take off her muzzle, this will bring her around if she's passed out.” Cassandra comes closer. The clip clicks open. My head lulls back down to connect with the floor. I slit my eyes and I see Cassandra’s hand appear. She has a dropper of brown liquid coming towards me. I move with such speed and strength, I snap the hobbles around my legs and latch onto her arm. She screams and it vibrates around us all. Suddenly everyone is moving, but the room is too small and bodies are crashing into one another. The potions and vials of liquid on the metal table crash and smash to the floor. Cassandra is still screaming as I drag her by her arm across the room. I dump her in the corner and slash open her stomach, bitch deserves a slow painful death. Running back, I barrel into Gus who has Elliott around the throat. Grabbing his ankle, I twist my head sharply until I feel the bones crack under my jaws, and he lets go of Elliott to grab his own leg. I rip off Elliott’s muzzle with my mouth and he scrambles to get the chains from around his neck. A gun clicks behind me. Shit.
“Don’t move, bitch,” Gus demands. I go to turn, and the shot rings out around the room. Fire blazes in my hind leg. The motherfucker shot me! Adrenaline is running through my veins though and I’ll soon start to heal. I turn to face the gun, the hatred seethes out of Gus.
“You all need putting down. That stupid fucker, Belmont, thinks he can make something to control you and bend you to his will. Stupid fucker is all about money. When will he learn that you can’t be tamed or controlled. You beasts need to be killed off.” He spits the last of his words. Okay, he hadn’t just joined the crazy train, he’s steering the fucking thing. I really have no idea what this guy’s problem is, but his hatred of shifters feels more like a personal vendetta rather than the fact he just likes being a hunter.
Elliott has lost his patience and he rushes Gus; jaws snapping, teeth gleaming, shots fly everywhere as the gun goes off again and again, thankfully missing Elliott. His jaws sink deep into Gus's throat, but before he can rip it out a table smashes him over the back. Stuart. He’s up and staggering around, blood runs down his trouser leg from a gunshot wound in his thigh. Elliott turns and savages Stuart, I turn about the room to find Dave. I’m ready to fight the evil bastard, but I find him slumped on the floor, shot dead by his own friend. Well, acquaintance? At least dumb fuck and dip shit are out of the picture, and judging by the blood gushing from Gus, he will soon follow. Cassandra is still sitting clutching her stomach in the corner, growing paler by the second.
Elliott, come on let’s go! I push against my skin, after a few attempts I’m standing on my very human feet. I make a grab for the door.
Swinging it open, I come face-to-face with one of the last people I expected to see. Someone I had scented earlier. Someone I didn’t expect to see here at all, let alone with a dart gun in his hand. I’m frozen, too shocked by this turn of events to do anything about it. This betrayal cuts deeper than I would have ever imagined.
The red feathered dart sinks into Elliott’s neck and he falls to the blood-soaked floor. He’s out cold. The male smirks at me right before his fist connects with my face and darkness envelops me.
Five left. With my sides heaving, I run next to Hunter and Ryder, right at the last hunters, who are now firing off guns and bolts like it’s some kind of shooting range. Firing in fear and missing us every time. Stupid idiots. We deal with them quickly and shift back to our human skins. I gulp oxygen into my burning lungs for a minute. Hunter and Ryder are doing the same. Then suddenly a giggle works its way out of my mouth. “It actually worked! Oh my God. I cannot believe the three of us took out thirty hunters, and none of us are really that hurt.” I clap my hands excitedly. We have a few scrapes and bumps, but none of us are shot or bleeding out. Bonus.
Hunter shares in my amusement and comes over to me, catching my chin between his finger and thumb as he tilts my head back.
“Baby, you were amazing.” Then he’s kissing me, his tongue driving into my mouth to tangle with my own. Someone clearing their throat snaps us apart.
“I know I was amazing, but please don’t kiss me like that, Hunter.” Amusement sparkles in Ryder’s green eyes. We’re all a little buzzed with adrenaline. We are so close now. Phoenix will soon be home and safe. Hearing the slamming of a van door followed by tires squealing as it’s speeding away from the warehouse, I snort. Cowards are fleeing from us, and rightly so.
“Think they have gotten scared enough that they all left?” I know I’m hoping, but you never know, miracles happen when you least expect them.
We make our way around to the side of the building where I’d seen a blue door earlier, we find it quickly. Hunter gives it a hard kick, it swings open, and in we go. Keeping close to the wall as we creep our way down, it feels like we just keep on going further down and down. I catch a whiff of a familiar scent, but there’s no way he’s here. He would have come to help us in the woods, wouldn’t he? He knows I’m out searching for Phoenix again, but he didn’t know we were here and breaking in though. Unless he has managed to get in before us, but I doubt it very much.
“Anyone else a little freaked by the fact there doesn’t seem to be anybody here?” I ask, sandwiched between two walls of male testosterone as
I walk.
“It’s very strange,” Ryder replies from in front of me.
“Maybe you were right, Ember, and we scared them all away,” Hunter says from behind.
All three of us freeze at a garbled, pained murmuring sound just a few doors away. Edging closer, not making a sound, we swing the door open. Chaos. It’s the only word to describe what must have happened in this room. Three bodies of men lie in pools of their own blood, a woman in the corner clutching her torn open stomach together and fumbling with something next to her, and the last body in the room is a wolf. He lies still on the blood-soaked floor, the crimson liquid seeping into his fur, but I’m sure he’s alive. Well, I hope he is. Ryder goes over to him and lays a hand softly on his ribs, after a few seconds he confirms it. “He’s alive.” I let out a breath I didn’t realise I’ve been holding. Ryder lifts the wolf's head and pulls something red from him. Red feathers. A tranquilliser dart.
My heart is sinking very rapidly because over all the blood and other smells assaulting my nose in this room of carnage, there is one I know above them all. Phoenix. She has been in this room. And now she isn’t here. A garbled, blood wet laugh comes from the corner.
“He…took…her…” More blood spills from her lips. “You…won’t…find…her.” Cough, more blood. She smiles with crimson teeth, lifts her hand and fires a tiny gun. Well, it looks more like something out of ‘Men In Black’ to me. A tiny capsule of green liquid hits Hunter in the bicep, its sharp end embeds into his skin, he pulls it out quickly, but the green liquid is gone.
“What the fuck? You crazy bitch! What was that?” He storms across the room to her. By the time he has strode across the tiny space, her hand flops to the floor and her head lolls to the side, eyes open. I hear her heart stutter and then it stops.
“How do you feel? Do you feel like you’re going to pass out? Anything? Hunter!” He turns back to me.
“I feel fine, baby. She was just some bat-shit crazy bitch. And now she’s a dead, bat-shit crazy bitch.” He shrugs and comes back to me.
“Now what?” I ask, totally spent and deflated. We had been so close. Yet now we are back to square one.
“Now, we take the wolf and get the fuck out of this hell hole. Hunter, contact Dane, he needs to come and do what he does best and light this place up. With all the dead inside.” With that Ryder gathers the wolf off the floor and heads out the door, Hunter and I follow right behind him.
I’m sick of waking up bound. Like seriously some people love this; being gagged, bound and, unable to move, and maybe under different circumstances I would get a kick out of it too, but not now. Now, as I bang around the back of a van, unable to get to my feet with my arms tied behind my back and attached to my feet, I feel like I’m being prepared for slaughter. Maybe I am, who knows what is going to happen now. The van hits a pothole and my head slams into the side of the vehicle hard, my vision blurs slightly. I have most definitely been knocked out too many times lately. How humiliating. Some badass bitch I am!
Inhaling the scents in the back of the van, mildew and rust assaults me but so does the scent of Belmont, and him. Jordan! I growl around the leather gag in my mouth. Pushing to try and partly shift, I bite down hard. I grind my canines on the leather and bite clean through it.
“Jordan, you motherfucking wanker!” I spit the curse at him. “You will pay for this, you wank stain!”
I hear him chuckle from the front cab. “No, sweet ass, someone will pay for you, or what’s left of you when I’m finished,” he taunts.
His endearment makes my skin crawl. I’m going to castrate the fucker and then make him choke on his own balls. How can he have betrayed us all like this? How has he betrayed me like this? I might have found my mates, but a part of me feels like I'm breaking. Not my heart, but my trust, and that’s something no one can ever get back. I’ve known Jordan my whole life. We have grown up together. Hell, we even lost our virginity to each other. I know we would never have mated, but I thought we were more to each other than this.
I stay quiet for the rest of the journey, plotting. We stop and Jordan opens the doors of the van, grabbing my roped ankles he slides me to him, scraping my flesh across the rusted floor. Rolling me onto my knees in front of him to face him, I’m totally at his mercy, and doesn’t that just fucking chafe my dominance. I stare directly into his eyes, unblinking. I may be bound and lower than him, but that doesn't dampen my ire. A smile twists his handsomely evil face as his right-hand shackles my chin in a vice-like grip. He looms over me, his lips merely an inch away.
“Oh, sweet ass bitch, you have got yourself into a pickle now, haven’t you?” His devilishly good-looking face is still the same, but his eyes hold a malice that shakes me to my core.
“What…happened…Jordan?” I manage to get out around his bruising grip.
Letting out a laugh he replies, “You’ll know soon enough, Phoenix. But know this. It’s. All. Your. Fault.” With each word his mouth comes closer, before crashing into mine in a kiss of punishment. I squirm and try to get away from him. When that fails, I try to bite him, but he’s waiting for it and pulls back quickly, laughing again. He has most definitely lost the plot, he wears the face of a male I’ve known and trusted for years, but he’s most definitely not the same.
Looking around the best I can at my surroundings, I take in all the landmarks I can see. The best one is a cell tower, possibly ten miles away. Jordan hauls my arse into a house that stands alone. I can hear road noise in the distance, a busy one at that. The door shuts with a deafening bang. Then silence.
“In here, wolf,” Belmont shouts from the far end of the house. Jordan drags my knees across the carpet, I let a hiss out at the bastard.
“Is there any need to be a fucking prick for the rest of your short life, Jordan?” I ask through my teeth.
“Short life?” He barks a laugh. “Why? Do you think your mates can save you now? Think your sister can get to you in time?” He spits the word sister, like the word offends him. But it isn’t the word, it’s the person, I realise. Whatever this is all about it has something to do with Ember and me.
“I’ve heard many stories of having multiple mates, I should have known you were a big enough slut to have more than one. For a time, I thought that I had convinced you to mate with me. Really, it’s all you had to do, Phoenix. I would have had the power to challenge your father and take the pack as my own. And I would have then had the power to break you to my will. You would have done as I said without a single thought.”
“Wait. What? You fancy yourself as an Alpha?” I can’t stop the laugh that flies out of me. Was he fucking kidding? He backhands me across the face so hard, I’m pretty sure a tooth cracked. Arsehole. Spitting blood on the floor, I look back up at him, just as he pulls a knife out. I gulp. I don’t trust his sanity right now to not slit my throat. Luckily, he leans closer to cut the rope attaching my hands to my feet. Then dumps me on a chair in a conservatory, re-tying my hands to the back of it, and my ankles to the legs. I test the binds, they don’t budge, of course.
“That bruise had better heal before her potential buyer gets here, wolf.” Belmont sneers at him.
Buyer? Shit, I’m running out of time. I’m stronger now that all the drugs are wearing off, but I don’t let on to him that crucial bit of information. I do, however, hope I can find some answers, from both of these cruel bastards.
“I didn’t think such a powerful hunter would lower himself down to working with a shifter.” Not asking a question, but just pointing out a fact and hoping to get the ball rolling.
“We have something in common, baby. I want your Dad and so does he.” Jordan bobs his head in Belmont’s direction. “The easiest way to get to an Alpha is through his precious girls. You might not think it Phoenix, but you mean everything to your Father, and where you go, Ember will follow. You two just can’t stay apart, especially when there is trouble, and your Father would burn the world for you both. Just like he burnt my Father!” His eyes have glazed
over and madness leaks from him, even Belmont shuffles further away, his hands clenched into fists, over and over at his sides. I have no idea what the actual fuck he is on about. Jordan had come to us after he was orphaned from his old pack. Hunters had killed them all, but his Mother had hidden him. Instead of playing along with his games, I stay silent. However, confusion must have shown on my face.
“That’s right, Phoenix. I presume you blocked that day from your memory. Innocently playing in the meadow.” He raises a brow at me, waiting for the penny to drop. Memories then assail me.
Ember and I, pouncing and playing in the long grass, making daisy chains, playing tag. Then him. He came from nowhere. He made a bee line for Ember, threw me aside when I grabbed his arm. His fingers dug into Ember’s flesh as he dragged her toward the trees, she screamed and scratched at his hand, but he just shook her harder and told her to stop wiggling. That she’s going with him. I charged him, yelling for him to get off my sister. He kicked me away like a fly.
We were eight years old, no match for a fully-grown male shifter. But as he reached the tree line, he stopped dead and grabbed my sister around the throat. His claws pricked into her soft skin and lines of crimson ran down her neck as she cried and begged him to let her go. Her tiny body trembled with fear. Our entire pack emerged from the trees, Dane in his wolf skin had stepped in front of the intruder; head low, a blood curdling, menacing growl coming from him. The crazed man’s words to my father were still clear as day.
“One more step, and I'll shred her pretty little throat.” To emphasise his words, he dug his claws in harder, making Ember scream in pain and fear.
I see Jordan through new eyes again, the resemblance is now blinding. “He was your father.” I didn’t need his confirmation, the same maddened look is staring back at me now.
“I watched you, Phoenix. Just a little girl, you snuck up behind him and slashed at his back and legs.” His tone is menacingly quiet. A wolf in ambush, readying to kill. I had.