“You’re not people. You’re monsters,” he croaked through bloodied lips and broken teeth.
Owen tensed beside her, and Clara grasped his arm as he lunged. “Why haven’t you killed him yet,” he snarled.
Vadik turned to face them both. His eyes flashed gold and he bared his teeth. Even human, the man was extremely intimidating.
She didn’t think Owen would stop, but he did. To her relief, he backed down from the much bigger man.
Vadik turned back to the hunter. “How do you get out?”
She sucked in a breath and even Owen’s heart slowed just slightly. She hadn’t considered how the hunter would get in and out of the grounds.
“I can shift and rip your arms off one at a time, or you can fucking tell me how to get out of this place.”
“Wait,” the hunter begged. He fumbled at his front shirt pocket. “This key opens a grated door at the top of the cliff on the north side of the grounds. It’s on the ground.”
He snatched the key and dropped the hunter to the ground with a thud. “He’s all yours,” he breathed. “I’m going back for Andrea. Meet me there. Fast.” He turned to run and then stopped. “Be sure and bring his gun. Even if you kill him.”
“Wait. I told you how to get out. You said—” The human’s eyes were wide with fear and his heart thumped erratically in his chest.
As much as she didn’t like death, his was imminent and necessary.
Owen grabbed the hunter’s rifle from the ground, manipulated something on it and raised the muzzle at the hunter. “Bet you never thought your prey would kill you with your own rifle.”
Clara shut her eyes as the crack of the shot cut its way through the quiet of the night, and tore through the hunter’s body with a sickening thud.
She didn’t need to see to know he was dead. Clara slowly opened her eyes again, careful to avoid looking where the hunter had been standing. She’d seen enough death in her lifetime. Another body didn’t need to be added to the multitude of images already swimming in her brain.
“It had to be done. It was him or us.”
She nodded and gulped in a breath. “I know.” She bent to pick up the hunter’s backpack. “Let’s get back to Vadik and Andrea. Do you think Gabriel already got out?”
“Probably.” Owen slung the rifle strap over his back and nodded. “Let’s go. He’s got the key.”
He set the pace and she was glad when they finally slid over the last embankment and down to where Vadik was sitting with Andrea draped in his arms. Clara rushed toward the big Russian and reached for Andrea’s wrist.
Vadik snarled and she pulled her arm back. Tears rolled down his cheeks, but his magick aura was strong, reminding her of the level her father commanded. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. It’s just. Every touch hurts. I can feel everything she feels. The shot feels like it tore my arm off too. I can feel her dying.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m going numb.”
Clara gasped. “Is it a spell? Like the wolf spell Adrian used to turn you?”
He cocked his head at her, raising his eyebrows, and then nodded. “We’re bonded mates. That’s what she called it.”
Clara’s heart pounded. She’d known there was more. Could feel that something was missing. Mates. She wanted that with Owen.
Owen touched Clara’s shoulder and knelt. “She has to shift. Tell her she has to try now that it’s safe. The magick can heal her faster.”
Vadik shook his head and handed Owen the hunter’s key. “She’s almost gone. Please help me get her to the Rangers. They have to be here by now.”
Clara stood. “Let’s go. Can you still carry her?”
He rose from the ground, clutching Andrea’s limp form. The female’s heartbeat was present, but it was very slow.
Owen slung the hunter’s rifle over his shoulder, and Clara scooped up the backpack again.
Vadik followed quietly behind them as Owen led the small group through the trees and up a slight incline. Minutes dragged and Clara couldn’t help but focus on Andrea’s flagging heartbeat. They needed to hurry. The key needed to work.
They stepped out of the trees into the barren clearing that followed the entire length of the hunting ground fence. “I’ve never been up this far. But the cliff edge is just there,” Owen said, pointing to where the fence cornered sharply.
Clara could hear the waves from the ocean and see the glitter of moonlight reflecting on them in the distance. She jogged forward, scanning the fence and the ground. Nothing but sand and chain link. Then she saw the square bit of iron protruding from the sandy soil. A large grate covered a stairwell. “Here,” she shouted, waving them both over from the area they were searching. She felt around in the dark until her fingers found a small round indention and a slot for a key. “This has to be it.”
Owen sank to the ground behind her and followed her hand to the slot. It fit. He turned the key and the glorious sound of pins turning followed quickly after.
She smiled and her heart jumped in her chest. The grate shifted under her hands, sliding open.
Owen turned the key back and pulled it out.
“Can we get out,” Vadik asked from behind them.
Clara nodded. “Yes.” She pushed a little harder, sliding the grate further back.
“I’ll go first,” Owen said, motioning her to return to his side. He pulled the rifle from his shoulder and prepped it for a shot as he descended the stairwell and walked forward. “Come on.”
She followed behind Owen, and Vadik was barely a pace-length behind her. Andrea’s heart still beat. She was one tough lady.
Clara traced her fingers along the wall as they walked. It was pitch black in the tunnel, but she could see a slight glow of natural moonlight ahead where the exit had to be.
Owen sped his pace and they reached the next stairwell. At the top another grate barred their exit.
Clara’s stomach twisted. What if they couldn’t get it open? After all this…what if they still were going to have to climb that damn fence?
Owen slung the rifle over his shoulder and felt around the grate.
“Do you feel anything?” she asked, leaning toward his shoulder.
His hand stopped and he retrieved the key from where he’d been holding between his lips. “Found the key slot. Figures the asshole would have both grates locked.” He slipped the key inside and it turned easily. The grate above his head shifted backward with little effort.
They were free.
Owen climbed out onto the hard ground and pulled Clara out of the tunnel after him. He waited for Vadik and took Andrea from the Russian wolf’s arms. “It’ll be easier if I carry her,” he said. “You take the gun.” He shifted the weapon off his shoulder and into the man’s hands and started up the hill as fast as he could manage.
Vadik’s hands fisted around the giant weapon as he ran ahead. It wasn’t made for up-close combat, and the hole it’d blown in the hunter was evidence of the kind of damage it could do.
Or the hole in Andrea’s arm. Owen steeled himself and looked at the carnage near her shoulder, under the bandage. It was a mass of open flesh, muscle, blood. He’d never seen a wound like it.
The hunter must’ve been close to them when he’d shot her. A good portion of the meaty part of her arm was just gone. She needed medical attention, although she might not survive, even with a hospital ten feet away.
“We need to get to the guard station,” Owen said to Clara as she jogged beside him. “There’s a first aid kit. And if I know Rossi, there are more weapons there.”
“What about these?” She pulled at the big metal collar that hung around her neck. “What if we leave the island? Will they still be able to hurt us?”
“We’ll get those off, too.” He tried to sound confident, but the truth was, he wasn’t sure how to get the collars off. He and Gabriel had spent a good portion of their time in between hunts trying to find things to help get the collars off. They didn’t appear to have
any seams, and they were damn near indestructible.
Of course, they hadn’t had any tools except the electricity of the fences, and the rocks in their cages. There might be a weapon or tool in the guard station that would do some good.
If the electricity was off, then that would keep the collars from working on the island. But who knew what kind of range they had. Yes, getting the collars off had to be a priority.
And saving Andrea.
Then getting off the island.
Vadik held up his hand and halted them, holding the gun up to his face. “I see someone moving, over there, through the brush.”
“Who is it?” Clara’s hand was on his arm and Owen shifted Andrea’s weight to keep the bloody appendage away.
“It looks like one of the guards.” Vadik pulled in a breath. “I could take him out right now.”
She lunged forward, pulling the gun barrel down toward the ground. “Don’t. Please, don’t!”
Vadik’s anger was etched on his face, even in the moonlight, when he turned around. “What the hell?”
Owen stepped up, putting himself and Andrea in front of Clara. “Hold on, now. It’s probably her brother.”
“How does she know that?” His chest expanded and he took another step. “They can’t all be your brother.”
Clara’s eyebrows pulled together and she jumped around Owen’s barricade. “They are all my brothers. All of them. You can’t kill them.”
Vadik’s jaw dropped and he backed away from her, stumbling on something. His hand went to his mouth. “The guards are your brothers?”
Owen started to walk toward the guard station, leaving them to fumble around in their fighting if that was what they had to do. He didn’t care about killing the guards. As long as it wasn’t Rossi, he didn’t care. Getting Andrea to the first aid kit was more important.
“Wait,” Vadik said, catching up with long strides. “You knew this?”
“That’s what Rossi does here. He…breeds.” He spat out the word like the distasteful horror it was. He didn’t like to think about Clara being raised by a man who bred his own army.
Vadik almost kept up, but he would need time to digest the weight of what Rossi was doing on the island. They’d all had to have that moment in the past. Everyone he’d ever seen who made it into the cages and didn’t know what was happening. They all had to hyperventilate, or get angry, or throw up.
It was how normal people responded to the sickness of someone like Adrian Rossi. He’d worked for the man for years before he knew what was really happening on the island. Owen had learned the truth for the first time while wearing that metal collar, just like Vadik.
Up the hill, the black shadow of the guard station still cut into the night, although it was barely lit by the moonlight. How different everything looked without light.
Clara ran ahead and tried the side door. It gave way and opened easily.
Owen sighed in relief and slowed his pace. “Find the first aid kit,” he called out, and she burst into the building.
Vadik took Andrea out of his arms and cooed at her, “Don’t worry, love. You’re going to be just fine.” But the unease in his voice was too obvious. He didn’t believe that any more than Owen did.
For a wolf—in human form or not—to take this long to stop bleeding...
Owen had never seen it before. Of course, he’d only been a wolf for two years, but he’d seen all sorts of superficial flesh wounds heal in a matter of hours. Like Vadik’s. But Andrea’s wound wasn’t healing like a wolf should.
They needed to get her off the island.
“What about your Ranger buddies?” Owen asked, following Vadik into the guard station.
“They’re here on the island.” He laid Andrea on the wood floor and reached for supplies that Clara was handing him. “I heard the gunfire.”
“How were you supposed to find them?”
His jaw worked and he pressed a cloth to Andrea’s wound, tensing himself as she convulsed. “We were supposed to meet them on the beach.”
“So you didn’t have a plan B?”
“We didn’t plan on getting caught, no.” Vadik hissed out a pained groan as he lifted the cloth from Andrea’s shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” Owen asked, moving forward to take something or help.
“She’s my mate.” He pulled open a brown bottle and poured liquid on a new cloth Clara had handed him. “We have a bond that forces me to feel what she feels.”
“A mate, like a wolf thing?”
Clara’s eyes met Owen’s when he said the words out loud. Mate. That’s the word he’d been looking for, for twenty-four days, to explain exactly how he felt about her.
Like she was his other half. His mate.
Yes. That was the word.
“I can feel her emotions, but I also feel her pain.” Vadik sucked in a breath as the disinfected cloth settled on the edge of Andrea’s wound. He groaned and gritted his teeth. “It’s the blessing and the curse of being mates.”
Andrea moaned on the floor.
He settled a hand onto her forehead. “It’s going to be all right, love.”
The click of a gun behind him made Owen’s body lock. A cold muzzle pressed into his back and his hands went up instinctively.
Clara let out a little squeal, and Vadik looked up.
From over his shoulder, a hard voice said, “All of you, freeze, or he dies.”
Chapter Nine
“Damon, please.” Clara held up her hand. “You don’t have to do this. We’re all going to be free of him. You can leave this place. We can all leave.”
“How did you get out? Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” Damon’s eyebrows rose, and he frowned; the light in his eyes dark with fear and something else. “There’s nothing out there for us. Our father is our world and they’re taking him away from us.”
“Our father kills people. Kills our siblings. Kills our mothers,” Clara whispered, a tear fell, burning a trail down her cheek. “Please, Damon.” She risked a step forward and his hard gaze bored a hole through her.
Blood pooled around his foot on the wooden plank floor and Clara winced at the nasty gashes showing through his ripped pants—almost like he’d been bitten.
“Men are here. They’re killing us. Ricardo died on the beach. Hemi is bleeding out as we speak.” Damon limped forward a step, shoving the barrel of his AK47 harder against Owen.
“And I’m sure you didn’t shoot at them first,” Vadik hissed.
“They are the intruders,” Damon snarled. “I was protecting my home.” He glanced at Andrea and shook his head. “You should put her out of her misery. She’ll never be the same, even if she does survive.”
Vadik’s eyes glowed yellow and magick billowed in waves through the small building. “Threaten her again, and you’ll feel every second of pain this world has to offer.”
Clara fought to remain upright. She’d never felt so much emotion, almost like Vadik was channeling his pain across his wolf spirit’s magick.
Damon staggered a little under the weight of Vadik’s anger, but Owen didn’t seem affected. Something about Owen and Vadik was different than other wolves on the island. Perhaps because they’d both been turned, not born? Even her father didn’t command this much strength through his wolf.
She took another step toward Damon and touched his outstretched arm. Her brother looked so haggard. So tired. He’d been the one tending to them in the cages, but he hadn’t spoken to her the entire time. Never made eye contact with her.
The muzzle of his rifle moved, stopping as it lined up with Clara’s face.
She breathed deeply to calm her racing heart. He wouldn’t shoot her. Underneath all the pain and misery, they were siblings. “We can leave together. Help us.”
Damon shook his head. His dark curls were heavy with sweat and sand. Blood ran down one angular cheek from a cut on his forehead. “The others know I’m a guard. I am their enemy.”
“We all have our burdens to bear.
The blame for all of this is on our father. Not us,” Clara continued. “Help us.”
His honey-brown eyes, just like their father’s, met her gaze and he gradually let the rifle drop. “You won’t let them kill me?”
Air rushed from Clara’s lungs. There was the boy she’d grown up with again. The one who’d come running into the kitchen to steal treats. The one who’d laughed and played her in the nursery when they were small. “I won’t. I promise.” She turned to Vadik. “I need you to calm whatever it is you’re channeling.”
The big Russian narrowed his golden eyes at her, magick slammed against her chest, but she held her ground. Seconds ticked by.
Another groan from his mate on the floor distracted him. The glow disappeared and he nodded, turning his focus back to Andrea. The tension from his magick instantly dissipated with it.
“I’ve never felt a wolf do that before. Even father, when he’s angry, hasn’t ever done that.”
“Stop contemplating the universe asshole,” Vadik growled. “If you’re going to help, fucking help.”
“Vadik!”
Owen turned around, snatching the rifle from Damon’s hands before her brother could react. “Vadik’s right. You need to make a choice right now. Which side are you on? Your father’s?”
Damon shook his head and reached into his pants pocket.
Clara stared at the strange metal square he produced.
“Here.” He held it out to her. “The collars are enchanted, and this key is the only way to get them off. But none of us can leave. We all have implants that detonate if we leave the island. They stop our heart.”
She covered her mouth with a hand. She stared at the metal square and then at Owen. After everything. All this time. All this fighting…for nothing.
“I want to be on your side, Clara. It’s just that we’re going to die if we try to leave.”
“No you won’t,” Vadik rumbled. “That’s why we blew up the power stations. To turn off the failsafe on your implants.”
Footsteps thudded outside the building and Clara sprang toward Damon. The door shattered and huge men in tons of gear, armed to the teeth with rifles poured into the room.
Broken Wolf: Moonbound Series, Book Seven Page 19