by Anya Nowlan
“I don’t know,” she said, using the same stubborn response she’d been sticking with since the pregnancy became obvious.
“Do we really need to be discussing this now?” Arville questioned, a spark of gold in his eyes.
Apparently the tone of questioning was not sitting right with others in the room as well, not only Meredith. But that wasn’t enough to stop Rowen.
“We do, unfortunately. See, I hoped you would have the good sense to come clean to me, Meredith. If there’s one thing I don’t like, it’s a liar. And you, Miss Wilder, are a liar. I don’t tolerate people like that in my compound.”
Rowen bared his teeth for a moment in a vicious snarl and Meredith could finally see the true gold of his eyes. He revealed his werewolf so easily and while the other two scientists had shown only a hint of their animal side, Rowen gladly showed how thin the veneer between beast and man truly was.
“Careful, Rowen. You are not a part of this establishment. Simply an ally,” Pasterne said suddenly, making Rowen break his gaze with Meredith to her immense gratitude. “A trusted and appreciated one, of course!” Pasterne hurried to add as Rowen’s attention settled on him.
“Don’t forget whose house you are in, Pasterne,” Rowen growled, the threat not even thinly veiled by out in the open for all to see. “Do not forget whose generosity it is that provides you that compound, and who it is who is willing and able to do all these things that you and your scientist friends are too scared to do. Do not test my will here.”
Pasterne didn’t say a thing and by now, it was becoming intimately clear to Meredith that whatever hope she had had of getting out of this meeting with a positive outcome was gone. She could only hope that whatever came next would still mean that her son was safe and well.
“I am not a liar,” Meredith said, forcing her voice to be as clear and controlled as she could.
“You are. We’ve watched all of the tapes and we’ve traced all of your steps. It wasn’t easy but when you have an endless stable of young scientists eager to prove themselves, it doesn’t take too long to find out how one bitch thought she could lie to me,” Rowen said with an ugly sneer. “We have your formula. And you’re right, it is as good as we hoped it would be. Maybe even better. Frankly, I don’t think we need you anymore and this conversation has only confirmed this suspicion. Guards!”
Meredith could feel her world come crashing down around her. The door opened and the guards she had entered with came back inside, looking as impassive and uncaring as they usually did.
“Take Miss Wilder back to the compound. Make sure that she gets to witness how we dispose of children whose parents have disappointed us. And then, well, feel free to do whatever you please with her, as long as she ends up dead. We have no room for traitors in our midst, Meredith.”
Rowen said those last words with both Pasterne and Arville staring at him in slack-jawed disbelief and Meredith feeling how her heart was beating so fast that she thought it would break out of her chest. Tears flooded her eyes and that familiar panic was settling over her.
My baby!
“No, please! Don’t hurt my son! Kill me, but spare him! He’s just a baby,” she screamed as her guards came and yanked her up on her feet.
“Julian! You’re going too far. The Pack would never allow it,” Arville said in apparent horror.
“The Pack allows me to do what needs to be done,” Rowen growled, throwing back his vodka. “I gave her a chance. I was more than kind. Get her out of my sights.”
“No! Please! I’ll tell you anything, everything you need to know! Just spare my child!” Meredith begged as she was dragged out of the door, the glass sliding shut behind her without a word of response coming from Rowen.
“Don’t make it harder than it has to be,” one of her guards told her, not sparing her a look.
But Meredith wasn’t ready to give up without a fight. Not when it meant that she could lose everything.
Fifteen
Dice
Dice felt like he was walking on hot coals and every moment was pure agony as he waited for Meredith to reappear. In all his years of military service, secret missions and complicated ops, he’d never known himself to be the one losing his cool head. Yet now, running with Shifter Squad Nine who were by all accounts the least stable people he’d ever met, somehow he was the one who was having trouble keeping on the straight and narrow.
“They’re still talking. Wait… Now, she’s getting walked out of the room. There seems to be some kind of confusion,” Thor reported in his calm, collected voice as he watched the meeting between Meredith and the researchers take place.
Dice had no doubt that the seasoned sniper would have rather been doing it through the lens of a rifle instead of one of a camera, but their first and foremost mission had been to find out the identities of the people involved. Still, Dice was warming up to the concept of just blowing up the whole damn party and killing every Arctic-backer there by leaps and bounds.
Especially when Meredith’s safety was in question.
“What kind of confusion?” Dice hissed into the headset.
“Not sure. The researchers seem confused. Rowen looks smug, which can’t be anything good. She’s being brought down the stairs again and should re-enter the party any minute now.”
Dice’s attention snapped back to the doors through which he had seen Meredith being carted out before. He could feel every muscle in his body strain and the suit on him suddenly feel far too tight on the count of his bear itching to get out. Once again, it had to be Ryker and the rest of the team reminding him that he had to keep a lid on his bloodlust.
“Cool it, boss,” Rio noted, throwing sidelong glances around the room.
“Yeah, you stick out like a sore thumb, brother,” Ryker commented, nudging him with his elbow.
Exhaling deeply, Dice pushed the brown back in his eyes, but it was only for a fleeting moment. Meredith entered the party and the look in her eyes told him everything. Tears were brimming in her lovely blue depths and her lip quivered. This time, she didn’t even try to avoid eye-contact with him and that was all he needed to snap back into combat mode.
Something wasn’t right.
Something was really not fucking right.
“Meredith,” he whispered, swiftly trying to process the situation.
Though she didn’t try to fight herself free from her guards, the way she kept prolonged eye-contact with him, as if she were seeing him for the very last time, made all the chips fall into place for Dice. One of her guards grabbed her by the elbow and she yanked her arm free out of instinct. The man clutched her again and a deep growl emanated from Dice’s throat.
“Change of fucking plans,” he murmured, dark and threatening, and quiet enough for only his men to hear. “We’re getting her out of here.”
“What? That’s fucking insane,” Price objected immediately, and the din of chatter in Dice’s ears told him that Thor and Prowler were on Price’s side on that.
Hell, any rational being would have been. But he didn’t have time to be rational.
“We’re never going to make it out of here alive,” Ryker remarked, but his tone was contemplative, as if he was already considering options to change that.
“We’re going to have to. Extract the source, that’s the new mission,” Dice said, and before anyone could object to it, Dice took off in a run.
“Shit,” Rio said behind Dice, but the commotion that followed only confirmed that his men were on his side for this one.
Not like they had any choice. It had been obvious that the four of them had been together. If Dice ended up getting a bullet to the head then it was pretty damn certain that the rest of them were going to be given the same treatment. But Dice didn’t have time to worry about that. Every fiber of his being was telling him that he needed to get Meredith out, now. Somehow, he was certain that if he didn’t, it would be not only the end of them, but the end of her.
His bear didn’t have a single doubt
about the truthfulness of that sentiment.
Ducking into a low run, Dice made it to Meredith’s guards in a few steps. Before anyone knew what had happened, he’d elbowed one of them in the face, sweeping the legs out from underneath the tall werewolf, and flattening him on his back. With a sickening crunch, Dice’s boot connected with the man’s face and the sickening gurgle that resounded from the man was the sweetest thing Dice had heard all day, save for Meredith’s voice.
She screamed as Dice tackled the next guy, who was fumbling to grab his sidearm from the folds of his jacket. In the background, gunfire and screaming seemed to erupt like a volcano, spewing panic around them.
“Get down!” Dice yelled at Meredith, who was pale in the face and shaking, but she did as she was told.
Dice grabbed the guard’s wrist just in time for him to get a hold of his gun, and at the very last fraction of a second, Dice managed to yank his wrist back and snap it clean in half, making the gunshot whine past Meredith with only a couple of inches to spare. The animal snarl that emitted from Dice’s lips was sign enough that the man had really fucking fucked up with that move.
“That was a real fucking dumb decision,” he rasped, bending the man’s broken arm back so he was staring down the barrel of his own gun.
The wolf’s pure blue eyes managed to flash gold for only a moment before his face was reduced to a mess of blood and cartilage. Dice yanked the gun out of his hand, pulled his security pass from his belt, and took hold of Meredith’s hand, pulling her up and into a run immediately. He glanced over his shoulder to see Ryker and Rio taking out three of the guards with the assault rifles who had been closest to their position, before running after him.
Price was nowhere in sight.
Shit.
“Where’s Price?” Dice demanded, throwing caution to the wind as far as their identities were concerned.
There wasn’t going to be a lot of doubt about their Firm background after this mess, after all.
“Lost him in the confusion,” Thor said impassively, his last word marked with a gentle popping sound in the background, which turned into the deafening noise of tempered glass breaking and shattering and then countless voices screaming.
Thor had shot a guard in the eye who was aiming at Dice’s head, finally getting to use his rifle.
“You fuckers need to get out of there, fast,” Prowler commented, stress evident in his voice.
“Where’s Price!?” Dice asked again, pushing through the same doors with Meredith as the ones she’d just entered from.
“I don’t see him, he’s dropped his camera,” Prowler replied.
“We don’t have time for this,” Rio growled, pushing past Dice as the lion twins caught up.
Both of them had managed to secure an assault rifle from the men they’d mangled. It was only the commotion of the party, the countless rich and famous trying to trample all over one another in an attempt to get out of the path of destruction that gave them a chance to run at all. The party was packed so densely that the guards had a hard time making their way to the squad’s position and even if they could see them, they could hardly try and shoot at them because of the threat of killing one of their wealthy patrons instead.
“See, we should have done this in the first place,” Ryker laughed, taking up the rear.
He spun around for a moment, in time to dissuade one of three guards who were on their tail to drop behind a large concrete pillar, lest he wanted to get his kneecaps blown off.
“Dice,” Meredith called, struggling to keep up with his long steps as they ran up the stairs to the next floor. “There were guards there as well,” she gasped.
“There are guards everywhere, baby,” Dice replied morosely, intimately aware of just that fact.
But Meredith’s hand was in his and that made it all okay. At least he’d tried.
And succeeded, he reminded himself.
Losing wasn’t an option.
“What are our options?” Dice called, speaking both into the headset as well as to the two men around him.
“Blow out a window and jump to our deaths, unless one of you is a secret dragon shifter who can fly us to safety,” Rio remarked, slamming open a glass door in their path.
The next door was clearly locked and before Dice could key it to open with the pass he’d stolen off the dead guard, they were met by gunfire.
“Shit,” Ryker hissed as a blast went by his side, blowing a hole in his suit jacket.
Dice pulled Meredith aside and made her crouch behind a pillar, standing in front of her so she couldn’t be attacked from the other side.
“You okay, man?” Rio called.
“Right as fucking rain,” Ryker growled, spinning out of cover and landing a shot through the hole that used to be a glass wall separating the Shifter Squad Nine men from the two guards.
“That’s the room Rowen was in,” Meredith said, peeking out for a moment before Dice pushed her back.
“He’s not there anymore,” he answered.
“Dice, we need to find him. He-… I think he has our baby. They’re going to kill him,” Meredith said, her voice seeming to both shake and at the same time be filled with more certainty than Dice had ever heard.
His world seemed to still for a moment and despite the fact that they were surrounded by werewolf commandos, they only had a few guns between them and they were stuck on basically the top floor of the Etihad Tower with no means of escape, things seemed to go from bad to worse. Great.
“Thor, do you have a visual on Rowen?” Dice asked, the response coming in immediately.
“Two rooms ahead of you. He’s trying to get on an elevator but there seems to be issues with the pass. I think-“
“Don’t think, know,” Prowler’s voice came over the line, practically laughing. “I shut down the lifts. He doesn’t have anywhere to run, unless he’s taking the million steps of stairs down.”
“Good job,” Dice said. Turning his attention to Meredith, he crouched down for a moment, knowing that every second was crucial. “Baby, stay with them. If anything happens, you stay with Rio and Ryker, you got it?”
She nodded in response, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he said resolutely, kissing her briefly but savagely before jumping up and running forward.
It must have been the fact that he seemed to so obviously crave for his death that the guards didn’t shoot him, but before either of the men holed up in the room ahead could do a thing, Dice had blown through the hole and landed right between them. He ducked and rolled, popping up on one knee and shooting one of the guards in the neck. Using the confusion, the other could get a clear shot and only moving at the last second saved Dice from certain death.
He took the bullet in the shoulder and spun around, roaring as he retaliated by putting a bullet right through the man’s forehead. Before the guy could even keel back and fall over, Dice was up again, running toward the lifts.
Footsteps sounded behind him and for a wild moment, he was sure that it was reinforcements for the werewolves and that he was about to get run over. A million thoughts piled through his mind, most of them trying to analyze the situation and find a way out, but none of them seemed to be particularly promising. Even if he caught Rowen and they all got on the elevator then the odds of them actually ever making it out of there alive were as close to zero as they could get.
One problem at a time.
Sixteen
Dice
Rowen was slamming his hand flat against the lift in evident frustration, cursing at it.
“Come on, you fucking piece of shit,” he snarled, perfectly encapsulating Dice’s own emotions about the day so far.
“I don’t think you’re going anywhere,” Dice said with deathly calm, coming up behind Rowen.
The tall man spun around, his back against the lift and surprise evident in his eyes. The party obviously wasn’t going the way he planned.
“Where are your little friends?” Dice asked, glancing around as Rio and Ryker piled in after him, Meredith kept between them.
“You,” Rowen hissed, his hateful gaze flicking gold as it landed on Meredith. “I should have just killed you half an hour ago.”
“Probably,” Dice confirmed. “But then I don’t think I could have kept myself from ripping you apart limb for limb where you stood.”
The words were said completely nonchalantly, as if the thought was no more grueling than a walk in the park.
“They’re not here, they left,” Rowen hissed. “I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing, but there’s no way you’re getting out of this building alive. My men will shoot every last one of you like the dogs you are.”
With two steps, Ryker had covered the ground between them and then slammed his fist into the side of Rowen’s face, making the man slump against the elevator now, completely knocked out. Ryker cocked a brow at the looks he was getting from Rio and Dice as he hauled the passed-out form of Rowen over his shoulder.
“What? I don’t like monologues.”
“I would have probably shot him,” Dice said with a shrug, slipping his big palm around Meredith’s hand again.
It felt better having a grip on her. Like everything was going to be okay as long as he held her hand in his. Rationally, he knew that it was the furthest thing from the truth, but it was a small bit of solace regardless.
“So what now? I don’t want to bust in on your leisurely conversation or nothing, but unless you two have noticed, we’re sort of fucked here,” Rio said, a notion which was marked by the sound of shouting and footsteps not far behind them.
The guards must have broken through the crowd of partygoers and were finally catching up in earnest. Having come through the building before, he knew that the vast majority of The Arctics’ security had been set up downstairs, banking on keeping the esteemed guests safe from anyone trying to break in from the outside.