by Paige Tyler
Max opened his mouth, not sure what the hell he was going to say, praying it would be convincing, whatever it was. He didn’t have to find out because Coletti chose that particular moment to notice Kari standing there with a .38 revolver in her hands.
“What are you doing here?” Coletti asked. “And why are you carrying a weapon? Where the hell did you even get that?”
Max expected the beta to freeze up, but instead, Kari calmly slipped the small weapon into her coat pocket and looked at Coletti.
“Vince, there’s a lot going on that you don’t understand,” she said. “But I’m carrying this weapon to help protect the people at the compound…and myself.”
Coletti frowned. “From whom?”
Shit. They so didn’t need this right now.
“We really don’t have time to explain everything,” Max said. “It’s complicated and you probably wouldn’t believe most of it. You’re going to have to trust us.”
Max made to step around him, but Coletti put a hand on his chest. Max let out a low growl, the tips of his fangs brushing his tongue. Since the situation at the Wallace house tonight, he’d felt more in control of his inner wolf than he ever had in his life. His fangs weren’t out because he was losing it. They were out because he was too worried about his mate to play nice anymore. At least they weren’t hanging over his lower lip yet. Gage would go nuclear if that happened. But Max took a perverse sense of pleasure in seeing Coletti take a step backward.
“My team and I have hostages to rescue,” Max said. “Your only options are staying to help protect Kari and the rest of the people left at the compound, or getting cuffed and shoved in the trunk of your own car until it’s all over with. Your call.”
Coletti looked like he was going to go for option three—fighting—but Kari reached out and took the detective’s hands in hers, tugging him away from Max with a strength that obviously caught the man off guard.
“Vince, this isn’t something I can explain in five seconds, but I swear it’s all being done for the right reasons.” She looked up at him imploringly. “You don’t need to trust Max, but I need you to trust me. Let Max and his teammates go. The time they’re wasting could mean people dying.”
It looked for a moment like Coletti might argue. There was a part of Max that wished the IA detective would. He really needed to vent some stress right then, and taking his anger out on Coletti would work just fine.
But then Coletti nodded. “Okay, we’ll play this your way, Max. But after this is over, you’re going to tell me everything.”
Max snorted. “You say that now. But after I’ve told you how the world really works, I’m guessing you’re going to wish you’d never asked.”
* * *
“Maybe we should wheel that half-dead werewolf out here and use him to block the door,” Seth said casually as he wheeled an empty gurney out of the OR and positioned it with the others already blocking the exit.
From where she sat on the floor, Lana’s heart tightened in her chest. She’d been worried the hunters would harm Zane the moment they found his comatose body. Frankly, she was surprised they hadn’t disconnected the cryo-equipment already.
Boyd considered Seth’s suggestion for a moment, then shook his head. “Nah. We don’t have enough extension cords to keep him plugged in, and I don’t want to smell rotting werewolf when he starts to thaw out.”
Seth and the other hunters laughed, as if that was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. Lana bit back a growl—and her tongue. If she said something to piss off the hunters, they might take it out on Megan, Triana, Lacey, or Dr. Saunders.
The five of them were sitting against the wall across from the OR. At the far end of the hall, the cool evening air came in through the shattered windows of the front doors. The flashing lights of the police cars in the parking lot danced on the walls around them.
Seth threw a glance in Lana’s direction as he walked past, eyeing her with an expression that made Lana’s skin crawl. It was like he was fantasizing about how much he was going to enjoy killing her—or worse. She had no doubt that if she and the others didn’t currently have value as hostages, they would already be dead.
“That man is a psychopath,” Saunders muttered under his breath to her. “He wants you dead, and he wants to be the one to kill you. When the shooting starts, make sure you know where he is. He’ll be coming for you.”
All Lana could do was nod. As far as she was concerned, all of the hunters were unhinged. The men had spent the past thirty minutes barricading the doors and windows of the clinic, talking about how many werewolves each of them was going to kill when SWAT got here. They were even making bets about it. The notion they might not make it out of here never seemed to enter their minds, even though none of them had mentioned a getaway plan beyond shooting their way out of the building.
“Who’s Boyd talking to now?” Triana asked softly.
Lana glanced over at the leader of the crazy men. He was standing over by the OR, his cell phone to his ear again. She was getting better at shutting out other noises and picking up only the sounds she wanted to hear and was able to immediately latch on to Boyd’s voice, as well as the lower, gruffer voice of the man on the other end of the phone.
“It’s that same older guy he was talking to a little while ago,” Lana said, focusing to pick up exactly what the man on the phone was saying. “Boyd’s still trying to convince him to send help.”
While Seth and the other hunters had been busy talking trash, Boyd had been calling people. After speaking to the first man who’d somehow known Lana and Zane were at the clinic, Boyd had turned his attention to getting some backup in here. The half-dozen calls he’d made were to people Lana guessed were other hunters. It terrified her to think there were that many of them out there, but she was thrilled when none of them had been willing to ride to the rescue after finding out Boyd and his crew were surrounded by the police.
That’s when Boyd had called the older guy. While she couldn’t be sure, Lana got the feeling from the respectful way Boyd spoke to him that the guy was his boss.
“I’m telling you, we’ve struck the mother lode here in Dallas,” Boyd said. “I can’t believe you don’t want to take down an entire SWAT team full of these werewolves. I thought a major hit on a full pack was what you’ve been looking for all along. We can finally teach these freaks a lesson.”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been looking for,” the man on the other end of the line agreed. “And I would have been thrilled if you had come to me with this information several days ago, before you alerted this pack to our existence and splashed your faces all over the internet. Not to mention got trapped at some damn clinic.”
“I’m sorry about that.” Boyd ground his jaw, as if he hated having to apologize. “But our source in the DPD didn’t give us any indication there’d be any other werewolves here besides the female we were after and the injured cop. If I had known this was a major research clinic full of doctors and nurses guarded by werewolves, we would have come in with a different plan.”
“Uh-huh,” the older man scoffed.
“Look, I’m not making excuses,” Boyd snapped. “I can only work with the intel I have at hand.”
“I’m not interested in any of that. I want to hear about the clinic. What kind of research are they doing there?”
Boyd must have realized that he’d just stumbled over something the old man actually cared about because he grinned. “It’s a frigging werewolf hospital. They have the cop we shot with wolfsbane ammo in some kind of cryo-suspension. He should have died yesterday, but they’re keeping him going. They have doctors and nurses and loads of special equipment.”
“I don’t care about the equipment,” the man said. “I’m interested in the doctors and nurses and what they know.”
Boyd’s smile broadened, as if realizing he had the old man where he wanted him
. “I was thinking they could help us advance our weapons program. With the proper motivation, of course.”
There was silence on the other end of the line as if the man was considering that. “Could you get those doctors out of there if you had assistance?”
Lana’s heart plummeted. She didn’t like where this was going.
“Hell yeah,” Boyd said, that arrogant tone coming back into his voice. “If that assistance gets here soon.”
“I can have people there in an hour. Can you come up with a way to delay this SWAT team of werewolves for that long?”
Boyd shot Lana a look of pure malice. “Oh, I think I can come up with a way to discourage them from coming in for a while.”
While she didn’t have werewolf hearing, Triana must have realized something bad was going to go down because she cursed and leaned in toward Lana slightly. “I have no idea what they’re talking about, but the way he looked at you can’t be good.”
“It’s not,” Lana agreed softly, watching as Boyd put his cell phone back in the pocket of his jacket.
Heart racing, she turned to look at the broken windows in the doors. “Max, if you or any of your teammates out there can hear me, you need to get in here now,” she whispered. “Something really bad is about to happen.”
Lana strained her ears, hoping Max or one of his teammates would whisper something in return, but Boyd interrupted.
“Hey, werewolf girl,” he said as he came toward her. “Come here. I have something special planned for you.”
Crap.
“Max,” she whispered hoarsely. “Hurry!”
Chapter 15
“All teams, ready on my mark,” Gage said over the radio as Lana’s urgent plea echoed in Max’s ears. “We go in five…four…”
The terror in Lana’s voice had frozen Max solid, but Gage’s countdown broke through that ice, forcing him to move. On the east side of the roof of the clinic, Max snapped into his rappel line alongside Remy and Brooks, then braced his feet on the edge of the roofline and waited, heart pounding.
“Three…two…one…go!”
As one, all three of them kicked away from the edge of the roof, dropping their ropes behind them at the same time. Since the clinic was only a two-story building, it wasn’t going to be much of a rappel. One jump away from the building, a long slide down the rope, then they’d be crashing through the front doors. On the west side of the building, Alex, Trey, and Diego were doing the exact same thing through the back doors.
Max and his teammates had slipped onto the roof ten minutes ago. It would be their jobs to get to the hostages and protect them, while Gage and the rest of the SWAT team went in through the side windows of the clinic and took out the hunters. Gage had deliberately put Max, Alex, and Remy on hostage rescue, knowing that’s where their heads would be anyway.
The ground came up fast between Max’s feet as the rope slid through the carabiner clip at his waist. As he glided toward the building in a graceful swing, he yanked the slack end of his rope around behind his right hip, jerking his body to a rapid halt. The momentum of his swing carried him inward, and a moment later, he crashed through what little glass was left in the main doors.
Brooks and Remy hit the floor right beside him, weapons coming out as they kicked the gurneys in front of the door aside and dove forward to cover up the hostages. Max would have done the same, but he caught sight of Boyd dragging Lana kicking and struggling toward the operating room.
Max took off after them with a snarl, ignoring the gunfire erupting in the entryway of the clinic and the burning stench of the hunters’ poison as it hung in the air. He stayed low to the ground as he moved, his feet churning as he closed the distance between him and Lana. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gage’s team come in through the windows. One of them went down immediately, but Max didn’t see who it was.
Ahead of him, Boyd backed through the swinging doors of the OR, Lana firmly in his grasp. The hunter must have caught sight of Max coming his way because he turned and fired a few rounds in his direction. Lana shoved her shoulder into the man’s chest, throwing off his aim, and the bullets hit the floor in front of Max, shattering violently and spreading more of the poisonous mist, but he kept moving, ignoring the sting of the stuff against his skin and in his nose.
He was moving at full speed when he hit the swinging double doors, slamming through them. He dived to the floor and rolled, expecting a shower of poison bullets to come his way, but nothing happened.
Max came up, his weapon ready, but Boyd and Lana were nowhere in sight. The room was dark except for the light over Zane’s bed and those blinking on the monitors around him. Not that Max needed lights. His nose told him everything he needed to know.
Lana was on the other side of Zane’s bed. Max had learned in New Orleans that hunters used a spray to mask their scent, so although he couldn’t smell Boyd, he knew the asshole was with her.
He discovered he was right when Boyd popped up behind Zane’s bed, a squirming Lana grasped in his arms. The hunter had his weapon to the side of her head and a hand clasped over her mouth. Blood oozed between the man’s fingers, where Max’s soul mate must have bitten him.
Boyd ignored that, grinning at Max with a sick smile. Shit, Max thought. Boyd was going to kill Lana right in front of him, then take him out after forcing him to watch the woman he loved die.
Max charged, his fangs and claws coming out. Boyd’s eyes widened as Max crossed the distance between them in the space of two heartbeats. Max wondered how many times—if ever—the hunter had faced down an alpha. Judging by his reaction, the answer was probably never.
Cursing, Boyd swung his weapon on Max. Lana shoved her elbow in the man’s ribs as he fired the MP5 submachine gun, knocking his aim off a little, but Max was too close for it to make a difference.
He felt the initial sting as the small 9mm rounds from the MP5 hit him as he leaped across the bed in the center of the room and Zane’s comatose form. One hit him in the left side of the rib cage, one to the right of the sternum, and another in his right shoulder. He ignored the immediate bloom of burning pain that followed, knowing what it was and also knowing there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Boyd tried to adjust his aim when he realized the first few shots that hit Max weren’t going to stop him, but by then, Max had cleared Zane’s bed and slammed into both Lana and the hunter. Max hated running into her so hard, but he didn’t have a choice. He needed to get Boyd away from her. He accomplished that, sending Lana tumbling as he landed on Boyd and rode him to the ground.
The hunter tried to twist the barrel of his weapon around and get it pointed at Max’s head, but Max wasn’t going to let that happen. The pain of the poison coursing through his chest was already becoming unbearable, and his body was starting to shake. He didn’t have much time to end this.
Max reached out and grabbed Boyd’s right forearm, clamping down as hard as he could, then twisting so the man would drop his weapon. There was a snapping sound, then a roar of pain as the hunter’s arm broke. Boyd punched Max in the face with his free hand, trying to push Max off him.
Max ignored everything—the fire roaring through his chest, the tremors breaking out all over his body, even the asshole punching him in the face—and focused on what he needed to do to make sure Boyd never hurt anyone he loved ever again.
Grabbing Boyd by the hair, Max yanked his head to the side, then darted forward and sank his fangs into the hunter’s neck. He’d never done anything like that before, but he didn’t question the need now.
When Boyd was dead, Max pushed away from him, rolling onto the floor as his body started to convulse uncontrollably.
Lana was at his side in a heartbeat, screaming and crying as she pulled his upper body into her lap. She put her face close to his, and while he could see her mouth moving, he couldn’t hear what she was saying. All he could hear was the
thrum of his rapidly weakening heartbeat.
But he didn’t need to hear what she was saying, because her face said it all.
“I love you, too,” he tried to say, but nothing came out.
Max opened his mouth to try again, but the pain was suddenly too much, and his whole body began to spasm.
Lana’s eyes went wide with terror, and at that moment, all Max could think was that he wished she didn’t have to see this.
* * *
Lana had known everything was going to crap when Boyd grabbed her and dragged her away from the doors. Then Max and the other SWAT alphas were swinging into the outer hallway, bullets flying everywhere, and for a moment, she allowed herself to believe this was all going to work out okay.
Then Max had smashed through the OR doors and Boyd had shot him.
From that moment forward, time had slowed to a crawl as Max had leaped over Zane’s unconscious form and slammed into her and the hunter. They’d all gone down in a heap, and by the time she’d scrambled up, it had only been to see Max ripping Boyd’s throat out.
Lana had barely reached his side before the poison-induced convulsions hit, twisting Max’s body so savagely she thought he might break his own spine. She’d seen where he’d been hit, and she knew it was bad. Trey had said it just the day before.
What happens the next time we tangle with the hunters and they put a poison bullet through a werewolf’s chest? He or she won’t live more than a couple minutes—if that.
Tears streaming down her face, she pulled Max into her lap and shouted for help even though she heard occasional shooting and fighting still going on outside the OR. But she couldn’t sit there and watch Max die. There had to be something she could do.
“I love you, damn it,” she told him. “Don’t you dare leave me!”
She pressed her hand to the wound in the center of his chest, hopelessly trying to stop the bleeding even as her palm stung from the poison pumping out of him along with his blood.