Liam curses under his breath and yanks us behind him. Male voices come closer. We peek around the corner. Dane ambles around with Trent.
“Hey. No sleeping on your watch. And why’s this door open, you idiots?” Dane and Trent nudge the unconscious guards. “Oh, fuck. I think he’s dead. What the hell?”
“Shit,” I hiss.
“Shh.” Liam edges back, shooting Jade a questioning look. She shakes her head and he exhales heavily. “I’ll attack. You all run.”
“By yourself?” I bite out. “Dane, sure. But Trent’s huge.”
He levels me with a firm look. “He’s also an idiot and he swings wide. Trust me, I know how to handle them. Your job is to get yourself to safety, okay?”
“Got it. Girls, stay close and be ready to run. Lena, if it hurts to breathe you have to keep going. Promise me, buttercup.”
“I’ll carry her,” Beatrix says. “We look out for each other, right?”
I squeeze her hand. As Liam watches for an opening, I whisper to Jade.
“If this goes wrong, I need you to make sure they’re safe.” She nods. “Thank you.”
Liam moves the second both their backs are turned, bolting up the steps and knocking their heads together. Dane and Trent stagger with shouts of anger as he shifts, biting Dane’s leg.
The rest of us make our escape while Liam fights the guards. Taryn and Callie take off, watchful for others that might hear us. I’m right behind them with Jade and my sisters.
“Go get them!” Dane barks.
I push the girls in front of me. A determined grunt sounds behind me. Arms lock around my waist.
“I’ll make you pay for stealing my mate!” Trent yells.
“No!” I fall under his weight bearing down on me.
“Avery!” Lena slides to a stop.
“Go,” I yell. “Get out of here!”
Jade, Callie, and Taryn don’t stop. Lena fights them, struggling to breathe.
“No! Stop! We can’t leave without Avery! Avery!”
Her screams crack my heart open. Beatrix picks her up, casting a terrified glance back. Tears sting my eyes. It doesn’t matter what happens to me. They’ll be safe.
Pain pricks my neck. I struggle against Trent picking me up with a ferocious growl, shifting to my fur. My clothes tear and he buckles under the weight of my massive wolf. He drops a needle when I sink my teeth into his arm and wrench, breaking bone.
Fuck. He injected me with something.
It’s fast working. My head spins, vision blurring. I stagger, losing my shift. My knees hit the ground hard.
I try to call out for Liam, panicking as Dane knocks him out when he shifts back. I’m going to be sick. My wolf rages, barreling against the veil to come back out. I can’t feel her, going numb all over.
Everything mutes. My senses. My strength. My wolf.
And the bond. My heart lurches because I can’t feel Caden. Can he still feel me? The world dims to blackness.
38CADEN
Rage simmers in my blood, but this is no time to lose my head. I need to fight for my pack. Root out my cousin and uncle for good and stop their absurd bid for power. They’ve waited all this time believing they can be brazen now. That they’re strong enough to steal my rank and my pack from me.
They haven’t won. Not by a fucking long shot.
My wolf is restless and ready to take my skin the moment I give him control. He’ll bring every shifter on this mountain to their knees and have their submission to him as the rightful Alpha.
“Where are the enforcers being kept?” I demand as we swiftly make our way across the perimeter.
“Patrol cabin,” Hodge answers. “They rotate the guards every few hours.”
“We should be catching them near the end of a watch,” Ford says.
“Let’s be quick, then,” I decide. “We’ll free Gabe and the others to have more numbers on our side if the next guard change comes when we’re breaking them out.”
The packlands are eerily still and deserted except for the pair of scouts we come across when we cut through the lower ridge line from the south to get up to the commons. I signal Hodge and he shifts, sneaking up on them from behind.
They’re not trained for the security team. That much is obvious from their lack of awareness that wouldn’t fly for one of my enforcers entrusted with the safety of the pack. One’s a Merryweather from maintenance group C that caused the fuss several weeks ago. The other’s one of the younger Hooper brothers who’s flunked out of enforcer tryouts three times.
When Hodge attacks, neither of them sense him coming. Hooper’s head cracks on the ground, knocking him out. Merryweather tries to run, scrambling away. He trips on a divot in the path and Hodge tramples him.
He screams. “I surrender! Oh, gods, I surrender! Please don’t kill me!”
This is the best my cousin could do? It’s a fucking insult.
“Knock him out,” I direct.
One of the witches with us steps out to the path, bending over Merryweather. He startles at her entering his periphery, squirming with renewed distress. She whispers something to him, then he relaxes, going still.
“He’s subdued,” she calls.
The witch casts the same spell on Hooper and Ford drags them into the woods, hiding them in a hollow under a jutting rock. We continue on, not encountering anyone else before we finally reach the patrol cabin. Kip’s hanging out front, leaning next to the door with a bored expression.
We stay downwind, creeping into the cabin’s back entrance. The annex is empty. Someone’s talking on the other side of the door. I scent Weston and Abbott with a frown. One of the witches casts a spell over us.
“They won’t sense our approach,” she explains. “We’ll appear like ripples in the air at the corners of their eyes until you touch them. There aren’t any witches here, either. Only shifters.”
I nod in thanks, delegating to my lieutenants. “Get our people out of the holding cells. The rest of us will take care of the ones on watch.”
I’m the first one through the door. Weston glances up from one of the logbooks, brows furrowing. He shakes his head and bends over the desk again. Abbott paces lazily at the other end of the cabin. I wave Ford out.
He scans the holding cells and goes to the second one where Gabe is. Gabe jolts, stifling his surprise. He peers at Weston with a disgusted glare, then puts a hand on the bars. Ford squeezes it. Gabe’s eyes fall shut, a wobbly smile stretching his mouth.
Weston jumps up. “We’ve been through this, Gabe. Go sit down. You’re not tricking me again. Nothing you say will get you out of there unless you’re ready to come to our side.”
“You’re an idiot,” Gabe mutters.
Abbott laughs, coming this way. “We’re not the ones behind bars.”
Tobin grabs the back of his shirt when he passes his cell, yanking him in. “Won’t be that way for long. When Caden finds out what you did, you’re all dead meat.”
“Caden’s a weak fucking pussy who isn’t fit to call himself Alpha. A real Alpha—”
I cut off his words, grabbing him by the throat. The spell hiding me from them sloughs off like water trickling down my back.
“What were you saying?” I seethe.
“Oh shit,” Abbott chokes. “A-Alpha.”
I slam him against the bars with a snarl. He grunts and swings his fists at me. I block one and catch the other in a punishing grip, flinging him aside like a rag doll.
“Weston has the keys,” Gabe shouts.
Ford whirls on Weston. He takes a fighting stance, attention on me. His bravery crumbles at the sound of Ford vaulting over the desk to get to him. When Ford shoves him against the wall, he drops the keys on the floor. Ford punches Weston and retrieves the keys.