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Ashlee passed by a series of one-way glass windows. She gasped and covered her mouth to muffle the sound. Twenty men were visible, although there were parts of the room she could not see. They were strapped down to beds and intravenous lines fed a blue liquid into their arms. The steel straps that secured them to the metal tables were attached at the forehead, shoulder blade, hip, and foot area. Three men dressed in white lab coats paced the room. A woman wearing a long lavender skirt and a black tank top moved around the patients.

Ashlee inhaled the bitter, foul smell of the woman. There she was—her witch. But what was she doing to those men?

* * *

Tristan felt himself plummet deeper into the water. He couldn’t remember how to swim, and that was okay, because the cool water was what he wanted on his skin. Chilled and placated by the feeling, he no longer felt the urge to kill Ashlee, nor could he hear his father’s voice in his head. He closed his eyes and decided he would stay under the water forever. Somewhere inside of his mind, something stirred to remind him that there was some kind of problem with his plan but he couldn’t seem to make out what that was.

Strong arms, four of them, pulled him towards the surface. He struggled. He didn’t want to return to the top; he could just remain where he was. A third set of hands joined the others. Unable to fight off all three of his tormenters, he finally hit the surface. He opened his eyes to see who had captured him and was surprised to see it was Michael, Rex, and Azriel.

Why hadn’t they just left him alone?

Michael, holding onto his arms, dragged him onto the beach. “Are you out of your mind? Your woman is in Mexico fighting for your life and you decide to commit suicide now, dooming her to half-life or death?”

Tristan roared. No one was to speak of Ashlee to him. He wanted her dead. “I was not trying to kill myself. The cold water drowns out our father’s voice. It makes me want to not kill her. I was just going to stay there permanently.”

Azriel, his eyes gone wolf, growled at him. “Has the spell fried all of your brain?

You cannot breathe under water, Trip. To stay under water would mean death, you imbecile.”

Rex loomed over him. “What do you hear, Trip? Who is controlling you? Who told you to knock out Parker? Why did you burn down our home?”

Tristan snorted. “Our Alpha told me.”

Michael glared at him. “I have told you no such thing, Trip.”

“You are not my Alpha, brother. You do not want the job. You are nothing.”

Rex and Azriel bellowed, the white light forming around them as if they might shift.

“Do I lie, brothers? Could this happen to us with a strong Alpha who controlled and protected his pack? I love our brother, but he is weak, and he has failed us.”

Michael’s eyes were huge as he stared down at Tristan. “I never wanted this job. I am not meant to be Alpha.”

Tristan shook his head. “Then we are all doomed. You should have left me to drown in the water, where at least Ashlee would be safe.”

Kill her.

Tristan shook his head, and his brothers stared at him blankly. “I will not.”

“To whom do you speak, Trip?” Michael stared at him and Tristan didn’t need to read his mind to know that he thought he was crazy.

“My Alpha, my liege, our father.”

Tristan watched as Michael turned to Azriel. “Call Gabriel. Find out if Ash has the witch yet. I don’t think we have much more time.”

Kill her.

Tristan closed his eyes as the slow burn started again, and this time when he screamed, three sets of eyes stared down at him in horror.

Chapter Twelve

Ashlee needed to get into that room and get the witch out of IPAG before her scent returned and Kendrick could smell her on the premises. The first problem was going to be getting the three men out of the room so she could get to the witch. At least the other men, whatever was happening with them, were strapped down. She had one needle filled with drugs; it had to be saved for the witch.

A plan came to her and she knew right away it was very dangerous. If she got caught, she was dead on the spot. She closed her eyes and thought of Tristan, the way his brown eyes shone when he looked at her, and tears filled her eyes. She searched deeper inside of herself and found his soul. He wouldn’t want her to do what she was about to try to do. He would have objected to the entire scheme from start to finish. But he needed her, and her love for him won over his arguments against doing it.

She knew she was about to run out of time anyway, and her wolf would be better at the fight that was about to come than she would be. She called the shift to her and was surprised at how easily it came this time. Engulfed in a warm, white light, her body painlessly reshaped itself until she was once again a fur-covered wolf.

My turn.

She had to agree, she’d certainly given her wolf leave to control the situation. She looked down at her ripped clothes and picked up the needle she needed to subdue the witch with her mouth. She was particularly careful not to inject herself. The worst thing she could do at that very second would be to knock herself out with the damn thing.

I’ll be careful.

Good. Her wolf looked around and saw her entrance. The door to the room with the witch was open a minuscule amount, just enough for her nose to nudge open the door.

She pushed and walked in. No one seemed to notice her entrance; the three men in lab coats and the witch were consumed with looking at one man who had started to scream.

“Do you think he’s going to shift, Mina?” The man to the left of the witch looked at the witch and then back at the strapped-down man.

Mina—the witch now had a name—nodded. “Maybe. We should unstrap him; the shift is too painful when they’re strapped. It killed the last one.”

Ashlee’s wolf sniffed the air quietly.

Sick wolves in here.

Wolves, where?

Men on table. Very bad things, not normal wolves.

The men on the table were wolves, but not ‘normal.’ What did that mean?

They make a wolf where no wolf should be.

Oh no. The IVs—whatever was in the IV was turning those men into shifters, sick wolves.

The man to the witch’s right scribbled on a clipboard. “How long ‘til he launches the assault?”

The witch shrugged. “He wants another twenty soldiers, but I think he could take down Westervelt tomorrow with two strong men. Thirty years have passed and they are still demoralized. It’ll be nothing to destroy them.”

I end her.

No. We need her.

I can’t kill her?

No.

Should I get rid of the men with her?

Don’t kill them.

The wolf set down the needle on the floor and crouched as she got ready to jump.

Her first target was the man on Mina’s left, and she leapt on him. He barely had time to yelp before the wolf had thrown him down on the ground and, using her teeth, picked up his head and slammed it onto the ground several times. He lost consciousness within seconds.

She turned and surveyed the room. The man to the right of the witch with the clipboard shrieked and jumped up on an unoccupied metal table.

Silly man.