“And rabid wolves are executed,” Drake said.
Sophia looked away.
“I can’t stay here if I might turn and attack someone.” Drake heaved herself off the stretcher and her legs gave way. Her thigh and back muscles cramped and she doubled over. “Oh God. It’s moving fast. Sophia—”
“It’s rhabdomyolysis. You may lose consciousness soon.”
Gasping, Drake said, “Can you get me somewhere I won’t be a threat to anyone?”
“Yes.” Sophia grabbed Drake around the waist, steadying her until the cramps subsided. “Can you walk out of here so we don’t arouse suspicion?”
Drake gritted her teeth and nodded. Her vision was blurry, her body a mass of lancing pain. “But we have to go now. I don’t…have long.”
“If you can make it through the ER, my car is right outside.”
“Let’s go.” Through the haze of agony, Drake could see Sophia hesitate. She forced out a word. “What?”
“You may not have a chance to tell us later.” Sophia cupped Drake’s face in her palm. “You have a choice. If you don’t want to turn, the Alpha will be quick and merciful.”
“I’m not afraid of turning. I just don’t want to be a danger to anyone.” Drake clutched her stomach as another spasm struck. “Tell Sylvan…I trust her. Tell her to do…what must be done.”
Chapter Thirteen
She said to tell you she was coming for you and she wouldn’t be merciful.
Rex’s blood simmered with the desire to kill the messenger, but he needed all the spies he could recruit. The howlers—end-stage DSX addicts—traded information for drugs, and since their lifespan was unpredictable, he tried to keep them around until they were too psychotic to be useful. He had a network of spies all over the urban territory. Still other rogues, non-addicts, held regular jobs in very valuable positions like the police department and even City Hall, but he relied on his underworld informants for critical intelligence. If word got out that he killed them when they delivered bad news, his supply of information might suddenly dry up. So, instead of shredding this one’s skin from his bones, Rex buried his claws in the sniveling howler’s shoulder and dragged him to his feet.
“What else did you tell her?” Rex demanded, slashing the howler’s cheek with his canines. Right now he was sequestered in the shadows under a highway overpass with two of his most trusted lieutenants and a handful of rogue street soldiers. He needed to find out just what the weaklings had revealed before Sylvan Mir had killed them. “What does she know about us?”
“Nothing, nothing,” the howler cried. “She just killed Danny and told me to tell you…what I told you.”
“And you ran straight from the killing ground to my headquarters!” The howler had staggered into headquarters screaming that the Alpha bitch and her lackeys had just killed three of Rex’s street soldiers. He’d been forced to evacuate for fear the bitch would track the one she’d spared right to him. For thirty panicked minutes, his lieutenants had loaded the recent shipment of DSX, weapons, and most of the rogues into trucks. Rex had given instructions to store weapons and drugs in disparate locations in the city in case his network was compromised.
Fortunately, he never disclosed anything of importance to low-level soldiers and especially not to the howlers, so his secondary outposts should be safe. Still, he needed new headquarters.
“I’m sorry, Rex,” the howler sobbed. “I just wanted to warn you.”Rex raked his claws down the howler’s back in fury and frustration.
Why was he forced to build an army with pathetic scum, when he should have been leading an entire Pack of the strongest Weres on earth to their rightful destiny?
“Why didn’t she kill you?” Rex snarled. “You smell of submissive piss. What did you promise her?”
“Nothing! Nothing, I swear, Rex! I never said anything. It was all over so fast…she grabbed Danny so fast, she was so fast…” The howler started babbling about the bitch being so strong and so fast and Rex couldn’t contain his rage any longer. He snapped the howler’s neck and threw his spasming body on the ground.
“Let the bitch come,” he shouted to everyone within hearing distance. “The sooner she’s dead, the sooner we will reclaim what’s ours.”One of the bitches tried to lick the blood running down the dead howler’s back and Rex kicked her away with a booted foot. She whined and tried to wrap herself around his leg, one clawed hand grasping at his groin. He snarled at her and she cowered, her eyes feverish, her emaciated body trembling. The DSX had triggered her heat and her body was consuming itself with the outpouring of hormones that drove her to keep coupling until she was bred. But Were fertility was naturally very low, and that, combined with the debilitating effects of the drugs, made it unlikely she would conceive. If the unrelenting heat didn’t kill her, the DSX eventually would. Impatiently, he signaled the circling dominants to deal with her. The four rogue dominants had been waiting for the Alpha to mount her or give them permission, and now they snarled and snapped and clawed at each other. The most dominant, a male, quickly drove the others away. The groveling female in heat crawled toward him on all fours and he thrust his heavy penis into her from the rear with a savage growl.
Rex ignored them and summoned his two guards. “I need to know whenever Mir leaves the Compound. As long as she’s there, she’s protected. Outside—we’ll have the advantage.” A muscle-bound male with shaggy black hair snapped to attention.
“Yes, Rex.”
“Tomorrow, I want double the runners to move out that product.” Rex stalked out from under cover of the soaring concrete abutments and opened his cell phone. He selected a programmed number and waited.
“I told you not to call this number,” a cool, modulated voice answered.
“It couldn’t wait until tomorrow,” Rex said. “We may have a problem.”
“We?”
“Sylvan Mir led a hunting party down here tonight.”
“What does she know?” Rex’s supplier asked carefully.
“Possibly nothing. It might have been in retaliation for a problem with one of her females,” Rex said.
“What kind of problem? Now is not the time for foolish mistakes.”
“It was nothing. A couple of rogues scuffled with some adolescents.”
“Our business venture?”
“My end of things is fine,” Rex growled.
“I’ll take care of giving the Alpha something to worry about other than you and your activities.”
“Just be sure the shipments aren’t interrupted,” Rex said.
“Be careful,” the icy voice said softly. “You aren’t the only renegade anxious to take Mir’s place.”
Rex cut off the call just as a high-pitched wail was wrung from the bitch in heat. His wolf lunged for freedom so quickly and ferociously he barely managed not to shift. He wanted a female, but not one of these wretched, submissive bitches. He wanted to feel a dominant female cowering beneath his body. He wanted to break Sylvan Mir.
When Sylvan’s cell phone rang she checked the readout and saw the call was from Niki. “Sylvan.”
“Sophia called. We have a situation.”
“What is it?”
“A human female was dropped off at Albany General with what looked like Were fever.”
Sylvan checked their location through the window of the Rover.
“It’ll take me twenty minutes to get back there. Is Sophia handling damage control?”
“I think it’s going to be more than she can handle.”
“Is the press on it already?” Sylvan wondered if Sophia could reach Drake. Drake had offered her assistance, and even though Sylvan didn’t want to involve a human in a situation she still didn’t understand, she wanted to avoid media coverage that would raise panic.