Chapter 35 Talon #2
A storage closet sat unassuming at the end of the hallway, and beyond the door was the source of an enormous amount of blood.
Now that we neared it, I could hear Rowan's frantic heartbeat and footsteps pacing back and forth.
Cade tried the knob, turning it violently and banging with his fist when he realized someone had locked it from inside.
“Open this door now, Rowan,” he ordered using his bark.
A low and vicious growl reverberated on the other side. A creature lay in wait beyond the threshold. Had it injured Rowan? Is that where the blood had come from, which now seeped under the door, pooling in a glistening deep red puddle on the floor?
Cade drew his gun, pointing it for cover as Killian ran forward, throwing all his weight into the metal door, which literally crumpled inward, releasing from its hinges and sliding across the floor. He was a human battering ram.
As the room came into view, we could see the source of the blood scent.
Two mutilated bodies lay spread out across the floor.
One had been lying on the floor in front of the door, which explained the blood pooling in the hallway.
The man’s face was almost gone, torn off by claws or teeth.
Matted, spiked tufts of ginger hair were all that remained to identify him.
He looked like the alpha that lived near our dorm.
His packmate lay on a dirty, blood-soaked mattress on the floor.
Well… not all of him. Someone or something had torn one of his arms from his body and discarded it several feet away.
Why the fuck was there a mattress in the middle of the floor? What had killed and mutilated these men? Where was the creature we had heard? Where was Rowan and why had these men been down here with her?
The pieces of the puzzle clicked together when I saw her clothes crumpled into a ball in the corner and the unbuttoned pants that clung to the dead man’s ankles.
Murderous fury unraveled within me, and I growled, wanting nothing more than to bring these men back to life, so I could kill them again.
Killian must have come to the same conclusion because he roared, thunderous and terrifying.
In the low light, movement caught our attention. A flash of orange darted from one hiding spot to another, slipping behind a stack of old mattresses propped against the wall.
“Rowan? Is that you? Are you hurt?” Cade called out.
A whimper answered, followed by a low growl.
“Rowan. It's okay, Kitten. You're safe now. Daddy’s here,” Ryker said, trying to coax her out.
She let out a savage growl, sharp and warning.
“ROWAN, COME OUT, NOW!” Cade’s voice boomed as he issued her a command in his strongest alpha bark.
Slowly, a shape emerged from the shadows. It wasn’t Rowan. It was something else. A creature. A beast much like my own, small and lithe but no less terrifying.
The figure was unmistakably a shifter, wolf-like, yet far more monstrous-appearing and dangerous. Its sharp teeth glistened with fresh blood as its lips curled back into a vicious snarl. Dagger-like claws dug into the floor as sinewy muscles rippled beneath its fur.
Unlike the usual black or grey coats of most shifters, this creature’s fur was a pale orange, which was the exact shade of Rowan’s hair.
I had never seen a red wolf before.
And then it clicked. Rowan and my shared nightmares.
The magnetic pull I felt to her. The strange, fragmented thoughts echoed in my mind.
Our ability to comunicate telepathically.
My wolf’s relentless drive to mark her, its deep-rooted instinct to call her “Mate," and the way my control had slipped, causing erratic shifts.
Rowan had been feverish, emotionally volatile for days. They were classic early signs of a first shift. She was likely on the precipice; the shift was due to happen soon. But now I understood why it hadn’t come earlier.
Rowan had been on suppressants her entire life, meant to mask and mute her omega nature, but they had done more than that.
The drugs had stunted her development, suppressing not just her hormones but her shifter biology.
The drugs locked away her wolf, burying it deep beneath layers of chemical control and denying it the chance to emerge.
Most shifters shifted for the first time in early adolescence. Rowan’s was years overdue. What should’ve been a slow, natural awakening had been delayed, warped—and when it came, it came violently, most likely brought on by extreme fear and stress. She had shifted explosively.
Rowan was a shifter. And she had torn these men apart in a primal act of vengeance for what they’d done to her. She’d been lucky in managing to overpower and kill two experienced alphas. It was no small feat. She must have caught them off guard with the suddenness of her shift.
Now, she circled us like prey. Her wolf was wild, feral, unfamiliar even to herself.
“Don’t even think about it, Rowan,” Cade warned, voice tight with tension, just as she let out a vicious growl and lunged for him.
To be continued…