Chapter 17 Rafe #2
“Who? Tell me which shifter hurt you and I’ll end them the same way I ended that asshole who cut you,” Emmy growled.
“Good luck finding your mate,” Seth muttered, pushing past them.
It took every inch of his control not to stop Seth from leaving, throw him over his shoulder, and take him home, where he could learn that not everyone would hurt him.
“Why the fuck haven’t you saved that boy already?” Rafe growled at Emmy as they stalked back to the car.
“You saw him. He doesn’t want to be saved. I’m working on it. Building his trust.”
“He’ll be dead before he has time to trust you.”
Emmy stared in the direction Seth had disappeared, concern on his face. “I think you might be right. I’ll talk to Marco. See what we can do.”
Rafe pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you let Marco get one look at that kid, he’ll burn the fucking city down for him.” Their Alpha had a type, and Seth would push every fucking one of his buttons.
Emmy smirked. He’d always loved a bit of chaos. “I’m counting on it. Now, let’s go save your fucking mate so you don’t burn the city down, too.”
As much as Rafe was singularly focussed on getting to the warehouse Seth had mentioned, he was grateful they took the time to swing by the pack lands when he saw what Luca had waiting for them.
“I’ve been studying the chip your mate found us.
I didn’t have time to isolate exactly what the best countermeasure was, so I’ve cobbled together something that’s part signal blocker, part targeted EMP.
It’s running off a generator at the moment, so it’s pretty unwieldy, but it will fit in the back of one of the SUVs.
The closer you can get it to the chips, the better. ”
Rafe watched as the pack loaded him up. He’d already made sure he had everything he needed for an emergency field surgery within hours of realising Adri was missing.
He wasn’t going to take any chances. Katie was on call to talk him through it if it came to that.
He hoped it didn’t. Brain surgery in those kinds of conditions was dangerous even for a shifter.
Rafe would need every shred of his power to keep his patients alive, and at the same time, he’d be the one wielding the scalpel.
Luca’s mate, Cal, had slipped him two vials of the stimulant the witch used when he needed to use power past his capacity. They’d have to hope it was enough.
“Weren’t we just fucking here?” Silas muttered as the SUVs pulled up out of sight of the building they were approaching.
“How many warehouses in vampire territory have we had to raid now? It can’t be a coincidence,” Emmy replied.
“Yeah, I’m pretty fucking over it as well. Keep an eye out for anything we can tie to Kyan or the coven,” Marco said, leaning against the side of a car as he did something on his phone while they waited for their scouts to return and tell them if the building was rigged with explosives.
They weren’t taking any chances this time. Four witches and a wolf were checking each side of the building.
“What’s the plan?” Rafe asked, eyes trained in the direction of the building and nostrils flaring as he drew in deep breaths of the cold night air, trying to catch his mate’s scent on the breeze.
Luca’s voice came through softly from the speaker on Marco’s phone. The hacker was at the pack house with his mate, where he had a better set-up to provide surveillance. “Drive the SUV with the signal blocker straight through the doors and hope it works so they can’t trigger the chips.”
“That’s it? What if it hits my mate?”
“He’ll recover from broken bones. He might not recover from whatever that chip is doing,” Marco said.
A shiver of rage rocked Rafe’s body. The world faded away as the reality he’d been so pointedly ignoring so he could function rocked him to his core.
He didn’t even hear his Alpha’s voice as he darted to the SUV with the blocker, flipped the generator switch, and slid behind the wheel.
Didn’t hear the curses as his pack scrambled to come in behind him in support.
All he could think about was Adri somewhere in that building.
Of the filthy technology that had probably violated his mate’s brain.
Of what he would do if he lost his mate before they could even bond.
Eyes glowing, fangs lengthening, and claws digging into the leather of the steering wheel, Rafe slammed his foot on the accelerator so hard the whole car skidded out as he shot forward, and he was forced to wrestle it back into submission.
He barely processed the blur of motion as he sped down the street, heading straight for the loading doors Seth had described.
His shoe was still flat to the floor when he made contact.
Wood splintered away from him into the dark void ahead as he spun the wheel, pulled the hand brake, and wrenched the car to a stop.
His desperation to get to his mate as quickly as possible was almost his undoing—the SUV tilting onto its side and almost overbalancing as his momentum had nowhere to go.
He’d be fine if the SUV crashed out, but his medical supplies might not be, and they’d take more time to access.
Thankfully, he’d executed it perfectly, the wheels of the vehicle reconnecting with the concrete floor in a dusty thump as the rest of the pack ran in through the hole in the wall he’d just made.
Shoving the door open hard enough to rip it off its hinges, Rafe tore from the vehicle, head turning as he hunted the jungle scent that had been haunting his memories for days.
“Fucking hell, Doc. A little warning would’ve been—” Silas’ words cut off with a curse as a figure slammed into him from behind, tackling him to the ground.
Red eyes flashed in the darkness as Silas twisted to throw the guy clear.
“Fuck. He’s feral! Contain him or kill him, but don’t let him get his fucking teeth in you,” Marco snapped.
A strangled howl broke from Rafe’s throat. There were too many scents in the room. All familiar. Adri and the five missing fighters.
“Who?” Rafe gasped, his throat closing on the words, his wolf still frantically scenting the air to figure out where their mate was.
“Not him,” Silas gritted out, arm muscles bulging as he tackled the shifter in return and fought against the extra strength of his ferality to contain him. Marco sprinted to help him, cursing his second’s impulsive move that put him in harm’s way.
The snap of the poor kid’s neck as Marco joined the fray echoed into an eerie moment of quiet.
“Rafe? You can’t be here! Get out!”
Rafe’s head snapped toward the voice he would know anywhere, even as slurred and drugged out as Adri sounded. Ignoring his mate’s ridiculous instruction, Rafe raced toward his crumpled form chained to the far wall.
“Fuck, kitten. What did they do to you?” Rafe said, dropping to his knees beside his mate and hauling him into his arms. His searching fingers ran across Adri’s scalp, and he froze as he felt the telltale dip where his skull had been breached.
Adri’s groan of pain had him cursing himself for his carelessness.
He’d barely opened his mouth to call for help when Marco was there.
He’d found a sledgehammer somewhere, wielding it like it was lighter than air as he smashed the chain’s tether from the wall.
Scooping his mate and the broken chain up into his arms, Rafe sprinted for the SUV and the makeshift field hospital Emmy had the foresight to set up while everyone else was distracted.
“Adri, where are the rest of them?” Marco asked as Rafe gently placed him on the hastily assembled operating trolley.
“Two of them should be chained nearby. Three turned feral already, pulled their chains from the wall,” Adri said, his fist clinging tight to Rafe’s jacket.
Rafe pressed a kiss to his jaw and then his lips. “I need to get that chip out of you while we still can, kitten.”
His words sparked a new panic in his mate, and Rafe threw himself across Adri’s body before he tumbled to the floor.
“They’ll detonate it! Get away from me!” Adri cried, voice frantic.
“Kitten. Kitten!” Rafe shouted, forcing Adri to look at him. “I’ve got you. The pack’s got you. The signal blocker should last long enough to get you and the other two sorted. They won’t be able to do a damn thing.”
Adri froze as he processed Rafe’s words.
“Do the others first,” Adri said.
Rafe’s wolf howled in protest inside him. “Sweetheart, I won’t be able to focus on a damn thing until you’re safe. The sooner I get that chip out of you, the faster I’ll be able to help the others.”
Adri looked like he might put up a fight, but Marco leaned in close. “I won’t let them die, Carter. Now shut up and let your mate work.”
Adri’s mouth snapped shut. Then his eyes narrowed in anger as he processed his body’s involuntary reaction to their Alpha’s order. They didn’t have time for any of that, though.
“I’m going to knock you out with my power so you don’t have to feel me digging inside your brain, kitten. That okay?” Rafe asked.
Adri’s jaguar shone bright in his eyes as he stared up at him. “Of course. I trust you with my life, Rafe. I trust you with everything.”
Reaching out before he could overthink it, Rafe let his power flow through him, sending Adri into a deep sleep. To his right, Emmy had already connected the video link to Katie, and the portable floodlights had been set up so she could see what he was doing.
“Take this now. I’ll get whatever they’ve drugged him with out of his system,” Luca’s mate Cal said, stepping in close from wherever he’d been to press a syringe into Rafe’s hand.
Rafe injected the stimulant immediately before sinking into the focus he needed for what was to come.
As he extended his awareness into his mate’s body, he could feel the water witch’s cooling power doing just what he’d said and seeking out the foreign substances in Adri’s bloodstream—silver and who knew what else—and drawing them out.
Distantly, he heard the sound of gunfire and yelling, but he couldn’t focus on that. Marco would keep them safe.
“Craniotomy?” Rafe asked, hand extended towards Emmy.
The cranial drill was pressed into his palm, and he stared at it blankly for a moment.
He’d practised this the other day with Katie.
Stood in her kitchen and created perfect circles in a skull stolen from the forgotten in the hospital’s morgue.
That skull hadn’t been attached to a body more precious to him than life, though.
It didn’t have soft lips parted slightly in slumber.
It didn’t have skin he wanted to trace with his fingertips until he had every inch memorised by touch alone.
“Doc? You don’t have time for this,” Cal said, voice gentle.
Shaking himself, Rafe forced himself into the clinical calm he was so used to, even though it felt like he was dressing up in someone else’s ill-fitting suit. He could do this. He had to do this.
Turning his mate’s beautiful face to the side, he didn’t hesitate again as he turned the drill on and reopened the wound he could still feel in the bones there.
The world narrowed to the circle of skull he pulled free, to the veins pulsing with his mate’s heartbeat as he exposed his brain, to the rivulets of blood as he used a scalpel to excise the technological cancer forced on his mate.
And all the time, he channelled his power into his mate—healing the damage to Adri’s brain as he sacrificed accuracy for speed; stopping the bleeding from the veins clustered around the chip that would otherwise be trapped in Adri’s skull when he closed up the wound; burning away any chance of infection from the unsterile conditions before it could take root…
and desperately willing Adri’s heart to keep beating when it stuttered under the pressure of two surgeries and whatever poison they’d pumped into his veins to keep him compliant.
“You did it, Doc,” Cal finally said, gently pulling the needle from his hand as Rafe stared down at the neat line of stitches on his mate’s scalp.
Rafe clung to Adri as someone—Marco—tried to lift him clear.
“Two more to go, Doc,” Marco reminded him. “He’ll be sad if they don’t make it.”
Rafe whined in exhaustion and complaint, a noise his wolf forced out through lips still human, before leaning down to press his forehead to Adri’s.
Two more to go. He’d poured so much of himself into healing Adri, he didn’t know if he had anymore to give.
Cal silently pushed another of his stimulant syringes into his hand.
“I’ll catch you when you fall. Just hang on long enough for them.”
Rafe nodded once, turning away from where his Alpha was carrying his soul away from him to focus on his next patient.