Chapter 34
We knew where they were. At least we knew where they were.
I hadn’t heard from Dom—he hadn’t texted and I couldn’t reach him—but the A-Team had managed to use a satellite they shouldn’t have been using to find the SUV convoy.
We’d seen their ATVs and a truck, and they’d just been able to confirm that only the ATVs had been loaded in the truck.
We weren’t concerned about that. We were following the SUVs.
“Are you going to be okay?”
Smith was driving. He’d taken his work car when he’d first done the lock change and had come out here in the armored one. Smart choice.
It took conscious effort for me not to snap at him. “I can handle this.”
The team had only been able to borrow the satellite for a few minutes, but they’d been able to track the SUVs after. I didn’t need a detailed rundown of every camera or cell network or whatever else they were using. They were really fucking good at this.
Night was creeping over the world like Death herself in a long black coat. They were on the highway, heading west, and we’d had to come up with something, and fast.
I didn’t like the plan, not one bit.
“I can do this,” I said, not in response to Smith.
“Ten clicks, boss.”
I checked my gear. I hadn’t done that in a long time, but the routine of it, of getting calm before getting deadly, ran deep.
Smith was pulling on his gloves. They were custom; looked like regular winter gloves but were fitted with metal along the knuckles. He could do a lot of damage with those.
We didn’t have a precise head count, couldn’t know they hadn’t picked up more people before we’d found them. We knew they were armed. They were hunters. We’d planned for that as best as we were able.
Smith straightened. “Five.”
“If you can grab Marcus, you put him in this car and take him out of here.”
Smith just glanced at me before focusing his full attention on the road ahead again. From the set of his jaw, he wanted to argue, but he didn’t.
“Understood.”
The sky was gray and fading blue, no sunset bruising left in the world. Ahead of us, lights flickered to announce a police stop. We’d been lucky Vi knew an elder from another pack who had married a sheriff who would help, but this could still go sideways in so many ways.
Once the SUVs slowed, we caught up, and from then, it was a countdown to the inevitable.
I slid down in my seat. Ahead, the sheriff, a tall woman in her fifties, was chatting with the driver of the lead car.
The convoy was three cars total. She’d be asking for his license and papers, and she’d take her time.
“Good luck,” Smith said.
Go time.
He left the car running and got out, leaving the door open. We’d switched off the automatic light in the interior twenty minutes ago.
He raised a hand. “Hey, Sheriff, hello!”
He walked past the last car. Three cars, just two of us, and the sheriff. I hated those numbers.
The sheriff straightened, but she shone her large flashlight right in the driver’s face, making the move look coincidental. That was nice work. I kept my eyes on Smith.
“Excuse me, Sheriff.” Then he turned right.
I didn’t wait for him to pull open the driver-side door of the second car. I had to get to the third.
I got out, kept low, moved. The shouting started, more doors opening.
I heard the sheriff’s voice boom over the scene. “Keep your hands where I can see them! Don’t move!”
Just past the hood of Smith’s car, I caught scents. It was Marcus. He was here. I got Steven as well, and another werewolf, someone I didn’t know, just like Dom had said. They must’ve been hunting elsewhere too then, must’ve captured someone else before coming to take the men I loved and our mate.
I rounded the back of the third car in time to see the driver of the car pull a gun to aim at Smith, who was turning the face of the second driver into a glorious mess.
I rammed into the third driver from behind. Kidney punch, then elbow to that area. I got his right arm, brought my left around his neck to control him. He grunted, struggled.
Movement from my right made me turn, and I looked right into Steven’s eyes across the roof of the car.
Someone fired a gun, and my ears rang. I couldn’t see Steven’s hands. More shouting.
I let go of the driver’s arm and pulled my gun. It was an awkward angle, but I didn’t care. I pressed the muzzle against his side and squeezed.
He didn’t immediately go limp. That was rare and took a lot more than this, but with my left arm, I now had the momentum to slam him against the car’s roof. I got him at a good angle. He started sagging to the ground.
“Hey, you fucking freak!”
Steven. I turned.
He had Marcus. Marcus looked pale. He wasn’t okay, but he was alive.
My blood turned to ice water. I bared my teeth, dropped the driver, and walked around the back of the car.
Steven had a gun out, and he was pointing it in the general direction of Marcus’s head, but he wasn’t really looking where. Marcus’s feet where dragging. He was being a very bad shield. Good boy.
Steven’s face turned from victorious to gleeful in the time it took me to get around the car, but I wasn’t slowing down, and he hadn’t expected that.
“Stop right—”
I raised my gun and took the shot.
I got him in the throat, and he raised the hand that was holding the gun as if a bullet could patch the hole. I watched his knuckles bleach as he tightened his grip on Marcus.
Marcus didn’t have the strength to break free, or he was in too much shock to do so.
I cleared the distance, pinned the gun against Steven’s neck where he was trying to stanch the bleeding, and elbowed him hard.
His fingers slid off the gun, and he stumbled back. Marcus had sagged to the ground. He screamed.
I dropped to my knees next to him. “Marcus.”
His mouth opened and closed, and his eyes were wide with shock.
There was another shot. I covered Marcus with my body. He whined. I heard someone grunt in pain, and I could smell blood and gunpowder on the air.
“All clear,” Smith hollered.
I lifted my weight off Marcus. He was pale, jittery. I put Steven’s gun on the ground, well out of reach.
“Boss?” Smith again.
“I’m here. All clear.” I pulled my knife from its holster and cut the zip tie around Marcus’s wrists. “Marcus, talk to me.”
I tried to lift him, and he screamed. “Arm. My arm is broken, I think. It hurts.” He jerked. “Ell! They gave him something. They have Dom. Oh, please go find Dom. I don’t know what they did with him.”
Dom was here? They had Dom? My mouth went dry.
“Marcus, I’m going to lift you.”
He shook his head, and the way he moved looked as if he was trying to shake me off. He was too weak and in too much pain though. “No. Dom. Find Dom. I won’t move. Find Dom and Ell, please.”
On the other side of the third car, Smith gasped. “What the hell?”
Marucs’s bottom lip trembled. “I think they hurt him too. They have a tracker in the collar, he said.”
I reached out, meaning to touch Marcus, but I was filthy with Steven’s blood. Steven, whose chest still rose and fell with shallow breaths. I pulled my hand back and wiped it on my pants.
“Marcus, let me—”
“Go find Ell and Dom.”
He was not okay, but his moonstone eyes had turned steely. This was a command from my mate, from my omega.
“All right. You stay put.” I stood and was about to walk away, but then I pulled my jacket off. It did little more than hide my holster, but I put it over Marcus anyway. “I’ll be right back.”
We were on the passenger side, close to where the highway faded into vegetation. It was quieter here. The commotion was on the other side of the convoy.
I looked left. Smith had his own sidearm holstered and was helping an unfamiliar werewolf out of the car Marcus had been in.
I could scent Smith’s blood, but he seemed largely okay.
His face was the picture of calm. He wasn’t feeling like that though.
He only put on that expression when he got really angry.
“Smith, Dom and Ell?”
He looked up. “I haven’t seen them. No time.”
I stopped and turned to look at the second car. He’d cuffed the driver to the door, but the man was out after taking Smith’s punches. I went to the trunk and opened it.
“Oh, fucking—Dom?”
He was on a tarp, duct taped and unconscious, and they’d cut him.
It was a lot of small wounds that had scabbed over, except for where they had chafed against the inside of the car.
He was sticky with his own blood, and the familiar yet wrong scent washed over me, relief and terror blending together.
I only noticed that Marcus had followed me after all when he sagged against the SUV.
“Is he okay?”
I climbed into the car and felt for a pulse. I found the steady beat that was so dear to me, a caress against my fingers, and saw the rise and fall of his chest, slow but there.
I looked at Marcus. “He’s breathing.”
He had my jacket over his right arm and was cradling his left one. “I’ll go and find—”
He turned white as a sheet and passed out, just like that. I wasn’t there to catch him, only reaching him when he was already on the ground.
This time, I scooped him up and decided I wouldn’t let him go again. I had to find Ell though. Marcus had commanded me to do that for him.
The sheriff came around the car and looked us over, looked at Dom’s unmoving form in the back.
“I already called the EMTs. Big black-haired guy’s one of yours, right? Vi’s baby nephew?”
I looked up. “Is he okay?”
“Don’t think anyone here is okay, but the kid’s breathing.” She looked past me to where Steven lay. “Well, if this isn’t all a really big mess.”
She walked past me to get a closer look at Steven, but I didn’t care.
“Marcus, I’m here. It’s going to be okay. Ell’s here. You’re okay now.”
That was a lie. He wasn’t okay. He’d been hurt. I should’ve taken better care of him, of everyone.
The failure was mine, and mine alone.