Chapter 20
Declan
My muscles burned and trembled from the hours I had spent bound, bruised, and helpless, but adrenaline surged through my veins, steadying my battered body enough to stand.
Aidan stood protectively at my side and Logan’s intense presence anchored us all. Edward scanned the corridors, his calculated vigilance reassuring. Jamie’s usual easygoing grin was replaced with purpose, and just beyond him stood…
Wait. My breath caught sharply.
“Is that… the assassin that tried to kill us?” I rasped, exhaustion making my voice rough.
The woman stepped forward, every muscle tensed like a cornered predator, her blue eyes narrowing slightly as she met my gaze. Dark hair framed a face that was both beautiful and bold, her posture rigid, weapon gripped tightly in one slender hand.
The moment our gazes connected, an electric current surged through my body, fierce and undeniable, nearly knocking the breath from my lungs. Heat ignited within me, my wolf rising powerfully beneath my skin, howling eagerly with primal, desperate recognition.
My mate.
The realization crashed over me in dizzying waves, shocking and incredibly intoxicating.
My pulse quickened, blood roaring in my ears.
Despite the agony still radiating from the bite mark on my arm and my myriad other injuries, my body reacted immediately, my cock hardening.
I straightened up, my exhaustion wholly forgotten, stepping instinctively toward her, drawn inexorably closer.
She lifted her chin, eyes blazing, clearly sensing my recognition and resenting it. “I’m no one,” she snapped tightly.
I grinned a little bit, amused at her vicious resistance. I was no stranger to feisty, challenging mates. I’d loved deeply, and lost painfully. But despite that aching loss, I felt suddenly ready to embrace the challenge of the woman standing here in front of me.
Aidan cleared his throat carefully, exchanging a wary but amused glance with Logan. “She’s our mate, Declan. Mine, Logan’s, Jamie’s, Edward’s… and yours too now, apparently, judging by the look on your face.”
“Aww, fuck,” our mate muttered, obviously less than thrilled.
“Believe me, Declan—she’s not particularly happy about it either,” the usually dry and understated Edward chuckled.
Jamie laughed outright, his familiar humor finally resurfacing. “Aye, she’s been giving us hell the entire time, mate.”
I met her gaze steadily. Beneath her stubborn defiance was an intense strength, a dangerous fire, completely different from Kait and Lila, the women I’d loved and lost before. Kait had been strong and protective, while Lila had been gentler, her sweet nature anchoring us all.
But this woman… she radiated danger, violence, and an unyielding pride. My heart squeezed sharply in my chest at the challenge she represented, the promise of what could be.
My smile widened slowly, the ache of loss finally easing slightly within me, replaced by anticipation. “Well then, love,” I murmured slowly. “Looks like you and I have some things to work out.”
She glared at me, anger sparking, but beneath it was a faint flicker of uncertainty, curiosity. “Don’t count on it.”
“Oh, I definitely am,” I said softly, carefully stepping closer, ignoring the pain throbbing from my injuries. “You seem like a fierce little thing… Someone I’m going to enjoy getting to know very, very well.”
She bristled at my words, her every muscle flexed and ready for a fight.
My wolf growled eagerly within me, intrigued by her spirit, and eager for the challenge she represented.
Kait and Lila would have liked her, maybe even respected her.
Though my heart would always ache for them, I felt finally ready to open myself up again, embrace a new mate—a bold, beautiful warrior I could already sense would push me, challenge me, and test me at every turn.
Logan’s voice broke gently, but firmly through the charged atmosphere. “We need to move. Declan’s hurt, and we’re exposed here. The Elder Lycan’s still close, and we don’t know if he’s got anything else up his sleeve.”
I nodded slowly, reluctantly pulling my gaze away from the flawless beauty standing stiffly before me, but even as we turned to move forward, I felt her wary gaze on my back.
She’d fight every step of the way, and the thought made me smile faintly with anticipation. We’d survive the Elder Lycan, end this nightmare, and then, I’d have plenty of time to win over my stubborn new mate.
Aidan came close to study the ugly bite marring my forearm. His jaw tightened, his voice dropping into that no-nonsense tone of his I knew all too well. “We need to deal with that right now.”
I frowned. “What do you mean, ‘deal with it’?”
He met my gaze, his expression foreboding. “Sera told us: humans turned wolf have one chance if they’re bitten by the Elder Lycan. Another bite from a pure wolf can counteract the poison if it is given within twenty-four hours.” His expression didn’t waver. “I’m going to give you that chance.”
I understood instantly, my stomach knotting. “And you think that’s going to be pleasant?”
A faint, humorless smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Not even a little. This is going to hurt like hell.”
Before I could argue, he grabbed my opposite arm—the one the Elder Lycan hadn’t touched—braced it firmly in his grasp, and in one fluid motion, shifted and sank his teeth in hard.
White-hot pain shot through me, exploding up my arm and into my chest. I threw my head back, a sudden, instinctive howl ripping from my throat. “Bloody hell, Aidan! That hurt!”
Aidan pulled back, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand with irritating calm. “Yeah, well, hopefully that means it’s working.”
“Don’t be a pussy,” Jamie grinned. “You got this, Declan.”
Cool and composed, Edward chimed in. “If we hadn’t done it, you’d be beyond saving in a matter of hours. Now you’ve got a fighting chance, at least.”
I pouted and flexed my bitten arm. It was throbbing painfully, joining the rest of my throbbing wounds. “Could’ve warned me a little more.”
Aidan smirked faintly. “I did.”
“We’ve bought ourselves time, but not much,” Logan reminded us. “Let’s get moving before the Elder Lycan decides to finish what he started.”
The Elder Lycan’s explosives had done more than try to kill us in the auditorium. They’d turned the tunnels into a twisting, crumbling nightmare.
What had once been wide, clear corridors were now a maze of jagged slabs of concrete and twisted rebar jutting like the bones of some dead giant.
The air was thick with dust, every breath tasting like powdered stone.
Somewhere far behind us, debris still groaned and shifted in the dark, making my wolf bristle.
We moved in silence, save for the scuff of boots over rocks on the ground and the occasional clatter of dislodged rubble.
Logan led the way, Aidan and I limping along behind him, but refusing to slow.
Edward’s assessing gaze swept every shadow.
Jamie kept near Sera, knife loose in his grip, and Sera still walked with her chin high, scanning the dark like she dared it to come closer.
I’d been through enough hellholes to know this place was different. It felt… designed. Purposeful.
And then it hit me. The reinforced walls, the old blast doors we passed, they weren’t typical metropolitan tunnels.
“There’s something special about this place, isn’t there?” I asked in a low voice that carried through the darkness.
Edward gave me a quick, knowing glance. “It’s not. NATO had a facility under Dublin during the Collapse. It was totally off the books. Only a handful of people knew it existed.”
“That’s why the humans made their last stand here,” Logan murmured, running a hand over a section of reinforced steel. “It was already fortified.”
Jamie grunted. “And now it’s a bloody maze full of lycans and a monster and traps.”
We kept going, weaving through sections where whole walls had collapsed inward, forcing us to squeeze single file through gaps or clamber over piles of debris.
Once, a low, distant howl carried through the darkness, bouncing off the metal and concrete in a way that made it impossible to tell where it came from.
“Sounds like we’ve got company,” Aidan muttered. The pain in his voice concerned me deeply. What had he endured to rescue me?
We pressed on through the long dark tunnels, my mind drawing unwanted comparisons to old stories of underground tombs and cursed ruins. It was like we were walking through the Mines of Moria, but with something even worse than orcs lurking beyond the shadows.
After what felt like hours, we came to a long hallway lined with rusted lockers and overturned benches. An old NATO emblem, faded and scorched, was still visible on the far wall. The place smelled stale, like it hadn’t seen fresh air in decades, but it was quiet.
Logan scanned the space, then nodded once. “We’ll stop here. There’re no obvious entry points, and only one door to cover. It’s the safest we’re going to get for now.”
We moved into the room, the group spreading out.
Edward immediately checked the door’s hinges and locking mechanisms, while Jamie scavenged through the lockers for anything useful.
He came up with a dented canteen and a few packets of military rations so old that I wasn’t sure they were even edible.
Aidan eased down against the wall with a groan, his injured leg stretched out in front of him. Sera crouched nearby, quietly checking over her knife methodically. I found myself watching her longer than I meant to, noting the way her focus never faltered, even now.
Finally, I lowered myself against the opposite wall, rolling my sore shoulders. “We’ll need a plan for getting out of here. If this base is as big as I think, there are probably other exits the Elder Lycan hasn’t trapped yet. Hopefully, anyway.”
Edward nodded, eyes still on the door. “Maybe. But finding them without alerting every lycan in the place is the trick.”