25. Poe
Poe
Ava’s sickening panic speared through me in the split second before the Escalade slammed into the Range Rover, launching me to the side.
Crunching metal deafened the world. The seatbelt locked, and my head bounced off the popped airbag, sending dust into the cabin that stuck to the back of my throat as I struggled for air.
Just when it seemed we’d stopped, another crash came from the driver’s side, whipping the front to the right.
My vision shimmered, blacking in and out, and tinnitus rang in my eardrums, the high-pitched squeal of shock and confusion. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was. I thought about letting the daze have me, about sinking into unconsciousness and giving up on reality.
Snap out of it!
My wolf growled and bucked in my mind. He snarled until I listened to him, my senses jolting back online.
“Ava!” I shouted, immediately looking for my mate. She was knocked out next to me, her head limp on her shoulders.
I put my hands under her chin, forcing her face up. Blood stung my eyes, and a throb in my forehead told me I must have had a nasty gash.
Ava blinked awake with a gasp, batting at my hands as her fear rushed through the bond.
“Poe?” She choked, coughing up the remnants of airbag grime lingering in the cabin. “What happened?”
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “Are you?”
“C’mon.” I clawed through the airbag and ripped it from the roof before launching through the broken window.
“Where’s Lycan?” She glanced around, struggling with her seatbelt. I didn’t know, but I had a guess.
I reached in, tore through the strap, and grabbed her arms to help her out. I ignored my stiff joints and protesting muscles as I hauled her weight onto the ground, steadying her when she wobbled on her heels.
The street spun. My brain buzzed. My entire body shook.
Shouts echoed from all around me. Orion and Aquila fired bullets into a horde of vampires circling them.
Serpent and Bow tore through the undead like they had a vendetta, ripping and clawing until Evelyn’s followers were nothing more than a fucking mess on the ground.
Moose moved like his age was more of a technicality than a real number, kicking and punching, taking on three vampires at a time.
Mill was right behind him, slicing bodies with a big, angry machete.
Ren and Bridge fought side by side, Lycan’s twin cutting our enemies down while Bridge cast spells and conjured fire with her bare hands.
Even Mick had joined the fray, loaded down with guns and steel weapons, slicing through whatever came at him.
I turned, desperate to find our mate. The sound of Lycan’s roar echoed from the other side of the wreckage, and I rushed around it to find him.
He had a male vampire by the throat, his claws sinking into the flesh until blood gushed from the wounds. It tried to fight him off with hard fists to Lycan’s gut, but he tossed it aside like a fly, maintaining his hold on the bloodsucker’s windpipe. It collapsed in a lifeless heap.
“Lycan!” Ava shouted and ran to him. I tried to grab her wrist to stop her, but she moved too quickly, and I was still blinking away the daze of the crash.
The distraction cost us. Another vampire jumped on him as he turned to look at her, and they both went down to the ground.
The sight of him under one of those evil fuckers enraged me, and my claws extended from my fingertips, ready to draw blood.
My fangs shot out. I sprang on the vampire, shoving him off Lycan.
We landed to Lycan’s left with me on top, scraping and tearing its face to shreds.
My wolf took over, tossing the human aside.
I punched through the vampire’s chest and grabbed its heart, yanking it out in one terrible snap.
Before I could get my bearings and make sure my mates were okay, another ambushed me, pummeling me to the ground.
I grappled for my pistol and fired it at the vampire’s head.
Black, oozing blood coated my face, and I heaved at the stench—decayed flesh, rotting organs, filth and sewage.
By the time I stood up to check on Lycan, another three vampires had jumped on him while he tried to shield Ava, who swiped at any bloodsucker she could reach.
“Poe!” Lycan bellowed as he dodged the evil pricks on top of him. “Get her out of here!”
“No!” Ava yelled, kicking a female vampire in the chest. But the bitch grabbed her ankle and yanked her down to the ground.
She landed with a hard thump on her back, and all the air whooshed out of my lungs like it was me who’d taken the hit.
I threw myself into action, springing on the offending vampire and sinking my razor-sharp claws into her throat.
One clean jerk tore her head from her body, and Ava scrambled away, struggling to her feet.
“Poe! Take her!” Lycan shouted as he dropped the last vampire and panted. “That’s an order. Go! Now!”
The human side of me wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. I wouldn’t abandon him, not like this. I couldn’t leave the pack. They needed my help. He needed my help.
But my wolf recognized the dominance in his hard stare and the command in his tone. Lycan was pulling rank, and I had no choice but to obey.
I gritted my teeth and tried to freeze my muscles in place, resisting my beast’s insistence that we listen.
No. No!
I’d spent my life running. I’d promised myself I was done with that. And now that I’d finally accepted the inevitability of us, he forced me away? Just when he needed me the most?
“Go!” Lycan said again, turning to take on another vampire.
My body reacted before my mind could stop it. I grabbed Ava’s arms and pulled her upright, hauling her over to one of the other SUVs.
“No! Poe, stop it! We have to stay and fight!” Her fury rattled down the bond, urging me to listen.
The only thing that could override an order from someone higher in the pack was if one’s mate was in trouble, and if I’d actually sealed the mating bond with Lycan, I might have been able to stop myself.
But getting Ava out had become the priority, both in terms of magic and order.
I had to do it.
She fought me the whole way, reaching out to Lycan, crying and scratching my arms to get me off her. But I outweighed her in sheer force and muscle, so I shoved her in the passenger’s seat before running around to the driver’s side.
“We can’t just leave him,” she said, tears streaking down her cheeks. “We have to help them! We have to—”
“I know,” I said, my voice cracking. “But I can’t… I can’t stop. I have to do this.”
“Poe…”
I put the car in drive and slammed on the gas. I took one last look at the carnage. Broken bodies lay strewn on the ground. The Bastards were beat up and exhausted but holding their ground. Just as I turned the corner, another truck arrived with more vampires pouring out of their doors.
I caught one last glimpse of Lycan before a pile of our enemies enveloped him in a writhing mass of destruction.
“What the fuck happened?” Guin said when we got back to the safehouse. Maeve and Sol rushed to Ava, helping her into the living room while I clenched my fists and tried to calm myself.
Fucking Lycan.
Fucking pack hierarchy.
“It was an ambush,” Ava said, choking back sobs. She ran her hands over her face and shook her head. “They descended on us and we…we…” She looked up at me through tear-flooded eyes. “He ordered us to leave.”
“Where are they?” Maeve asked in a shrill tone of terror. Her mate was still out there, and I’d left him, too. I’d left them all. Shame coiled around my heart, squeezing until I couldn’t breathe.
“Can you sense him?” Ava asked, turning to face me. “Can you feel him? Is he okay?”
Sol closed her eyes, and a shimmer of pack energy coursed through my veins. I ignored it, choosing to reach inside myself for that faint thread connecting me to Lycan. It was tiny, but undeniably on fire. It sizzled and throbbed, like touching a live wire with nothing to ground me.
“He’s still alive,” I murmured. “But Gods, he’s fucked up. Bad.”
Squealing tires outside brought my attention back to the front door, where bodies tumbled out of an SUV in various states of disarray.
Orion had Bow’s arm slung over his shoulder, an arm around the other shifter’s waist as they ambled forward.
Mill, Mick, and Ren were bloody and beat up, but otherwise unharmed.
Bridge and Leander held Serpent up between them.
A second SUV pulled up behind them, but only one shifter got out. Aquila.
My heart sank, and my jaw clenched.
No Lycan.
“Locust took a bad hit, but I can still feel him in the bonds,” Orion said, practically dragging Bow over the threshold. “She took them. Lycan. Moose. Locust. We couldn’t get to them in time.”
Ava launched up from the sofa, her worried gaze flicking between me and the VP. “Taken? Where? Where are they?”
“We barely made it out ourselves,” Aquila said. “We had to regroup.”
“Fuck,” Serpent groaned as the witch and her warrior sat him on the couch. “That fucker got me.”
“It’s not that bad,” Bridge said. “Take a deep breath. We’ll patch you up.”
“Here, let me see,” Aquila said, dropping in front of him. He wasn’t a full-blown healer yet, but he might be one day. If I wasn’t about to keel over myself, I could have helped him. Instead, I focused on not throwing up in front of everyone.
“Mill, get your laptop,” Orion barked. “We need to figure out where she’s holed up.”
The half-bond to Lycan pulsed, spreading silver through my veins, nearly dropping me to my knees. A wave of nausea rocked my gut, and I doubled over with a deep breath. Fuck, they were poisoning him. They were injecting silver straight into his marrow.
“Poe, what is it?” Ava grabbed my cheeks and held my face up to hers.
“He’s in rough shape,” I whimpered. “We don’t have much time.”
“We know where her holdings are,” Mill said, fingers slamming on the keyboard. “We just need to narrow it down.”