Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Roman slipped in and out of consciousness until the van slowed to a stop.
He stared at the ceiling of the vehicle, only aware of the hatch opening and rough hands seizing his ankles, dragging him out and into the frosty night air once again. Two alphas gripped him by the elbows and kept him on his feet while Dax climbed out, tablet tucked under his arm.
“Take this inside,” he said, offering the device to one of his pack brothers, who took it without complaint. “And retrieve Axel. I want him to bring the dog to the backyard.”
“Yes, alpha.” The man dipped his head and darted out of sight, and then Roman was being forced around the back of what turned out to be a Jeep, his hazy vision picking up what looked like a massive house silhouetted against a dark sky, a handful of the windows glowing golden from within.
“Take it easy on him,” someone yelled, and another one of those hyena laughs split the air. “The alpha thinks we might keep him after all. Would be such a shame to ruin that body before any of us have time to break him from the inside out.”
The house that belonged to Pack Kincaid was far more elaborate than the first one they’d visited, and Roman made a mental note of it as he was dragged past it and into what looked like a lush backyard of wild grasses and flowers.
The pair who restrained him carried him all the way to the treeline where they dropped him in a heap, though stood guard over him.
Although he was muzzled and bound, they still knew better than to leave him unoccupied.
Dax joined them a moment later with three more alphas trailing behind him. Roman knew Axel would be missing, but it seemed like Jett was missing as well. Not a good sign.
“Axel will be just a moment,” Dax said, his tone apologetic. “The dog gives him some trouble. When you see her, I’m sure you’ll understand why.”
So they were bringing some kind of trained attack dog into the yard? Roman remained silent. He didn’t know what they were plotting, but he already knew to be wary.
And then Axel Kincaid stepped from the shadows, dragging a chain leash behind him with each step.
The dog was not a dog. The dog was a young female alpha who snarled and growled with every forced step she took, her hands wrapped tight around the steel links as she tried in vain to dig her heels into the dirt.
A leather collar was wrapped snug around her throat, fastened tight enough that Roman wondered how she could even breathe around it.
She wore what looked like a tattered dress that was stained so badly he didn’t know what its original color was, her bare skin streaked with dirt and grime.
Her long hair was matted and tangled, but it was her bright crimson eyes that drew his attention.
So bright they almost burned like twin flames in the darkness.
The Kincaids’ dog was a feral alpha. The pine note of her scent was sick with rot, while the softer vanilla tone was rancid. Roman had never smelled an alpha scent like it before.
Dax sighed as Axel wrestled the girl to the ground, gripping her by a handful of her dirty hair and kicking her knees out from under her when she tried to stand. “Puppy. Down.”
Alpha commands did not always work from one alpha to another, but the woman settled on her knees even as her slender body vibrated with fury. Her teeth seemed almost permanently bared, a low rattling snarl filling the air as her eyes darted from alpha to alpha.
Then they landed on Roman, and she stilled, a flicker of human confusion splitting her gaze before pure animal fury reclaimed her, her growling getting louder by the second.
Dax turned his attention to Roman with a polite smile. “What do you think of her?”
Roman didn’t have an answer for him. Feral alphas were few; most did not survive going feral the first time and never came back to their human senses.
Roman himself had slipped only once, pure feral bloodlust staining everything around him, but Sidian had brought him back from the brink.
He doubted this alpha had anyone who could do that for her.
Dax stretched out a hand, patting the top of her head, though she refused to take her eyes off of Roman as she squirmed in place.
“Puppy has been a bit of a work in progress, you see. My brother worked very hard to tame her… Some might say too hard, for that matter. We’ve struggled to get her to obey, but she has one talent, and that’s taking out my trash for me. ”
Puppy tugged on the leash, her hands still clinging to her collar as she scratched at her own neck.
“You are a pretty specimen, I’ll give you that,” Dax continued on, and Roman just stared at him. “But you are dangerous, very much so, and I don’t know if we can trust you. You care so much for our little breeder that it makes you stupid, and I can’t have stupid men in my pack.”
Roman remained silent, his eyes fixed on the woman. Puppy. It was taking his drug-addled mind too long to connect the dots, but Puppy was Kitten’s sister. He knew her.
“This will be an excellent litmus test to see if you’re worthy of keeping,” Dax continued, snapping his fingers in front of Puppy’s face until her gaze jerked to his. “We’ll give you a head start, Kane. I would suggest running as far as you can. She’s quite vicious once she catches up with you.”
Axel grunted as she started fighting against his hold again. “Get him up and let him go. I can’t hold on to this bitch forever, and it’s been way too long since the last time we let her out to play. She might not come back this time.”
Dax snorted. “She’ll come back. She always does. Nash, get him up.”
Nash hauled Roman to his feet, steadying him against the trunk of the tree at his back while Roman tried to shake himself the rest of the way to awareness.
Being caught in the middle of the woods by a feral alpha would not end well for him, and he knew that better than most. He knew what they were capable of, what he had once been capable of, and if he didn’t focus, Puppy would catch him.
She’d kill him. She wouldn’t even remember doing it once it was done.
“There are no paths out here, so best of luck.” Nash shot Roman an acidic smile before shoving him toward the trees, and Roman forced himself to move, his vision adjusting to the darkness and his pace picking up as he tried to account for every stone, every stick, every divot in the dirt.
“Five minutes, Kane,” Dax called out. “I hope you don’t disappoint your little omega.”
As soon as he was out of sight of the treeline, Roman strained against the zip ties binding his wrists until he felt the pieces of plastic snap one by one. They dug into his skin, and he felt it break in places, blood slicking his fingers, but the pain was nothing. Pain meant nothing to him.
They had Sidian. The bastards had Sidian. Roman couldn’t afford to die out in the woods.
He would make it back to the Kincaids, and he would kill every single one of them.
As soon as his hands were free, he took off into the woods, always aware of the clock ticking down.
He breathed out the seconds as he fled into the darkness, trying to figure out what to do about Puppy.
Feral alphas were as dangerous as they were fragile, hopped up on adrenaline that might send them into heart failure at any moment.
How long had they had her? Since she went missing?
He could kill her, he knew that, but she didn’t deserve to die just because of them.
Something crashed through the underbrush in the distance, a sharp howl cutting through the air and sending a flock of birds sailing up into the dark sky, wings fluttering.
His five minutes were up. Roman swore and started sprinting, trying not to run faster than his eyes could make out the surrounding details. A snapped ankle would get him killed.
He didn’t know the woods as well as he wished he did; everything looked the same to him, and all he could do was aim straight forward as he listened to the sounds that spilled through the air behind him.
Puppy was trailing him, but he couldn’t tell how fast or how well she knew the terrain.
Better than he did, he presumed, but was her feral mind keeping track of the details for her, or did she just break through everything in her path to get to her targets?
Was there anything left of her in there, or was she nothing more than a beast?
They have Kitten’s sister. The Mambas have the wrong address. There has to be a leak. There was nothing Roman could do about it, but just the same, he made himself remember the details. They have Sidian. They have his daughter. They have another omega. There are eight of them.
And they had Puppy, someone that Roman didn’t have a plan for at all.
He could try to force the muzzle onto her, but he was certain it was too big for her face, and he might lose a couple of fingers in the meantime.
There had to be a way to stop her without hurting her, a way to get her under control if only so he could try to see if she was still there.
If she wasn’t, then he would kill her, but it was a last resort. If he could avoid it, he would.
The forest fell silent, and Roman glanced over his shoulder, his steps slowing as he tried to make sense of the lack of sound. Not even the frantic footsteps or snapping branches filled the air.
Had she stopped running? Why would she have stopped running?
She might be scenting the air, he thought, letting his back rest up against a trunk as he sucked in a lungful of air.
It was cold out, but the exertion had him sweating as he dragged his forearm across his face above the muzzle.
Might be looking for me, and my scent isn’t natural enough to fade into the forest like hers is.
But I need to know where she is. I need to keep track of her.
If she got the jump on him, he wasn’t sure they would both survive it.
She was smaller than he was. He was stronger than she was. But she might not be herself anymore.
His eyes scanned the shadows as he waited for the sound of her approach, knowing she had to be somewhere out there in the darkness.
Maybe she needed to take a break. Even feral, she was still human, and she had limits on her body whether or not she liked it.
Or maybe the exertion on her heart had caught up to her, and on the way back to the house, he would find her body.
He didn’t want that. He didn’t want to take Kitten her sister’s corpse, on top of confirming for the Mambas that they had problems that would be difficult to fix. If they had someone leaking information and giving them false information, then they needed to clean house.
Roman didn’t know where he was. If he walked straight back, he would reach the house, but he needed a plan before he did that, too. Would Pack Kincaid wait, or would they go back inside for the night? It would be better if they were inside. He could case the house from the outside, and then—
And then what? He didn’t know. Pack Kincaid had eight alphas at their disposal who were not stronger than him, not better fighters than him, unless they were and their entire profiles could be discarded.
Maybe it would be best to do that considering the fact that some of the information was wrong; all of it might be useless to him.
So, start from the ground up. They were strong, but they had nothing to fight for, and Roman would do anything to save Sidian and Amethyst. Goddess, Amethyst.
Sidian had a daughter, and Roman still didn’t know how to process that information.
No, it was unimportant. She needed to be rescued, as did Pack Kincaid’s omega in the likeliest scenario. He could process who she was and why she was important later.
Get back to the house. Infiltrate. Kill them.
It didn’t matter how or what it took; it didn’t even matter if Roman died.
Sidian would be fine without him. As long as he had his daughter, as long as the two of them were reunited, that was all Sidian needed.
Roman would uphold his promise to ensure his mate would be safe even if it cost him everything. There was no price too high to pay.
But first, he needed to figure out where the fuck Puppy was.
A twig snapped to his right, and Roman’s head whipped to the side just in time to catch the pair of luminous crimson eyes that watched him from mere feet away.
Puppy had gotten the jump on him after all.
With a delighted, snarling cry, she pounced, and Roman’s arms swung up to catch her.