8. Cherry
Cherry
Hunter holds me tightly as we follow the others out of the cell. My entire body feels like a live wire from so much emotional whiplash, combined with my recent regeneration.
I try to remind myself that all my mates are here, and alive. That’s what matters most. But losing the three mate bonds I had established is leaving me feeling broken and on edge. And realizing I am no longer in the pack bond is devastating.
It’s not fair. Dr. J has taken so much from me already, and now he’s taken my mate bonds too. Or is Blaze actually the one to blame? According to Dr. J, he’s the one who suggested doing all these horrible things to me.
Thank Goddess he’s dead.
“Fuck,” Chase hisses as we step into the next hallway. My head feels like it weighs a hundred pounds, and I struggle to lift my cheek from where it rests on Hunter’s shoulder, but eventually I do, turning to see why we’ve stopped.
Chase and Bain’s bodies are blocking the way, so I reach out and touch Chase’s back as I ask, “Chase? What is it?”
He turns to me, a look of regret and worry on his face. “I’m so sorry, baby. I swear he was dead.” Now he’s turned, and I can see past him to the spot where Blaze’s body should be.
A pool of blood is on the floor where Chase and Maddox had killed him, but he is no longer there.
His words from earlier come back to me.
He wanted to figure out a way to replicate your powers, but it had the unintentional side effect of making me just like you.
At the time, I thought he was talking about becoming a wolf shifter, but if Gage is right, if I’m a… Phoenix, does that make Blaze one too?
“He regenerated,” I whisper in horror, realizing he’s still alive.
My mates all turn to me as Gage asks, “Why would you say that?”
“He told me Dr. J did something to my blood and gave it to him. Blaze was born human, but he said he’s like me now.”
They all turn to look at the pool of blood as Hunter holds me tighter. A fresh wave of exhaustion hits me, and I rest my cheek back on his shoulder.
“Let’s move,” Maddox says, leading us down the hall. We end up going in a direction I don’t think I’ve been before, and soon we’re stepping into a room filled with over a dozen guards.
I gasp, clutching Hunter as my mates spread out around me. “It’s okay, they can’t touch you anymore,” Hunter whispers. I realize Philip and the other three shifters are here too, not only that, but the guards are all tied up by the ankles and wrists.
Standing in the middle of the room is the red-headed shifter, Finn, I think his name is. But that’s not what draws my attention. It’s the man sitting in the chair in front of him.
Dr. J.
He looks bad. He has a black eye, a gash along his forehead, and is clutching both hands to his chest, one of which is wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage.
I seem to recall Bain doing that when they first found me.
An involuntary shiver rolls through me, remembering how Dr. J had shoved his hand down the front of my boxers, trying to force me to shift.
He had cupped my sex, and I was about to shift to avoid his touch when my mates barged in, saving me.
My cheek grows damp from a stray tear, and I quickly wipe it against Hunter’s shirt as I stare at the man who hurt me all those years.
“Sweetheart?” I glance up at Maddox and find him looking at me with a soft look of worry on his face.
“We just have to ask you a few questions, then we can finish up here, alright?” I give him a small nod, and he gives me a tight smile before he points to the doctor.
“Is this Dr. J? The man who tortured you for all those years?”
I nod and watch as Maddox’s nostrils flare, like he’s trying to hold himself back. But he just nods before asking me, “Do you recognize any guards here from before? The ones who hurt you and tried to touch you?”
I haven’t seen them since I’d been kidnapped again, but then again, I’d only seen Dr. J and Blaze. I take a moment to look through all the faces, and I suck in a sharp breath when a pair of familiar brown eyes glare back at me.
“Him,” I say, pointing to Thatcher. “He’s the one who stabbed me.”
“You fucking bitch!” he yells angrily at me. Chase punches him across the face, then lifts him by the front of his shirt, dropping him on the floor in front of Dr. J.
“Anyone else?” Maddox asks.
I continue looking around, surprised to see a few more familiar faces.
I point each of them out, and my mates drag all of them to the center of the room.
Although Thatcher is technically the only one who made me bleed, I’d never met a nice guard.
They were all cruel. You’d have to be to work in a place like this.
As my eyes finish sweeping the last of the guards, I see one more. “Him,” I say, pointing to Jason. “He was there with Thatcher.”
Jason bares his teeth at me but Bain quickly steps between us, blocking me from his sight as he growls out. “Don’t look at her.” He inhales deeply before adding, “You’re the one who wanted to make her shift. So you could touch her.”
Maddox turns to us as he speaks. “Hunter, get her out of here. She doesn’t need to see this.
” Hunter places a hand on the back of my head as he moves back to the door, and I hear Maddox instructing the others.
“You four go with them, protect Cherry while we finish up here. Blaze is still out there somewhere.”
I tilt my head, peeking over Hunter’s shoulder as I see the new guys following us, their faces filled with anger and tension. Are they mad that they had to come here to help rescue me?
As we walk down the hall, the one with white hair sees me looking at him, and the tension instantly drops from his face as he beams at me, waving a little manically as he greets me. “Hi! I’m Casper. You’re Cherry, right?”
I give a little nod, which he returns enthusiastically. “That’s a cool name. I like cherries. But I think I like bananas better. Do you know anyone named banana?”
Frowning in confusion, I shake my head, and his shoulders deflate a little, like he really hoped I did.
“That’s too bad. That would be a cool name.”
“Seriously?” Alaric asks, raising an eyebrow at him. “You think banana is a cool name?”
“Sure! It’s a fun word to say. Ban-an-a,” Casper says, sounding out each syllable slowly.
“We can call you that from now on, if you’d like?” Finn says from where he’s walking in front of us.
“Nah. That’d be weird.” Alaric shakes his head at him as we enter the stairwell and slowly make our way up.
“I can walk,” I tell Hunter, feeling bad that he’s been carrying me all this time.
He makes a noise that’s half laugh, half scoff. “There is no way I’m setting you down, baby girl. I might never let you go again.”
I turn my head so it’s facing his neck and place a small kiss there. “I love you, Hunter. I missed you so much.”
As we emerge at the top of the stairs, he holds me a little tighter. “I love you, Cherry. I’m so so—”
“Please don't apologize,” I say, cutting him off. “I can’t take another unwarranted apology.”
“Unwarranted?” he asks. “Cherry, you were taken right in front of me, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”
“He used a scent blocker, and he was using magic to help hide himself. There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I refuse to believe that,” he tells me sternly as we enter a foyer.
“Give me a moment to make sure the coast is clear,” Finn says before pulling a door open and vanishing in a blur of movement. Some light floods in when the door is opened, and I realize this is the exit.
I glance over Hunter’s shoulder at the door we just came through as I ask him, “What are the others doing?”
He’s silent for a moment before he asks, “Do you really want to know?”
I think about it for a second before I answer. “Yes.”
“They’re going to kill them, after they get a good dose of payback.”
“Payback?”
“Baby, those men hurt you. For years. Who knows how many other people they’ve hurt too. Especially that doctor.” He clutches me a little harder as he explains, “He’s mortal, so they can’t put him through everything he did to you, but they can certainly try.”
I should probably be upset, knowing my other mates were down there, hurting and killing all those men. But I’m not. They deserve everything that my mates feel they do, and probably more. Especially Dr. J. I’ll be glad to know he’s finally dead. I’ll never have to think of him again.
An image of the blood stain left behind from Blaze flashes in my mind. He’s still alive. With Dr. J out of the way, will he leave me alone, thinking he can’t force the bond?
“Does that upset you?” Hunter asks. I pull back a little to look at his face in question, forgetting what we were talking about. “You’re shaking,” he says, running his hand up and down my back. “Does knowing your mates are hurting the guards and the doctor upset you?”
I shake my head. “It’s not that.”
“Then what plagues you, baby girl?”
“It’s Blaze. He’s alive.”
His jaw clenches before he nods. “We’ll just have to make sure we’re ready for him this time. We’ll figure out how he got into our home and fortify against him.”
“He used magic,” I tell him. “He admitted as such, and his car was invisible when he took me."
“I’ll help.” We turn to where Philip and the others are standing nearby, clearly hearing our conversation. “My coven can help with protection spells and charms,” he explains further.
“Coven?” I ask in confusion.
“Yeah, it’s the same as what you call your pack. It’s my family.” Oh, he’s talking about Erica, Zack, and Jon.
“Thanks, man,” Hunter says with a nod.
The front door opens as Finn steps back inside, spreading sunlight into the foyer as I wonder what time it is. “The coast is clear,” he tells us.
“If you want to take her to your vehicle, we will stand guard around it until the others come out,” Alaric says, surprising me a little since he doesn’t seem to say much.
“Yes!” Casper says excitedly. “I want to help guard her too!”
Alaric just shakes his head, then motions for Casper to follow him out the door. Hunter waits for the door to shut behind them before he turns to Finn and asks, “Is he always like that?”
“Who, Casper?”
“Yeah.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“He seems nice,” I say, not wanting to speak badly of someone who volunteered to come here and help rescue me.
“Oh, he’s probably the nicest guy you’ll ever meet,” Finn confirms with a small smirk. “He’s also a little… off kilter.”
“Is he part of your pack?” I ask, curiously.
“No, thank goodness,” Finn says with a laugh. “The guy is super nice and all, but I think I’d go crazy being around him all the time. He’s always trying to impress everyone, and he’s obsessed with finding a mate of his own.”
“Gee, sounds terrible,” Philip says sarcastically.
Finn sighs, pushing his hair back from his face as he pushes the door open. “When they were teenagers, Alaric saved Casper from his abusive father, Alaric’s uncle. Casper has looked up to him ever since. And he even saved Alaric’s life once, taking a bullet meant for him.”
I gasp in surprise, looking out to where the two of them are walking across the field.
“I think after finding out our mate, Lexi, was an omega and can take multiple mates, they both expected Casper to be her fated mate too. But he’s not.”
Silently, we follow Finn outside with Philip behind us. We step through a chain-link fence that’s been torn open and continue toward the trees. Once we reach the forest, I can feel everyone alert as we silently move through it.
It only takes about five minutes to reach our SUV. Alaric opens the side door for us as he and Casper stand on either side of it, like guards.
As Hunter is about to step inside, I reach out and gently touch Casper’s shoulder, making his head whip to me in surprise.
“Thank you for helping my mates come get me,” I tell him. “I can see you’re a good man. You shouldn’t worry. I’m sure whatever plan the Goddess has for you will be worth the wait.”
His eyes widen in delight. “You really think so? You think I’ll get a fated mate?”
I smile at him as I wrap my arms back around Hunter. “I do.”
Hunter starts to climb into the SUV as Casper replies happily, “Thank you!”