9. Blaze
Blaze
Grinding my teeth, I storm down the hall. I don’t want to go get breakfast. I want to bond with my mate! If Dr. Jay thinks I’m not going to watch everything he does with her, then he’s a fool.
I walk right past my room, our room, past the staff dining room, and straight to the surveillance room, pulling my key card from my pocket and scanning it to unlock the door.
Stepping inside, I close the door behind me, take a seat in the chair, and start searching for the camera feed of Dr. Jay’s lab.
“There you are,” I mumble as I click it and watch the image enlarge, taking up the entire screen and blocking out all other feeds. She’s the only thing I need to see right now.
She’s beautiful, her long red hair, those beautiful blue eyes, filled with fear.
Her body is a little hard to see since her clothes are baggy on her, but I hope she appreciated the effort I went to, keeping them for her.
After Dr. Jay stabbed her, I removed her clothes from her wolf form so he could skin her.
Then, when she regenerated, I put them back on before placing her in her cell to recover, hoping she’d appreciate the gesture.
Looking at the screen, I see the two of them talking and decide to rewind the feed to the point that I left. I want to know what they’re talking about.
When I see myself leaving the room, I hit play and listen.
“That idiot is as annoying as he is useful.”
Immediately, my hands clench into fists. Is Dr. Jay talking about me?
“You have no idea how to bond us,” Three says to him, making me jolt in surprise.
Dr. Jay gives her a knowing look that sends burning rage through me. “I’m not a fool. I know a wolf only needs to bite his mate and knot her to seal the bond.”
“What?!” I scream, standing up so fast my chair flies backward, hitting the floor with a loud bang.
“Why tell him you will then?” Three asks him, and I try to rein in my anger to hear his answer.
“If you haven’t noticed, Blaze is a little bit of a loose cannon. I’d rather have him on my side, and holding that over him has kept him compliant. It stopped him from running off with you once he finally caught you.”
“I’m gonna kill him,” I say to the empty room as my claws extend. “I’m going to rip him open and feed him his own intestines!”
Seeing the time stamp in the corner of the room, I remember I’m watching this delayed by a few minutes. I try to click over to the live feed, but suddenly the feeds go dark. “What the fuck?” I growl, pounding on the keyboard. Did we lose power? But the lights above me are still on.
It doesn’t matter. Now that I know Dr. Jay has no plans to bond us, and that I can do it myself, I don’t need him anymore. Or this facility.
Three and I can live anywhere. She’ll be happier, too, since she hates Dr. Jay so much. Even now, I can still picture the fear in her eyes as she looks at him. I like when she looks at me like that. Like I’m important enough to fear. But she doesn’t need him. We don’t need him. Not anymore.
I exit the room and immediately hear gunshots. I glance down at the lock on the door and realize the lights are off. This isn’t some random power outage. Someone took out our electronics and is attacking us.
I need to get my mate!
After I take a couple of turns, I freeze, smelling her moving toward me.
Then they step around the corner. I shouldn’t be surprised to see one of her wolf friends holding her against his chest, but I am.
Although, I’m mostly just pissed off. I assume the one was her mate. Too bad he survived losing his bond.
The pink-haired one steps toward me. “You’re a coward, and you’re going to pay for everything you’ve done to my mate.”
My clench as I yell back, “She’s my mate!” How dare he try to say otherwise. I was literally made from her. I took her, so she’s mine.
He growls, then lurches toward me at the same time I charge at him. At the last second, he changes his aim and goes for my legs, sending me tumbling to the floor. Low blow.
Suddenly, the short one is there, standing above me. Before I can react, his claws slash along my throat before he moves backward.
I clutch my neck, feeling my blood pouring from me. My eyes widen in surprise. I hadn’t expected dying to hurt this much. It’s intoxicating. My vision darkens as I’m unable to take in a breath.
I died before, once. Dr. Jay wanted to test the strength of my new power, but he did it with a painless injection.
This… This is a strange sort of delightful agony.
My wide eyes turn to my mate, and I reach out a hand toward her, trying to silently tell her I’m just like her.
That I now get the pleasure of experiencing what she has so many times.
Darkness presses in, and just before I die, I hear her whisper, “I hope you burn in hell.”
I gasp, sitting up as I take several deep lungfuls of air. My hand flies to my throat. It’s uninjured and clean. Though I can feel blood dripping down from my hair. I push to my feet and see the pool of blood there.
That’s right, they killed me. I glance up and down the now-empty hallway, wondering how long I’ve been out. Quickly pulling off my shirt, I use it to wipe up the back of my head and shoulders so I don’t leave a trail of blood behind me as I quietly jog toward the lab.
I find it empty, except for one important thing. Three’s beautiful red coat. She must have forgotten it in here. I grab it before hustling back toward the stairs. There’s only one other thing I need from here before I leave.
As I approach the door on my left, right before the stairs, I find it unlocked and curse, kicking it open as I storm inside. The hidden door in the corner is wide open. I look inside the hidden room, but it’s empty. He’s gone.
“Fuck!”
I follow his scent out of the room and up the stairs, pleased there’s no one here, but pissed that I can tell my prisoner fled the facility.
I slam the outside door open, charging out as I follow his scent through a rip in the fence and into the trees.
The scent grows stronger, and I know I’m gaining on him.
How fast can he run in magical cuffs? Especially since I always leave him half-starved and weak.
I glimpse his brown hair up ahead and put on a burst of speed. I close the distance, tackling him to the ground when I get close enough.
I roll off him, smiling as I grab the front of his shirt and pull him to his feet. “Just where do you think you’re going, mage?”
“Let me go!” he yells as he tries to pull away.
“Oh no, I’m not done with you yet,” I tell him as I drag him back toward the facility.
“What more could you possibly need me for?”
I don’t answer because I’m not sure what my plan is yet.
Did Three’s bond with one of them let them track her here? Luckily, the invisibility spell on my car kept those wolves from tracking her while she was in it. But that must have stopped working when we exited.
To get her back, I might need a spell like he gave me to control those rogues in Westgrove. I’ll definitely need more potion to block my scent if I want any chance of getting close to her.
“I need more of that scent blocker,” I tell the mage as I approach where my invisible car is hidden.
“I told you, I’m too weak. I can’t cast any more spells or make any more potions for you until my magic replenishes.”
I lay my hand on the trunk of the car, moving it until I find the handle and pulling it open, revealing the empty trunk. I gesture inside as I tell him, “Well, you better figure out a way to do it. Cause if I find you’re no longer useful, I’ll just kill you.”
“What’s your plan here?” he asks in annoyance as he climbs into the trunk, clearly knowing with those magical cuffs binding his magic, that he won’t be able to escape me right now.
“If I wanted your opinion, mage, I would have asked for it,” I tell him as I shove him inside.
Just as I’m about to close the trunk, he turns his angry eyes on me as he snarls, “I’ve told you a hundred times, my name isn’t mage. It’s Edwin.”