VIVIANNA
After dealing with Jason’s men, who were about to attack us, we returned to the house that I’d been staying at with the rebels, on the outskirts of a small town in Colorado.
I followed my nose to where my mates, Tristan and Tav, were keeping him, but I had to shift back to my human form when I was blocked by a pair of cellar doors.
Tossing them open, I jogged down the steps, heading right for the man, who was tied to a chair, bloody and beaten.
The one perk about him being a werewolf and an alpha was that he could heal much faster than your average werewolf, making it harder to kill him.
“Who were they after, Luis? Was it me? Did you think that since I was able to shift back, that you could send me off to Jason and Vadik to get me knocked up again?” I roared, kicking him in the chest so his chair fell backward.
I pounced on him, landing on his chest, making it harder for him to breathe. “Tell me.”
Luis looked at me with hatred in his eyes and spat a wad of blood into my face, where it landed on my cheek. “Fuck you, bitch.”
Excuse the fuck out of me. Did he just call us a bitch?
It would seem so, but I know what he’s up to. He thinks antagonizing me while I’m already pissed off will get me to kill him faster.
This asshole’s gonna wish for the day we would just kill him. How long do you think he’ll live if we start cutting off inconsequential parts of his body?
Should we find out?
I reached out, grabbed his ear, ripped the whole thing off his skull, and tossed it to the side. “Clearly, these are not working for you, so why have them?” I explained, as I did the same thing to the other side.
Behind me, I heard somebody hiss in pain as they saw what I did. The scent of wood and rich earth surrounded me, letting me know it was Tav who’d come to see what I was up to. “Love, what happened?”
“A group of Jason’s wolves came to attack us, but thankfully, Christian and Neveah caught wind of them as they were coming back from a meeting,” I answered.
“Now this bastard is going to tell me why they sent men to the house just as he was about to leave. You’re going to tell me, aren’t you?
” I boxed where his ears once were to drive my point home, making him groan in pain.
“There’s nothing you can do to get me to talk. I’ve already accepted losing everything,” Luis bit out. “It was the only choice. He was going to slaughter us all anyway. The resistance was too much of a liability. The plan to control the movement wasn’t working anymore.”
This information caught me off guard, and I flicked my gaze to Tristan, who was standing in front of me.
Frowning at the man I was crouching on, he looked up at me, giving a sharp nod of his head—Luis wasn’t lying.
Baring my teeth at him in disgust, I slammed his head into the dirt floor, the thud echoing in the room at the force of it.
I could hear the others joining us, and I knew that Maria and Neveah would need to hear this from his lips to believe he’d betrayed them.
“So you decided it was better to be in Jason’s pocket and leave your family to get slaughtered to save your own ass? You and my father should start a club. It would be a tie, at the moment, for the worst father of the year award,” I spat.
Luis groaned as he tried to focus from his head getting smashed around. “It was the only chance I had to survive. If I could live, then my line wouldn’t end. I could start my pack over again under the New World order.”
“That’s your big plan? Let Jason kill off the family who know what a coward and traitor you are and just make a new one? Do you know how fucked up that sounds?” I asked in pure disbelief.
“Yes,” Luis bit out.
I heard Neveah gasp and I could only imagine what it must be like to have actually believed in your own father, then watch him betray you like that.
Hell, he was even ready to kill his own, however many greats, grandmother, who helped found this pack.
How could he be so willing to just kick them to curb and let them die?
Yeah, Maria was a little batshit crazy, but who the hell really knew what magic and knowledge she held after all these years.
There was no chance I would try to kill her, because I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be on her bad side if it didn’t go as planned.
Then there was Neveah, his own daughter, the last living child he had—clearly that meant jack shit to him.
“How could you?” Neveah screamed, shoving her mate out of the way to stand beside me so she could look down on her father.
Nick reached for her, still trying to hold her back as fury burst from her eyes.
“How can you even look at yourself in the mirror after saying you would happily let Maria and your only living child die to save your own ass? Not to mention because of you, Nathan, my other mate, is dead.”
Luis narrowed his eyes at his daughter. “You did that to Nathan, not me. You didn’t listen to Christian when he told you it wasn’t safe to be recruiting in that city. That raid was all your fault for thinking you knew better than the rest of us. I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen.”
As much as I wanted him to dig his own grave with his daughter so that I didn’t feel bad about killing him, I needed more answers. Grabbing his face, I turned it, so he was looking at me. “Did you tell them about my mates?”
“You are no threat to me. I want to die,” he taunted. “Nothing you do to me will get me to tell you what you want to know.”
I sat back a little and cocked my head to the side, seeing that he truly believed that I didn’t have anything left to scare him with.
Too bad for him that I was a far worse nightmare than a man who had nothing to lose—because I had everything to lose, and he stood in my way.
“Tristan, have you tried out your amplified gift yet?”
“No, beloved, it was completely gone when our mate bond was severed,” Tristan explained. “Now that we’re back together, I can access it again.”
“Then it seems like this would be the perfect time to test that out, don’t you think?
” I encouraged with a smile, before looking back at Luis.
“Do you know the real reason they want me and the children I’ll have?
” He didn’t answer, just glowered at me, as Tristan knelt and placed his hands on either side of his head.
“Well, you see, the thing is, I’m made from ancient werewolf DNA and all other kinds of random shit combined together in a test tube.
You could say that I’m older than your mother in a few ways, but like her, I possess magic.
Lucky little old me, I have the ability to restore it in others with my blood. ”
Tristan tilted Luis’s head back, so he looked right up at him. “As for me, I am a walking lie detector, but with my magic restored, I can pull the truth from you whether you want to tell us or not.”
“No.” Luis cried, thrashing about as my mate closed his eyes. Digging my knees deeper into his chest, I held him still while Tristan concentrated on what he was doing.
The room fell silent as we gave Tristan space to figure out his new skill, but I could feel the hum of magic flowing around us.
This told me that Tristan was using more than he needed to, but it was a learning curve for us all.
Peering at Maria, I could tell she also knew what was at work around us, as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
She had her own magic, but since magic as a whole was no longer prevalent in our world, she hadn’t been able to recharge her reserves until now.
My guess was, she’d been using her gifts sparingly.
Now with it flowing so freely, she could glean from the residual.
“It appears the runner Koit took down was there to meet the team you destroyed. He was informing them of our existence,” Tristan shared.
“He was instructed to keep Viv safe and with the pack until she was no longer stuck in her wolf form. Then she was to be taken and sent to Vadik in a different location, closer to the East Coast. He doesn’t know any more than that about the location.
I get the feeling from him that Jason is close by in the area we already suspected, but the base will be nearly impossible to get into if you don’t have help.
” His eyes flashed open and met mine. “They sent a team to find Tim as well. We have to go back for him.”
Swearing, I stood and started to pace. Tim was our link back to the secret base in Wyoming that I stumbled upon by pure accident yesterday.
Of course, the brothers are in different locations. It’s the smart thing to do, making it harder to kill them.
Okay, so what do we do? Go for Hope first or take out Vadik?
As much as I want Hope back in my arms, we need an extremely thought-out plan to get to her. If we take Tim, along with his family, and flee from here with the others, then it gives us that time while we take out Vadik.
Agreed, Vadik might be able to give us more information once we have him.
Coming to a decision, I stopped pacing and looked over at Tav, and spoke to him through our bond. “Kill him. I refuse to talk about our plans with him still alive. I won’t take any more risks.”
With a nod of confirmation, Tav made short work of ending Luis’s life, not giving him a chance to fight back.
I knew Neveah would be pissed that it wasn’t long and drawn out, but we had to move quickly.
“Collect everything you need. We’re leaving.
Darius, can we get a plane, and how fast?
Christian, you said you’re the leader of this rebellion. Where is headquarters?”
“Give me five minutes and I’ll have that answer,” Darius called, heading out of the cellar.
Christian blinked at me a moment, trying to keep up with the sudden change in topic and the orders I was giving out. “Ah Florida, where I’m from.”
“Alright, you and Darius work together to get us where we need to be. We’re coming to stay with you.
” Dismissing him, I turned back to face Maria and Neveah.
“Would you do the honor of coming with us to Florida? I would like to have you both with me as I take down these sons of a bitches who have ruined our lives for far too long.”
Neveah gave me a wicked grin. “No need to ask. I wasn’t gonna let you leave me behind.”
“Dama, I have waited for the day to see our people rise from the ashes for too long to be kept away,” Maria shared, then winked at me. “You bet your ass I’m getting in on this fight.”
Grinning at both of them, I clapped my hands, crossing that off my mental list. “Alright, we need to get this show on the road. Koit, you and Rik get Tim and his family. Bring them here so we can all head out. I don’t care if you have to knock them out or drug them to get them to comply.
He’s too important to this whole mission to let anything happen to him. ”
“You got it, babe. Snatch and grab, here we come.” Koit cheered, kissing me on the cheek as he booked it up the stairs.
Rik, on the other hand, took his time giving me a kiss that made me want to forget everything and have him slam me up against the wall. “We’ll be back soon.”
Yeah, not soon enough, asshole. Why the hell would you get us all hot and bothered just to leave?
Smirking, he gave me a quick kiss, letting me know he heard my wolf’s opinion on the matter, then ran after his brother.
Men. Can’t live with them, can’t live without their dicks. Am I right?
Chuckling to myself, I headed up to the house to take a fast shower to get rid of all the blood and put on some fresh clothes. Just as I finished getting dressed, Darius came to find me as he was finishing up a conversation.
“No, I need a larger option than that,” he argued. “Something that can hold at least twenty people, if not up to twenty-five… Don’t tell me that, Mike. I know you have what I need and I’m calling in my favor.”
Walking up to him, I wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my head over his heart.
Automatically, he put his free arm around me, holding me tight, as the man on the other end of the phone call seemed to be stalling.
With an impatient growl, I held a hand out for the phone, which made Darius smirk.
“Mike, this is your last chance before I hand the phone over to my mate. She isn’t going to be as gracious to you as I am.
Tell me I have a plane to use in an hour and save yourself the humiliation,” Darius warned.
“Wise choice, my friend. We’ll see you in an hour.
” Hanging up, he tossed the phone onto the bed and nuzzled his face against my neck.
“God, I still can’t believe you’re really here in my arms after so long. ”
I ran a hand up and down his back, soothing him as much as myself. Since we’d reunited, it had been one thing after another, without giving us much of a chance to absorb everything that had happened in the past seven months. “I understand that feeling.”
“Right now might not be the time to talk about it, but you half shifted, my queen,” he pointed out as he pulled back enough to see my face. “Did you know you could do that?”
“No,” I answered, shaking my head, and thinking back to that moment.
“My anger seemed to flip this switch for me and my wolf, binding us together as one being. In that moment, I let go of all the things that had been holding me back from my full potential. Somehow, all of those ‘human’ hang-ups didn’t seem as important anymore because all they’ve done is cause me to lose things. ”
Darius’s hold shifted until he was cupping my face in his large hands, searching my face with his bright blue gaze.
“I know that I can’t even begin to understand what you’ve gone through without us and what it must have cost you.
Just know that we are here now to support you in any way that we can.
I also request, preemptively, to forgive us when we do something stupid, because that will happen unintentionally, I’m sure. ”
“Having you here, and all of us back together, helps more than you know,” I assured him with a smile before it fell, and my broken heart pulsed in anger. “Just know this won’t be over until both Vadik and Jason are crushed beneath my heel and my daughter is where she belongs.”
“I would expect nothing less from you, my queen,” Darius murmured as he kissed my forehead. “It will be my greatest honor to lay them at your feet to get the revenge you greatly deserve.”