Chapter Seventeen #2
Marcus’s head shot up from where he’d been crouched down. His eyes darted over the humans and shifters until they finally found mine.
With his nose to the sky, Marcus howled louder than I’d ever heard a werewolf howl before. The cry vibrated through the ground. Shards of glass from the front doors danced as the floor quaked. Hunters covered their ears in pain. The werewolves all froze.
Marcus shifted to his human form in a flash, his skin glistening with blood. “Tell him to let her go,” he growled. His voice bounced off the buildings, resonating through the air.
James and Malik whirled around, their blades still pointed toward him.
Color drained from James’s face. “Greg, what are you doing?”
Greg yanked on the chain. “I’m pretty sure she’s the reason all the guns jammed, James. This little bitch has been playing both sides.”
Marcus’s entire body shook with fury. “What the fuck did you just call her?” He looked at James for the first time since his shift. “Tell him to let her go. Or I won’t just kill him. I’ll peel the flesh off his body and force it down his throat.”
Malik slowly lowered one of his swords, his back now vulnerable if Marcus struck. But his arm stayed stretched out behind him, as if he was warning Marcus to stay back for Marcus’s own protection. “She’s already subdued with your whip, Greg. Lower your damn knife,” he chided.
Greg shook his head, glancing around to ensure no one got too close to us. “We’re not going to let the thing inside her live, are we? It’s a disgrace to our kind—to all that we stand for.”
I’d clenched my teeth, trapping the startled sound before it escaped, but I couldn’t stop my hands from trembling against the restraints. My legs went weak. Each beat of my racing heart reverberated through my entire body.
Maya growled from somewhere to my left.
“Don’t,” Marcus ordered, voice like steel.
Greg chuckled, freezing my breath in my lungs as the tip of his knife tapped against my skin. “That’s right. Tell your dogs to back the hell up, or I gut James’s protégé like a damn fish.”
Marcus rolled his shoulders, trying to calm himself down. “Retreat,” he forced through gritted teeth.
No, no, no. I watched in horror as the werewolves followed their alpha’s command.
James forced an exhale through his pursed lips, his head on a slow swivel as he watched the shifters obey with skepticism.
Greg nodded in approval. “Good. Now we can trade.”
I shoved him with my shoulder. “Trade what?” The words came out weaker than I’d liked.
“A life for a life. Yours…” He looked up at Marcus. “For his.”
I pulled at the chains around my neck, my hair standing on end. “Hell no.”
Greg laughed. “I think I’m being more than generous since technically it’s two lives for one, right?”
I bared my teeth. “Eat a dick—”
“Right.” Marcus’s interruption stole the breath from my lungs.
My hands froze in their place as I stared at him in disbelief.
Marcus ignored Maya as she barked in what I assumed was opposition. “Let Joanna go, and then I’ll hand myself over.”
Please, God. No. Marcus, kill him.
Greg snickered. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
I knew hunters like him. He wasn’t going to let me go. He was going to kill Marcus and slit my throat while the werewolf’s body was still warm. Then he and the others would strike down every shifter during the commotion.
If Marcus surrendered now, the Blackwood Pack would be eradicated.
Greg pushed me forward, and I cursed in pain as I fell to my knees. “I’ll break her neck,” he warned. I heard as he fidgeted with his utility belt until he threw something over my head.
I recognized the collar moments before it clattered onto the concrete but turned away when the silver reflected the sunlight straight into my eyes.
“Rebecca,” he called over his shoulder, “bring the dog his new accessory.” He tugged on the chain from behind me. “Ah-ah-ah, James. Now, you know better than that. Both you and the kid stay back. Let the beast—”
A tiny meteor crashed down from the sky and embedded itself in the ground in front of me. Red splattered across the pavement. Something warm poured down my back.
The chain loosened from around my neck, and I wasted no time scrambling to my feet, watching as Greg’s lifeless body dropped to the ground—a hole clean in the middle of his forehead.
Panic sizzled through the air like a living thing. The hunters scurried around to find cover from the invisible threat.
My hands flew to my stomach in relief, frantically rubbing against my skin.
A chest slammed against my back, and hands rushed to remove the silver chain from around my neck.
“That was too close,” I whispered to myself. It should never have happened. “Too close.” I turned to my liberator. “I thought…”
Marcus was biting the insides of his cheeks when he opened his grasp and let the chain clatter onto the concrete.
The sound of the impact snapped me out of my spiral. I pulled away from Marcus and gasped. With a furrow on my brow, I grabbed his hands in my own.
His burned palms were a violent shade of red.
Tears welled in my eyes, and without thinking, I brought his palms close to my lips, blowing the blotchy skin.
He shuddered, releasing a wistful breath.
And just as I was about to thank him for saving me yet again, tingles danced along my skin.
I spun around, my eyes finally landing on the man responsible for the sudden commotion.
Yards away, Silas stood on a fire escape, leaning against the building’s dilapidated wall. He was throwing a pebble into the air and catching it with a calmness that froze the blood in my veins.
This alpha of alphas. The leader of the rogues. The werewolf I wished would suffer an agonizing death by my hands… saved my life?
Silas caught the pebble he’d thrown in the air again in one hand, giving a lackluster salute to the werewolf behind me with the other.
My hands trembled as an ache bloomed in the back of my throat.
“Marcus…” I whispered, glancing at the hunters in Silas’s trap… at the humans I’d disarmed and debilitated. “What the hell did you do?”