57. Annabella
Chapter fifty-seven
Annabella
Eighteen dead. Fifty-six injured. Those were the numbers. I kept counting them because the numbers were clean. The numbers didn’t smell like smoke and blood and the sour-sick stink of fear that had soaked into every surface of the Bottley Bar.
Someone had shoved all the tables together in the center of the room and turned on every overhead light.
The harsh fluorescent buzz made familiar faces look hollow and carved out.
Waylen’s laptop cast a second glow across the scarred wood, displaying what was left of Three Rivers’ security grid. Most of it was red; offline.
I stood near the back wall with Sam. Twenty-three other people were in here, and I could sort every one of them by heartbeat and scent without trying. The wolf side of me had been running triage of its own since we’d walked in, identifying Three Rivers Pack from outsider, injured from whole.
Ryan sat at the head of the table, Mai beside him with a sleeping Victoria tucked against her shoulder.
Oakley was curled in Wally’s lap near the window, thumb in his mouth.
The twins smelled like banana and the residue of children’s strawberry Tylenol, layered under the flat mineral stink of concrete dust.
Ellie was upstairs in the apartment Jase used to share with Sofia before she moved into the Shaw house.
My mom was up there too, along with Aunt Jo, Uncle Fred, and Ben.
Thomas was with them but still drifting in and out.
Amara had set up a triage rotation between the apartment and the market.
Jase had refused to leave Amara’s side, hovering near her like a second shadow every time she moved between patients.
Sofia sat by the window with Derek, her red hair pulled back in a knot that was losing its war with gravity.
Her fingers kept landing on her mate’s arm—his wrist, his forearm, the crook of his elbow—and I recognized that for what it was.
She was confirming that he was still here. Still solid. Still breathing.
I’d been doing the same thing to Sam for the past hour.
Jem and Esme had claimed a corner booth, her small frame fitted against his shoulder.
Gideon leaned against the wall near the bar, arms crossed, one foot resting on the wall behind him.
Shya was holding Bridgetown in case they hit there too, but had sent her brother Henry here with Mason.
The Bridgetown Alpha stood near the door with Henry flanking him, both of them coiled and watchful.
The humans stuck out. Mina’s platinum hair had gone dull with grime, the purple tips matted.
She caught my eye and gave me a small, tired smile.
I tried to return it. Sam had pointed out a human called Ronnie Bishop, apparently a leader of a biker gang who dealt in intelligence and rubbed both Ryan and Mason up the wrong way.
His brother Maxwell, was next to him, both of them propping up the bar, looking like they could take every Shifter in this place.
Waylen was hunched over his laptop, one leg wrapped in fresh bandages.
Amara had wanted him in the medical tent.
He’d told her—his exact words, according to Sofia—that she could “drag me out of here over my cold, dead body, but even then my ghost would haunt this laptop.” He’d lost enough blood to warrant a transfusion, he had a concussion, and he was running damage assessments with the single-minded fury of a man who took a direct hit to his office personally, which, fair enough, he had.
Mai’s voice cut through the low murmur. “This is everyone we have for now.”
Mason shifted his weight. “AJ’s on his way.”
Sam leaned close. His breath was warm against the shell of my ear, and even now—even with eighteen dead and my mother barely breathing upstairs—my body registered his proximity and came alive.
The mate bond didn’t care about timing. “Bear Shifter,” he murmured.
“Helped us track Shya when she was kidnapped. AJ’s solid. ”
“And I called Lucian.” Sofia’s voice came out steady, but her fingers pressed harder into Derek’s arm. “He can’t make it. He’s under attack. Said if he makes it out alive, he’ll come, but not to count on it.”
“Dragon Shifter.” Sam again, barely a breath. “Not exactly an ally. More of a mutual-interest arrangement.”
My gaze shot to Sam’s. Dragon Shifter? I had no idea they were anything but a myth. I definitely wanted to meet this Lucian and soon.
Ryan’s mouth compressed. “You think it’s connected?”
Sofia lifted one shoulder. “We can’t rule it out. Lucian didn’t have a lot of time to talk and wasn’t exactly forthcoming with details.”
“I spoke to Talia.” Gideon’s drawl was unhurried. “She and Bethany Rose are still gathering intelligence and people. But they’ll follow what we decide here.”
Ryan looked at us. All of us. Then he leaned forward, palms flat on the table. “The attack was surgical. They hit the Alpha House, Thomas’s place, Shaw Investigations, the market. Then they pulled back. They knew exactly what to target.”
“Our power centers,” Derek said. “It was a message.”
“And reconnaissance,” Waylen added without looking up. “Guarantee they planted surveillance while we were scrambling. I’m sweeping for it now but it’ll take time.”
Ryan glanced around the table. “Right. Let’s figure out what the hell just happened.”
“What happened is Kane finally made his move,” Derek replied.
“Not Kane himself,” Waylen said. “The Humans First Division. Morrison’s unit.”
I straightened. “How sure are you?”
“Very.” He tapped something and a list of frequencies scrolled across his screen. “I pulled their comm chatter before they knocked out my systems. Morrison’s call signs.”
“Who is Morrison?” Zeke asked from the bar.
“The HFD.” Sam pushed off the wall, “It’s humans with a hard-on for killing Shifters, except now they’ve got badges and government funding.
They call it ‘investigating werewolf communities.’ What they actually do is show up at four a.m. with tactical gear and silver bullets and murder everyone.
Morrison runs their northeast operations. ”
Zeke’s expression darkened. “And the Council just lets this happen?”
“The Council was drowning.” Sam didn’t flinch from it.
“Trying to contain numerous ripple outbreaks, a covert team kidnapping and wiping Council members’ memories, Kane stalling or redirecting resources from the inside, all the while trying to keep the peace with the humans before they declared an all-out war with Shifters. ”
Zeke’s jaw worked, and I shook my head at him. “Not now,” I said quietly. “We can’t do this right now.”
He held my look for a beat, then nodded. Barely.
Ryan tipped his chin toward Waylen. “Walk us through the attack.”
Waylen took a breath. “They hit at ten. I caught movement on the eastern sensors five minutes before. Anomalous, but not enough to trigger a full alert. I launched drones for a closer look.” His mouth went thin.
“They were ready. Took out all four in under thirty seconds. Comms went down twenty seconds after that. Then they hit my office directly.” He met Ryan’s eyes.
“They knew where I was. Knew my setup. Knew my protocols.”
“How?” Sofia asked.
Waylen shrugged. “I don’t know yet. But whoever fed them that information made a mistake, because now I know they exist. And nobody hides from me.”
“Ryan and I were at Bridgetown,” Derek said. “Coordinating the cross-territory defense pact with Mason and Shya. They knew to hit us when we were out of Three Rivers.”
Ryan’s face didn’t change, but his scent did. Something under the smoke and the stress went cold and focused.
“Morrison’s a patient little shit, isn’t he?
” Gideon’s drawl cut through the tension.
“Classic decapitation strike. Hit hard, hit fast, get out before they can regroup. Spreads fear among the opposition. Sends a message that nowhere is safe. They’re watching us, they know when we are at our weakest, and they can strike at any time.
Morrison and Kane are saying they know what we value.
And they can take it whenever they want. ”
I thought about Thomas, injured because he’d refused to leave my mother and Ellie. I thought about my little sister’s face when we’d pulled her from the rubble, the way she’d clung to me and wouldn’t stop shaking.
I would kill Kane and Morrison. Right after I worked out what to do about Simon.
He was still in the SUV outside the Bottley, hog-tied and gagged.
Esme had put a ward on the car, so we’d know if he tried to get free.
But knowing he was out there, breathing the same air as my mother, made something in my gut twist and pull.
He knew what he’d done to her. And somehow, I was going to have to make him tell me how to undo it.
The door swung open.
Every head snapped toward it.
A mountain filled the frame. That was my first thought: not a man, a mountain.
Six-five at least, shoulders broad enough to block the doorway entirely, arms that looked like they could rip a car door off its hinges without warming up.
Dark blond hair fell across his forehead and a rough beard covered a jaw that was built for absorbing punishment.
Bear Shifter. My wolf knew it before my brain caught up. His scent was wrong for a wolf. Heavier. Wilder. This had to be AJ.
He stepped inside, amber eyes sweeping the room in a scan—
And stopped. His whole body just… stopped. Mid-stride, mid-breath, every muscle locking at once. The color left his face so fast I thought he’d been hit with something I couldn’t see.
His eyes had fixed on something across the room. And the expression that broke across his face—
It was raw. Devastating. Hungry.
“No,” Sam said quietly beside me. “You have got to be shitting me.”
I followed the bear Shifter’s line of sight.
Mina.
She stood frozen near the bar, barely five feet tall in her heeled boots, staring up at the mountain in the doorway.
“Oh,” she breathed. Just that. Oh.