There is fighting upstairs. Darian growls, rushing up the steps of the basement we were in before shoving the heavy door open.
“I, Luna Katya Hartley, reject you Beta Mateo Leo Calder of the Black Creek Pack,” I choke out before hearing Mateo’s anguish then feel the tether snap. I feel Ares howl more than I hear it, just as Ezra snaps the chains. My mark dissolves and burns like acid on my skin, and I cry out at the pain.
Everything happens quickly, and Darian’s men’s startled reaction is slow when Maddox tears into them, ripping them to pieces. Andrei’s straps are severed as the table is flipped on its side. Maddox’s claws tear through the side of the steel as he attacks the man, using it to keep distance between them when a gun goes off.
Darian walks back down the stairs, and a scream leaves my lips as Maddox drops and I rush over to him, my hands still tied behind my back tightly. I try to loosen them, but all it does is give me burns from the ropes being laced with Wolfsbane.
“You said you would free him!” I growl.
“I am, but I am not risking him attacking me when I do,” Darian chuckles as the two men grab him, Ezra is forced to shift back. “Settle down, Katya, it’s just concentrated wolfsbane. He will be out long enough to throw him off my property,” he chats before walking over to a grate in the floor and lifting it.
Stairs lead farther underground.
“Seems your pack is still willing to fight even with no Alpha. Now I have to make some new plans.” The men haul Ezra down, his feet dragging on the ground as they follow their Alpha.
A war rages upstairs as we walk underneath the town, and they are completely unaware we are right beneath their feet.
The men split off from us, and I stop. “Drop him to the end of the tunnels in the forest,” Darian orders his men.
“I am not rejecting him until I know he is safe.”
“I know, but my sister is in the infirmary. We will grab her, then you can reject your mate. Save my sister, and we are leaving,” he instructs. “You will feel it if I hurt him, I give you my word, just make sure you keep yours.”
We got to the end of the tunnels after around 20 minutes of Darian dragging me through them, and I had to run to keep up with him. When I touch my pocket, I feel one of the vials is broken, my leg is sticky from the substance, yet the other feels intact. I needed both, but now I had to come up with something else.
“Did you get him out?” I ask my father, glad I still had the pack link.
“Yes, I will hold him as long as I can, I know you did this for a reason, Kat, and I trust you,” he sighs, and I let out a breath before he groans, and I know Mateo is fighting him to get back in. The pain would have worn off by now and be just a hollow numb sensation like I am getting, a cold void. Darian stops, and I realize there are more tunnels than I expected as he shoves me forward, pressing the gun in my back before the claws of his free hand sever my ropes and free my own.
“Climb them,” he orders, and I climb the ladder before pushing on the grate. I slide it to the side to find myself in the pack hospital, and we are in some sort of cleaning room.
Darian’s phone rings, and when he climbs out, he answers it. The video call connects.
“Done, Alpha,” the man confirms, and Darian holds the phone up to show me, but I can’t reject him while he is unconscious.
“Get out of there and bring a car to the back door of the hospital we are leaving, leave the phone there, so I can see when he wakes and come get us,” Darian orders. The man places the phone beside Ezra, and he walks back off before going into the drains that lead to the tunnels.
“End of the hall,” Darian instructs, nudging me.
“So you are just leaving your pack?” I ask him as I open the janitor’s closet and step into the white corridor.
“Yep, my sister and I, along with you, are leaving this dump.”
“What about your pack?” I insist.
“Won’t be any of them left, I have wired all our money to offshore accounts. I don’t need a pack that agrees with my father.”
I remember Mateo saying something about the bunkers being loaded with explosives. He is planning to kill everyone. Anger burns within me. How could he be that sick to kill his own pack? The people he was raised to protect, raised with, his friends and family like they mean nothing to him?
“Left,” he says at the end of the corridor near the rear fire exit, he pushes a door open before looking at his watch. “We have thirty minutes to get out of here,” he warns, motioning toward the bed.
Tabitha is hooked up to a ventilator, tubes coming out of her everywhere, her skin is gray, her cheeks hollow, and she looks like a corpse. I have no idea what sort of disease she has, but she looked dead.
“Hurry up, he is waking up. Get on with it,” he snaps, showing me the screen. Ezra gets up, shaking himself, looking dazed, before I feel for the bond. I had to be quick in case he commands me, so before he can figure it out, I force the link.
“I, Luna Katya Hartly, reject you, Ezra Pierce, Alpha of the Black Creek pack, and renounce my title as your Luna,” I gasp out, clutching my chest. Darian laughs, enjoying the agony as Ezra drops on the video recording, clutching his chest. A loud growl erupts from him as tires screech outside.
“Now, heal her,” he demands. I nodded, he would kill me, but I knew they would live when they aren’t tied to me. Darian shoves me toward his sister. “Remember, I have your brother, I will order him set free once she is healed.”
But he was completely unaware of one thing. When Maddox lost it and killed his men, he severed Andrei’s ties. It was only a matter of time before Andrei woke and broke loose, he would follow our scent. I just had to wait him out a little longer, praying he woke up, but Darian has no more patience as he shoves me again, and I almost land on top of her.
He looks out the door to the corridor, and I know I am right, I could hear Andrei in the tunnels. I was outmatched with no wolf, and now basically human with the ability to heal others. Lucky me. I thought. I wiggled my fingers and was surprised to see my claws slip into the mattress she is lying on. Maybe I am not so defenseless after all. I thought for sure my ability to shift would leave with the bond. Andrei’s words make me smile. You are the wolf.