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Perfect.
“I want you to send them to this location here.” I pointed at the map.
“Neither of those locations are where Switzerland or Carlson are.”
“No, this is the location of the High Council. They run the compound. You tell them that there are four guard towers located on each side of the fence. They’re each manned by two shifters with high-caliber rifles. The fence itself is electrified, but there is an underground shutoff unit here.” I pointed to a small area on the map before brushing past her, down to the stairs that led to the back door and out into the forest. Now that I’d seen the quarry, I could see the compound in my mind, the landmarks becoming familiar. Thank the Goddess for Google 3D maps. “Tell them to only take down people who threaten them.”
“Okay…” Mariah stuttered. “What are you going to do?”
I smirked.
“I think it’s about time I become one with my beast.”
And that was when I let it all go.
All the pain and the hurt. The anger and humiliation. As I strode forward toward the tree line, I surrendered everything to the wolf inside me. I didn’t fight her, and when she clawed at the surface of my skin and sought entrance into my mind, I gave it to her.
Becoming who I was always meant to be.
There was no cracking of bones. No pain of any kind. One moment, I was standing on two legs, and the next, I was running on all fours.
The wind swept through my fur, the smell of spring filling my senses as I dashed through the woods between the trees and over logs and bushes. I didn’t need a map or an exact location on a GPS system. All I needed were my instincts and to follow the scent of my mates. No matter the distance between us or how great the obstacles, I wouldn’t stop until I found them.
And then I’d kill whoever dared to take them.
I’d always been aware when my beast had taken over, but I’d never been in control. Not like I was now. Before, I had just been a passenger, witnessing the horrors that my beast committed in order to save our lives. But now it felt more like a partnership. Animal instincts and human logic combined. This was how it was supposed to be for shifters.
I thought back to the phone call with Carlson. Something about the tone of his voice was off. He had always been calm and sure. There had been something darker and more urgent when he’d spoken this time.
The place where it all started…
No one knew where it had started. Just like no one had known where my former pack was. Granny had mentioned mines, but there were dozens of old abandoned mines littering the forest. It could have been any one of them. How was it that he had chosen the exact one that bordered on the compound?
My wolf pushed harder as we raced across the terrain. It didn’t take us long to arrive at our destination. The old mine had a cracked wooden arch buried in the hillside. Broken tracks led into the darkest depths of the mountain. This was where it all started, and now it would be where it all ended.
I had seen what would happen if I didn’t go through with it. I couldn’t condemn the world to that fate. My uncle had refusedto pay the cost of the magic he’d used to save his people. He’d become obsessed with power corrupted by it. And my mother, in her sorrow and her grief… She’d made the exact same mistake. I realized now that I wasn’t paying her cost. Because I had died that day. My heart had stopped and my lungs had ceased. I had been nothing more than a shell.
The price I would pay wasn’t hers; it was mine.
The Goddess was testing me the way she had tested my mother. I realized that the only reason I wasn’t going to go through with the sacrifice and set nature right was because of my mates. They were my cost, and if I let myself keep them and turned my back on what needed to be done, then I was no better than those who’d come before me.
This was the cost of living on borrowed time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The air inside the mine was stale and reeked of sour milk. I padded along, still in the form of my wolf, following the tracks as they weaved through the underground. Whispers echoed off the stone walls that still glittered with unmined jewels. There were fresh marks on the wall and tools that still held a thick scent.
These mines weren’t as abandoned as people thought. Heat radiated off the walls, my skin itching as I passed through certain areas. They weren’t only mining gold here. The walls contained pure silver. It wasn’t rare, silver, but supplies were monitored by the Alliance—an underground coalition that regulated laws for shifters in the human world. Sort of like an unofficial government that kept track and monitored individuals and packs. They’d visited the compound on several occasions but had never found anything.
I suspected that whoever the representative was had been bribed or was part of the mass conspiracy that was pack Constantine. My wolf grumbled in my head. She didn’t like the thought of more traitors out in the world.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are…” a familiar voice taunted from farther in the mine. His voice echoed through the corridor, snakelike and venomous. My wolf growled, hackles rising. Damien.
There was a push and pull between my wolf and me. She wanted to ambush him, tear his throat out. We couldn’t do that, and she knew it. He had to be the one to kill us.
“I can smell you, little wolf,” he hissed. “You smell like them. Why don’t you come say hello to your mates before I slit your throat like the animal you are?”
We padded forward, our strides lengthening until we came to the end of the corridor. Keeping our head lowered, we sought out our enemy like a heat-seeking missile. There stood my tormentor. My rapist. The man who would end my life before my mates ended his. They would be sure that happened.
