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“Then what do you care where Tommaso is?”
“I want his location so I can notify my other pack mates where to find him.” Something flashed in the enforcer’s eyes. It was there and gone in a heartbeat, but it made Sebastian’s gut seize. “What have you done?”
“I haven’t done anything. As for my pride mates? Well, they could have gotten up to all kinds of things while down in the mines.”
Davide swore, and Wattie growled.
As for Sebastian… rage surged through him, singeing his lungs so every breath hurt. “You motherfucker!”
“Uh, Seb?” Wattie warily cut in.
For the love of God. “What now?”
“She’s gone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Isaiah hid a feral smile. It was amazing that he could want to smile when such stomach-roiling pain racked his blown-out knees, leaving him at honest risk of vomiting.
Sebastian’s brows flew together. “What do you mean she’s gone?”
“I mean she was there and now she’s not,” snapped Wattie.
Isaiah hadn’t noticed his mate slink away, but he had known she wasn’t dead—which was the only thing that had kept him from launching himself at Sebastian; the only thing preventing his cat from forcing the shift in pure rage. Instead, the animal paced and snarled and whipped his tail, his sanity anchored by their mate’s pulse, strong and even, skipping along their imprint bond—a bond that had snapped fully into place when Sebastian had put that gun to her head.
It was in that moment, when Isaiah had feared neither of them would make it, that he’d also realized he felt no surprise at the idea that she’d be taken from him somehow.
He’d known right then what had been blocking the bond and preventing it from fully forming: The expectation that he would lose her. His fear of it happening had been so all-encompassing that—scared to feel secure in the knowledge that she wouldn’t be stolen from him—he’d braced himself for it to happen. In doing so, he’d held back slightly from their mating without even realizing it. And he couldn’t be more infuriated with himself for it.
“She can’t have gone far,” clipped Sebastian, his gaze darting around.
Davide’s mouth thinned. “There’s no blood trail, so I don’t even know what direction she went in. Seriously, fucking black-foots are too weird to exist, they… Shit, the big guy Hale brought with him is gone as well.”
Not a surprise. A single bullet to the chest was never going to be enough to put down one of Alex’s kind. If the pack had known he was a wolverine, they would have taken more care to ensure that he was dead. Isaiah had been banking on them not knowing.
Sebastian pulled in a breath… and Isaiah saw it on his face; saw the wolf’s realization that everything had gone to shit and could only get worse from here. Resignation flitting over his features, Sebastian turned to his pack mate. “Wattie, just press—”
A blur of tawny fur sprung at Wattie, snatched the cell phone from his hand, and sprinted away.
The guy jerked in the chair. “Fuck!”
Everything that happened next seemed to move at hyper speed. Alex’s wolverine charged into the room with a roar. Bullets whizzed out of guns. People burst into the house from both the front and back. Isaiah awkwardly flung himself at Sebastian’s legs, knocking him down flat and sending such mind-numbing agony through his injured knees that his vision went black around the edges.
Only able to reach as high as the wolf’s stomach, Isaiah plowed his fist into his gut over and over just before a bunch of his pride came over in their animal form.
Propping himself up on his elbows, Isaiah surveyed the scene with grim satisfaction. Pallas cats were swarming the intruders. Literally. They wrapped their furry bodies around faces, arms, and legs; mercilessly tore strips of flesh from scalps and bone; made weapons fall from hands and clatter to the floor. And so the sounds of gunfire quickly stopped, rapidly replaced by curses, screams, growls, hisses, and snarls.
Feeling assured that the threats had been neutralized and the pack members were going nowhere, he caved to his cat’s demands that they call for their mate. “Quinley!” He could feel her pain and fatigue—both arrowed down their bond in sharp, hot pulses.
Right then, Vinnie crouched beside him, his brows lowering. “Jesus, Isaiah.” He turned to another of their pride mates. “Get Helena.”
“Don’t let them kill Sebastian,” Isaiah told him, his tone clipped. “That fucker is mine.”
“They wouldn’t dream of robbing you of that pleasure.”
Mollified, Isaiah nodded. Movement from his left caught his attention. He looked to see Quinley’s little cat padding over to him. Thank fuck. His inner animal sagged in relief, though a growl eased out of him when he saw the patches of blood matting her fur. Isaiah felt his back teeth lock as anger zipped through him at the sight.
“Her kind really is tough to take out,” Vinnie marveled, watching her approach.
