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CHAPTER ONE
THEO
Jade tossed me a piece of cloth, staring pointedly where the blood of the Alpha who’d been guarding the door had spilled over my knuckles. It was still warm as I wiped it from my skin. Jade wasn’t worried about the gore—her black gear was similarly decorated—but since I’d be moving from knives to a gun, she didn’t want to risk anything like slick hands inhibiting my aim as we entered the warehouse.
Five days. They’d had Shae for five days. That Alpha I’d just ended hadn’t suffered enough. I loved Shae. It wasn’t the same romantic love that I felt with Jade, my Alpha, or Ethan, my Omega. It was closer to what I felt for Trevor or Miles because of the bonds within the pack, but still different. The world told us that packs needed an Omega to tie them together—to make them whole—and Ethan did that for us. But Shae did it too, and they’d done it first. Without Shae, there wouldn’t be a pack and I wanted them back. I wanted the people who dared to hurt them to pay. The blood I’d just spilled hadn’t done enough to appease the beast within me and I knew I wasn’t alone in that feeling.
These last five days had been hell for my pack. Ethan had barely slept while breaking down the trail and directing the techies. They’d followed endless leads, eyes glued to screens and fingers flying over keys, finding clues, and searching code that just looked like gibberish to me. With each dead end, though, Jade and Miles had pulled further into themselves. Then, finally, the team had found the warehouse that the Jackals were using to hold the people they’d been abducting. At the moment, my best friend, Bodhi, and three of Drake House Securities’ most trusted operatives were working their way around to the other entrance. Every piece of information we’d recovered, though, showed that the door Jade and I had just moved through was the most direct route to those who’d been taken.
The guards at the door had been a joke. And the one Alpha, who’d thought he could use his bark to stop us? Stupid. Slitting his throat had felt good, and not just in retribution for all the times assholes like him had underestimated me simply because of my designation. More than that, it was the fact that the bloodletting that Jade and I had been desperate to dole out, ever since Shae had been taken, was finally happening. My girl was fully embodying those mythical Valkyries that Trevor always compared her to. The bandolier strapped to her chest was fully stocked with weapons, except for the two blood-stained blades that she held in her fists as she stalked through the poorly lit hall, looking for her next victim.
We’d been instructed to move down the main hall until it branched into two. Jade stepped behind me while I raised my gun and made sure both corridors were clear. Over the com channel linked to our earpieces, Bodhi indicated that they had cleared the rear entrance and were holding it. Jade inclined her head to the hallway on the right, where our intel told us the people in charge were most likely to be, then she silently strode away from me. We’d decided it wasn’t likely that the Alphas would be with the captives, and Jade was better suited to combat any Alpha bullshit than anyone else on the team. That meant I would be going left; toward the area we suspected all the holding cells were.
I moved cautiously down the passage. The dim fluorescent lights buzzing overhead added to the ominous feel of the space, but it was the multitude of scents that really made my gut churn. So many blended together and almost all of them had soured with fear. After we got Shae, Cat, and any others out, there was nothing I wanted to do more than burn this fucking place to the ground, but we were going to have to turn it over to the authorities. Fucking red tape. Continuing down the hall, I saw an open door on the right. When I heard voices coming from inside the room, I raised my gun. Before I could move any closer, a man in a white lab coat was shoved through the doorway and into the hall.
Stumbling against the wall, he curled in on himself like he was expecting a blow to follow. I recognized the shock of red hair from the description I’d read of one of the missing Betas. Dayton something, he’d worked in the Omega Foundation labs under the Alpha who’d drugged and kidnapped Ethan, kicking off this whole chain of events. As Dayton moved to cover his head, he saw me standing there. His eyes widened and he dropped to the floor. A cold grin stretched across my face as another Beta, all in black, followed Dayton into the hall and made to kick him while he was down.
“The fuck are you doing on the floor? I told you to go check the fucking merchandise.”
I cleared my throat and the new arrival’s head snapped in my direction. He went to reach for his gun, and I put him down. There was a shout from inside the room and the guy in the lab coat scrambled backward, away from both me and the doorway, pointing to the room he’d been thrown out of.
“Everyone in there is a guard.”
Dayton’s statement was all I needed to know before clearing the room, taking out two guards who sloppily attempted to return fire. I turned to the pallid, red-haired Beta, still sitting on the floor, hugging his knees to his chest, and looking like he was trying very hard to become invisible. All of our information indicated he’d been taken against his will, and, based on the way that goon had been treating him, I was fairly confident that he wouldn’t produce a gun from his lab coat to shoot me.
“Do those cells need keys?”
His face was still drained of blood, and he carefully kept his gaze away from the dead men as he looked up and answered me.
“No. They open when you slide the bar out of the way.”
His scent was continuing to sour with terror so I forced as much gentleness into my voice as I could.
“How many people are being held here?”
“Only five. They moved three Betas out last night.” His eyes shifted to the dead men, briefly, then back to me, wincing. “They weren’t doing well… after the injection.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck! I tried to keep the spike of panic from my bond with Jade so she wouldn’t assume the worst and consequently get herself hurt.
“I’m looking for two Betas, Shae, and Cat. They are paramedics and were taken together.”
He nodded furiously, like he understood his cooperation would keep a bullet out of his body.
“They’re here. The cells are further down this hallway. Shae is in the third one on the right. But Cat was put in with the Betas who are showing signs of transitioning—they’re all together in the last cell.”
My brain tried to latch on to what he was saying about Cat, but my feet were already moving toward the door he’d said Shae was in. Dayton scrambled to his feet and followed me, hesitantly, as though he wasn’t sure whether he was better off with me or staying with the dead men. Distantly, I knew that I was taking unnecessary risks by not being more alert, but I couldn’t make myself care. Not when Shae was so close. The sliding bar that locked the cell scraped loudly across the metal as I moved it so I could get the door open.
The room was dark. At first, I could only make out what was illuminated by the light from the hall: one corner of the room, with a prison style toilet. As I stepped in, a range of scents assaulted me. There was the odor of unwashed bodies, and then I picked up Shae’s scent, a strange chemical layer intertwined with the rotten berry scent of their fear. My nose wrinkled involuntarily at the wrongness of it.
“Theo?”
At the sound of that shaky voice, my head whipped to the right of the door where I could make out a cowering figure, sitting in the corner, curling in on themselves. A growl built in my chest at the sight of Shae crouched in fear, but I held it in as I lowered my gun and held out my arms.
“Hi, Sunshine. Time to go home.”
Shae wobbled toward me and collapsed against my chest, silent sobs wracking their body. I tightened my arms around them and pressed my face into their matted hair, trying to ignore how wrong their scent was. I motioned for Dayton to come inside the cell, and he slowly moved in.
“Give Shae your coat and go stand in that corner.”
