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“Theo.”
I didn’t know if it was desperation in my voice or the feedback from the bond, but Shae hauled me up and we turned and ran back in the direction I had come from, where I’d left him. I heard Bodhi yelling to the rest of the team, then heavy footsteps followed behind me and Shae.
We had cleared the whole building. The only person I left alive, apart from the kidnapped Betas and my team, was the Alpha. What if I’d underestimated him? What if someone had returned and caught Theo off guard? Fuck. I should never have left him alone. I should have just left the Alpha there for the police to clean up.
There was a trail of blood leading toward the exit where Theo and I had gained access to the building, and my panic intensified. I knew then that the Alpha had escaped but I didn’t care about that. If he’d got away, Theo must have been in bad shape. We kept running, weaving around the carnage that I had caused. I didn’t have room to feed that earlier worry about Shae knowing what I had done to punish those who’d taken them. I had to get to Theo.
I ran through the door to the office and stopped so abruptly that Shae skidded into my back. I couldn’t move. On the floor, feet drumming with convulsions, was my mate. His eyes stared at nothing, blood and spit running down his chin and fists clenched. Shae hadn’t frozen at the sight of him like I did. They moved around me and went into treatment mode. More footsteps pounded down the hall. Bodhi entered the room and swore, then there was a weak, quiet voice I didn’t recognize.
“It’s the drug.”
I whirled around to see a small, red-haired Beta. Before my mind could catch up with my actions, I had the man against the wall. My forearm was against his throat, as his hands tried to find purchase along the smooth wall, and he tried to support his weight though his toes barely touched the floor.
“What the fuck are you talking about? What’s wrong with him?” I snarled into the stranger’s face. His face paled, but he pulled himself enough together to explain.
“The seizures. We saw—saw it with some of the people they made me inject. Some of them were fine and some of them …”
His voice trailed off and I caught the sorrow in his eyes.
No. That was not acceptable. I wasn’t losing Theo. We weren’t losing him today.
“Bodhi, go get one of the paramedics here. Now!”
The Beta ran from the room as I sank down on the floor next to Shae where they were keeping Theo’s head and neck stable. There was a depressed syringe lying beneath his leg so I pocketed it to take with us to the hospital, in the hope that they could figure out what he’d been injected with. The sound of more running feet reached us and then two men in paramedic uniforms were trying to shoulder me away from Theo. A snarl ripped out of my mouth before the one closest to me raised his hands. Shae moved in between us and put their face directly in front of mine, looking intently into my eyes.
“Easy, Alpha. They’re going to help him. We’re going to be in the ambulance with him. We’ll all go to the hospital together. The rest of the pack will meet us there, right?”
I clenched my jaw and nodded, then stood, pulling Shae with me as I backed away from Theo. The pain I felt coming down the bond from him was dull, almost like a phantom ache, but I knew it wasn’t because he hardly felt any pain. His face was still a mask of torment, even though the convulsions had lessened, allowing the EMTs to strap him to a stretcher. No, the fact that I didn’t feel his pain was because the bond was barely there. Even when Shae’s bond had gone dark all those days ago it had still been there: dormant and distorted, but there. This…this was something else and it terrified me.
I pulled Shae into my side and wrapped my arm around their shoulder as they tucked themselves in closer to me. We followed the paramedics as they carried Theo out, and Bodhi came trailing behind us. My eyes stayed glued to where my mate was strapped down as Shae steered our path, navigating the way back to the exit. As we walked back through the blood-spattered halls, Shae spoke softly, so that only I would hear them.
“Did you do this?”
Something in my chest seized again, and I wondered if this moment would break me further. Had what I’d done, to get them back, crossed a line they couldn’t forgive? I swallowed hard and spoke just as softly but with as much conviction as I could, because, no matter the consequences, I would never regret protecting them. Protecting my pack.
“Yes.”
“Because of me?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
They tightened their arms around my waist and we walked the rest of the way to the ambulance in silence. Shae followed Theo’s stretcher into the back, but I had to clear up a few things before I could join them. Bodhi was still lingering behind and there were now two police cruisers as well as the Drake House lawyers sent by Gia, the head of our legal department, to handle the initial questions. Bodhi shifted his weight from foot to foot, shooting an intense look at the only other ambulance that was still waiting to head to the hospital before turning his attention back to me.
“Who’s in that ambulance, Bodhi?”
“Cat. I—I told Michaels I’d ride with her. They’re waiting for me so that they can leave. Unless I need to stay, ma’am?”
The Beta was Theo’s only real friend, outside the pack, and I trusted him more than most people because of that. Based on the tension in his jaw and the way he couldn’t keep from flicking his gaze to the ambulance that held Cat, I wondered just how well he knew Shae’s best friend. Looking away, I whistled to get the attention of the attorneys which drew the gaze of the uniforms, too.
“Go on, Bodhi. We won’t be far behind you.”
He nodded and jogged off, jumping into the back of the waiting ambulance and closing the door before it sped off. One of the lawyers hustled the rest of the way to me, huffing at the exertion.
“I recovered my mate who had been kidnapped and tortured by the men who are now deceased inside the building. There was an Alpha who escaped and injured another of my mates during that escape. The police can speak to us at the hospital but this was a pretty clear instance of pack retribution. I will not answer any questions until my mate is stable; if they fight you on that, Gia will handle it. Understood?”
“Yes, Ms. Owens. That won’t be a problem.”
