I can hear her screaming.
I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But she’s all around me, her pain echoing between the trees. It’s like I’m losing my fucking mind.
Except Tieran is snarling with fury, searching for the source.
And Caius is howling.
It takes a beat for me to understand the source—a fucking speaker system.
“Smile for the camera, Aspen,” a flat voice says.
“Yes, say,free me,” a second drawls, causing my jaw to pop in fury.Alpha Kin.
She shrieks instead, the sound unlike anything I’ve ever heard from her and my blood is fucking on fire as a result.
“Make a choice,” another voice says, this one deeper.Bryson. “Your lives or hers.”
“Cease fire!” Tieran shouts at our men.
They immediately obey.
And Bryson chuckles, the sound victorious.
Only for Clove to scream again, the sound an agonized cry that goes right to my heart.
Three things occur to me at once.
We never should have left her alone.
If we were bonded, we would be able to talk to her.
And…I’m going to fucking kill Bryson.
31
CLOVE
Several Minutes Earlier
The silver burns against my neck, but I don’t stop staring up at the man I once called father. There’s something different about him, a sense of indifference that feels wrong.
He’s looking at me like he doesn’t even recognize me.
Like he didn’t spend two decades raising me as his own.
Most males leave the child-rearing to the females, but he often helped with my training as a child, ensuring I was the fastest female of my age. He pushed me, perhaps not kindly, but I am who I am today because of his influence.
Yet his expression registers absolutely nothing as he holds the knife to my throat. It’s like he’s frozen there, demanding I stay without even requesting it.
“Good job, Gafton,” a new voice says, the source of it making my stomach churn.
Alpha Kin.
He steps into view, his intimidating size immediately making me want to shrink into a corner. It’s also the look in his eyes that has me almost cringing. His fractured irises are blazing with fragments of colors that make him look half-mad. Like his wolf is trying to shift, and he’s not allowing it.
Brown.
Green.
