Page 32 of Matched in Mayhem

Lightning pain tore through my back like my babies were crawling out of the spaces between the vertebra in my spine. Feathers rustled somewhere overhead and a shadow loomed around me. What was happening? What was going on?

“Clyde!” Bennie called for Grandpa. Were the birds attacking now?

“No,” my wolf growled at me. “We are the bird. We are the pack of the Crow King and now we avenge this baby and his carrier!”

I flew. I flew without thinking about it because I wasn’t in the driver’s seat of my own body or destiny anymore. My wolf was. We flew right out of the open back door and up and up until we were in the sky and Bennie was a speck on the ground. We flew in a direction that I couldn’t discern. My wolf wasn’t following his eyes or even his nose. Something in him knew where Brad’s parents were and he’d had all he was going to take. We didn’t care if they wanted us dead. Grief fucked you up, but sending their son and grandson out with a gun mere hours after… After Brad had given birth was too much. Too cruel to blame on grief alone. No, they wanted him to die trying to prove he loved his family so that they could be rid of him and how he ‘embarrassed’ them with a baby out of mateship. Brad loved his baby and I loved his baby because he was a baby. I loved his baby because of my own babies and all the babies I heard about over the years who love couldn’t save.

Was this generational trauma?

“No, this is generational rage. This is for every omega who has been treated like they’re nothing. This is for every kid who has been cast aside for stupid reasons. I’ve had enough. I think our ancestors have had enough. Now we end them.”

We landed on the front lawn of a big fancy manor house. Whoever the Bostons were, they had money and well-manicured lawn that smelled like blood. My wolf put his nose into the grass, inhaling the scent as our wings flapped gently above us, prepared to move at the drop of a dime.

“Not Brad’s blood,” he said. “Was fight here.”

He padded across the grass and nosed the front door open. Inside the house that I imagined was once in immaculate condition was now splattered with blood, guts, and what I was pretty sure were pieces of brains. In the middle of the ‘mash’ of body parts knelt Raziel. His head was in his hands and he was breathing hard. Beside him lay a gun covered in mashed brains. He’d clearly beaten at least one of them to death with it.

“Alby?” his voice came out choked and he didn’t look at me. He smelled so desperately ravaged. He smelled as if his guilt might eat him up.

“Raziel,” I said his name over the pack link as I stepped closer to him. “It’s okay. It’s okay. They… Brad…”

“They pointed the stupid gun at me. They pointed the stupid gun at me and said they’d shoot me and after Brad killed you that they would kill Bennie. They couldn’t have killed me with that little thing. They couldn’t have done more than rough me up, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t hold back and… Bennie was so worried. I’ve never felt him afraid before. Not really afraid like he was when you first let the pack know you needed help. No one gets to make my friends feel that way,” he shook his head. “So I came here to take care of business. I was going to try to talk to them first. Get them help or lock them up or something but they pointed that stupid fucking gun at me! I beat them to death with it, Alby. I fucking held them down and pistol whipped them to death. And more and more came back to me. Stuff I already knew but had never seen like that and…”

“Your past life?” I asked, trying to put together what was going on from the little bit I knew. I knew Raziel was one of us. One of us because he was Bennie’s best friend but also had been one of us – a Raven Hollow Wolf – before.

“Yeah,” he nodded turning to face me still on his knees in the blood and body parts mash. “Brad was… Before he was there in the chaos… It doesn’t matter,” he shook his head. “Is he okay?” Raziel spoke as if every word hurt crawling off his tongue.

“Yeah. So far,” I nodded. “He’s with Grandpa at the hospital,”

Knowing the threat was gone, my wolf sucked his wings back into wherever he hid them and let me shift back into my human form. Raziel hugged my middle and I hugged him back. There were so few alphas who I didn’t share blood with that I would let hug me like this, but blood or not, he was Bennie’s brother.

“Fucking Br…” Raziel’s words were cut off by his face, buried in my belly. I rubbed his back, trying to soothe the man and the beast who did exactly what I set out to do. Something primal inside me was soothed by the fact that some alphas were just as fed up as we omegas were with the bullshit.

Flapping dragon wings filled the air.

“Do you want to stay here and see your family or come back with me to see Bennie?” I asked, but a tiny little wail in the next room answered for both of us. We scrambled across the floor covered in people mash and Raziel nearly tore the hinges off the door to get to the wailing baby. He was so small and he smelled so hungry laying on the floor swaddled in a dish towel.

“He’s Brad’s baby! They kept one of his babies and…” I stopped and swallowed down the rage trying to crawl out of me again.

“They held one of his babies hostage,” Raziel nodded as I scooped up the bear. “And… Their sire? Buried in the basement. He didn’t run off on Brad. He was murdered by them.”

Big, booming dragon voices were everywhere as Star and others flooded into the house calling out for Raziel. It was Star that found us first and what a blood-covered sight we must’ve been holding that bear cub between us. He froze in the doorway, looking his son up and down for injuries before his eyes landed on the baby. He yanked his shirt off over his head revealing more abs than I knew a person could have. Gently, he took the baby from me and wrapped him in his shirt. I opened my mouth to explain what happened, but realized he got all the information from Raziel over their family link.

“I’m going to take him to the hospital. The others can clean up. Where are you going, Raz? Back to your house?” he asked.

“That’s Bennie’s house now,” Raziel said.

“He’s coming back with me. I’ll watch him. Just make sure Brad’s okay?” I said, feeling smaller with every word I spoke. All my moxie had been used up my wolf growing wings. My stomach lurched and I threw up on Star’s boots. He didn’t even flinch, merely yelled for one of his sons to bring me something to drink and some pregnancy gummies.

Raziel scooped me up and carried me into the kitchen, a room that hadn’t been covered in people mash. I stretched out on the table, using a stack of dish towels as a pillow as I chewed on a gummy. I was ravenous but knew better than to eat straight away. All the dragons around me whispered and before I knew it, I was being loaded up onto a dragon’s back, holding the baby with Raziel behind me. It seemed I was going to the hospital too. In my haze, I wondered where Star was until I realized we were flying on his back.

Chapter 15

Bennie

The Hemlock Wolf Pack, Star’s Territory

“They’ve been spotted,” Slyvin walked back into the room where my arm was attached to a needle draining blood out of my body. I was just enough of a match to Brad that whatever antibodies made through the alpha gene would help him heal quicker. I had wanted to go after Alby, but knew where he was headed. Knew Raziel was already there doing the dirty work because he heard the small second cry over the pack link too. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I knew I could count on Raziel and Alby to take care of each other and for them both to get back to me in one piece.