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He scowled at her.
“How could you Thomas? I thought we were friends?” She covered her face, too tired and fraught to care anymore.
“We were friends. Are friends. Harry’s fine. Nice kid.” He paused. “I needed to buy some time to get you here. Safe.”
She looked at him. “Safe?” She lifted her hair to show him the gash on her forehead. Then held her hands up, palms out, for his inspection. “You handed me over to them.”
Thomas knelt by the edge of the bed. “Who’s to say Finn’s on the right side of things, Jessa? I know you like him—that he’s in your head—but you need to think through this. Listen to me.”
She held her hand up. “No.”
Thomas reached for but stopped short. Cyrus’s command. Even without the alpha in the room, Thomas obeyed. “Because you’re scared. I get it. I was scared too. But there are things you need to know. This baby will kill you.”
She leaned away from him. “Cyrus says.”
“And Ellen.” He stood, shaking his head. “Ask her to see his pet’s medical files, the one that birthed his first child. Ask her what happened. Finn’s doc knows too. He has the same file. He’s just not telling you because he wants to grow his pack.”
“And you, Thomas?” she asked. “What excuse did Cyrus use to justify turning you?”
Thomas frowned. “I wanted to be turned, Jessa. I asked for this. And it’s a good damn thing, too. Because now I can stop you from making the wrong decision. You’re where you belong now, with me.”
…
“It’s fucking freezing,” Gentry said, chewing on his unlit cigar. “Where the fuck are we? And what is that smell?”
“The middle of nowhere Nebraska.” Dante muttered. “I can’t feel my toes.”
Finn’s patience was slipping away. He didn’t want them here. He’d left, fully intending to vent his fury—the wolf’s fury—on the Others himself. But they’d followed him, spouting crap about being a pack, looking out for one another, and family. He’d wanted to jump Dante when he mentioned Oscar. He didn’t need reminding that his son was alone, that he needed his father to come back in whole and unharmed.
But Finn wasn’t whole anymore. The last three days, a gaping hole had eaten its way through his heart. He felt it, held on to it, to keep him going. He’d lost his soulmate. She was gone. He winced, the air escaping his lungs on a razor’s edge.
Oscar would be better off without him.
They all would. If he killed Cyrus, they’d all be free. He didn’t care about frostbitten toes and the smell of rotting hay. All he cared about, all he could think about, was ripping Cyrus’s throat out and watching every drop of blood seep into the dirt.
He’d imagined it over and over—calming his wolf when his control wavered. It gave them focus and purpose. He would do this, one way or the other. He just hoped like hell that Mal, Dante, and Gentry didn’t fuck things up.
“Cornfields as far as the eye can see,” Gentry said. “Good cover for a pack of wolves.”
“No way this is his only hangout,” Mal interrupted. “There are too many of them to all hole-up here.”
Finn agreed. He hoped like hell Cyrus was here, if nothing else, he’d take down Thomas—Mal had followed the piece of shit here. And, for now, it was the only lead he had. Once his wolf got a hold of Thomas, he’d find out where Cyrus was.
Trying to sneak up on a place with no variations in the terrain was a challenge for a group. Another reason he’d wanted to come alone. They’d wasted time on some half-assed plan, shifting back and forth, and covering their tracks.
“Two ways to get in,” Ma
l had said, pointing at the computer screen and Google map image on the drive there. “Main drive and the dirt road for the farm equipment.”
“How many?” Finn asked, talking into his earpiece at Anders—monitoring the place via satellite on his computer and relaying everything directly into Finn’s ear.
“Infrared is only picking up heat in part of the rooms,” Anders said. “Meaning some of them are lined. You sure you want to do this?”
He almost growled in frustration. “How many?” he repeated.
“Twenty-two,” Anders said.
“How many?” Mal asked.
