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Chapter Twenty-Four
The third time the sound happened, I stumbled from the bed, still groggy, my head still aching, my ears ringing. It went beyond fear, down to something primal inside me where my ancestors knew to flee from whatever made that roar.
Hunter busted into the room, a crash downstairs. “Time to go.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me from the room. “We need to get.”
“What do you mean? What is that?”
Another loud bang, then a howl. It came from the basement. “Did Paul get out?”
“Not exactly.”
Sun streamed in the window and I pulled against his grasp. “What about Kase? He can’t go out in the sunlight.”
“Fuck Kase. Fuck Grant. I am getting you as far away from here as possible.” He grabbed me around the waist and hoisted me over his shoulder, which dug painfully into my stomach.
That was when it hit me. He hadn’t mentioned Troy.
That sound is Troy.
I knew it, like a sinking realization, as though there were something in the inhuman roar that I recognized of the man I knew.
“He tried to control Paul’s wolf,” I whispered.
“Yeah, despite me telling him it was fucking stupid. We thought a crazed Paul was bad? Troy makes him seem like an unhappy puppy.”
I shoved at Hunter’s back. “I can’t just leave him.”
“Yeah, you really can. I’m not about to let you die here.”
I kicked once more, then did the only thing I could think of. I brought my forearms together.
Everything spun, and Hunter let out a string of curses that were so creative as to impress me.
Not that I waited to hear it all. Even after I struck the ground, I grasped the nearest thing I could—the couch—to drag myself to my feet and take off toward the door.
I didn’t have to make it that far, however, before the door shattered into a million pieces. A bleeding, snarling monster emerged, covered in blood—far too much to be its own.
I recognized him. Even beneath the fur and the behind the blood-lust eyes, I sawTroy.
Not that he saw me.
He let out another roar, the daggers that tipped his fingers held out as if in warning.
He charged forward, but before he could reach me, something slammed into his side. Troy and whatever had hit him skidded into one of the bedrooms, and the curtain was torn off the window in the struggle.
They moved fast, but the sickly scent of burning flesh told me what my eyes couldn’t follow.
It was Kase who had stepped in, who fought Troy despite the sun.
“Go,” he shouted at me just as Troy took him to the ground. This wasn’t like the time they’d fought before, when they’d traded blows like some show of dominance.
This was real. They were going to kill each other if someone didn’t do something…
Troy tossed Kase to the side, and Kase hit the wall so hard that the window broke.
