AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Sorry.” The boy—I’m fairly certain it’s a boy now that he’s lifted his pale, wasted face to peer at me through the shadows—gulps. “He said he’d kill my sister if I didn’t do it. I’m so sorry.”
I growl again and prowl closer, not impressed with the kid’s excuses. If he’s telling the truth, he was given a horrible choice to make, but he still made the wrong one.
“Don’t,” he croaks, shaking his head back and forth. “Don’t come any closer. It’s going to go any second. He said I only had ten minutes after the explosion.”
Ten minutes until what? And who is he? Who sent you? I send out the words telepathically, but the boy doesn’t seem to hear me.
He has to be Blood River Pack. The fracturing of their pack structure hasn’t just led to an increasingly small number of wolves discovering their pack gift, it’s also decimated the telepathic abilities most shifters are able to access in our animal form.
They’re a rotted, dying tribe that, as far as I’m concerned, can’t implode soon enough.
But until the day they destroy themselves, they’re also dangerous.
I have to figure out how this boy breached our defenses and make sure it never happens again.
I’m shifting into human form to ask my questions in a language he’ll understand when he suddenly bursts into flames. It happens so fast I barely have time to duck back behind the lumber pile before the kid is on his back, screaming and writhing as fire races across his skin.
The smell of burning hair and clothes and a darker, sicker smell I don’t want to name fills the air. Less than a minute later the sprinkler system hisses on, spraying the entire room with water, but it’s too late for the boy.
Thanks to the gasoline accelerating the fire charm he must have been carrying, he’s already so much charred meat and ash.
Stomach turning, I press a fist to my mouth and nose and cross to the phone on the wall by the forklift. Lifting it, I dial the command center. An operator answers in the middle of the first ring with a brisk, “Central.”
“It’s Maxim, requesting back up and a forensics team in the theater delivery bay as soon as the tower is locked down,” I say, adding before the operator can respond. “And put me through to Hermione’s com.”
“Yes, sir,” he says, then adds quickly, “lock down is currently at sixty-five percent and we should have a team to you in five.”
“Excellent,” I say, relieved by the news.
The fact that our tower was breached is a fucking embarrassment, but at least we’re circling the wagons at an impressive speed.
A beat later, Hermione is on the line, with less encouraging news. “She’s gone, Maxim,” Hermione says without bothering to sugarcoat the news. “No sign of her in the booth or anywhere in the theater. Her rooms are also empty.”
Cursing beneath my breath, I begin pacing back and forth, thoughts racing. “It was all a diversion to get to her.”
“Looks like it,” Hermione says. “Or she’s hiding somewhere we haven’t thought to look yet.”
“No,” I say, dismissing the idea. “She wouldn’t hide.”
“I don’t think so either, but we’ve locked down almost all the exits from the second story down. The only two unsecured points are the theater cargo bay—”
“No, I’m here,” I cut in. “There’s no way she could have been taken out this way before I got down here.”
“And the balcony on the fourth floor,” Hermione continues without missing a beat. “If they have the right equipment, they might be able to get her out that way.”
“Send a team,” I say. “I want you to meet me on the roof. Bring Briggs and Denver if they’re close.”
“Be there in five,” she says, hanging up without questions or commentary.
But she’s a pro and always keeps a level head during a crisis.
I hang up the phone and jog back toward the rehearsal rooms and the elevator close by, hoping my gut is steering me straight. If I were trying to throw a rival pack off balance long enough to spirit a woman away via helicopter, I would arrange for an explosion and a terrorist catching fire as far from the roof as possible.
If I’m wrong, or if they’ve already taken Willow…
Or worse than taken her…
I dart into the elevator and slam the button for the roof and the override button to make sure no one else can summon the car at the same time. Then I curl my hands into fists and wait to be delivered to the top floor, refusing to think about what I’ll do if they’ve killed my little wolf right under my nose.
