Page 43

The scent of smoke slams into my lungs, searing its way down my throat and making my vision swim. My knees threaten to buckle under the sudden lack of oxygen, heat searing my throat raw. A single cough rips from me, violent and sharp, followed by another as the acrid burn spreads deeper. For a heartbeat, everything blurs—my balance falters, and a dull roar fills my ears as if the world has tilted sideways.

My eyes sting, vision warping as a fresh wave of heat scorches my skin. For a heartbeat, I stagger—balance teetering on the edge as the blast wave ripples through the air. It scorches like a brand, a brutal reminder that this isn’t a drill—this is war, and Sutton is somewhere in the chaos. Another explosion detonates nearby, rattling the compound’s bones.

My ears ring, vision doubling for a blink as sound and sensation crash together. The coppery tang of blood chases the acrid bite of burning diesel. The atmosphere is suffocating—thick, charged, alive with violence. Gunfire cracks like a thunderstorm rolling too close, the ground trembling beneath my boots. I pivot on raw instinct, claws beginning to form,the wolf beneath my skin snarling to be let loose. My blood is wildfire. My purpose, singular.

They’ve broken through—not with hesitation or warning, but with ruthless precision. This is no feint or scare tactic. It’s a full-blown assault, planned with military expertise and executed with deadly force. The sound of synchronized gunfire, the blast patterns—everything screams professional. These aren't just thugs; they’re trained killers, and they came knowing exactly how to cripple us.

They struck with brutal precision, hitting us in the narrow window when the guard was lowest, when routines blurred and shadows lengthened—timed to perfection, every beat a calculated blow.

My comm crackles with half-shouted orders and frantic movement. Gage’s voice cuts through, "South side’s exposed. Pushing them back. Get the girls to cover. Now."

The girls. Kari. Maggie. Cassidy. And Sutton—my mate, my priority, my goddamn heartbeat in this war zone.

My heart slams against my ribs, vision flashing with the raw image of Sutton cornered and bleeding, her back pressed to a wall, crimson soaking her shirt as she fights to stay upright. The image slices through me, sharp and suffocating, dragging with it the memory of every moment I almost lost her—the night we met, the first time she smiled at me, the way she kisses like it might be the last time. It guts me with a vicious kind of clarity—if I don’t get to her now, I might never get the chance again. For a moment, it’s like a wrecking ball swinging through my chest—unstoppable, merciless, and aimed straight at the fear clawing at my gut. The impact sharp enough to knock the breath from my lungs.

Although I can't see her, my fear is that Sutton is hurt, hunted, and the world tilts with the fear of losing her. I take off, dodging debris and sprinting toward the eastern corridor. Idon’t need to shift to feel the wolf clawing beneath my skin—muscles twitching, heat rising under my collar, the sharp edge of fury blurring the line between man and beast, snarling for blood. I smell them—intruders, not shifters. Human. Armed. Moving with deadly purpose.

I round the corner of the compound just in time to see Gideon launch himself at an intruder, his massive form colliding with the man like a wrecking ball. The impact is bone-shattering—audible even over the gunfire. Gideon's snarl rips through the air, animal and furious. They go down hard, bodies slamming against the gravel. Blood fans out in a violent arc, spraying across the wall. The bastard doesn’t rise—doesn’t even twitch. Gideon is already up, eyes scanning for the next target, lips curled back in a snarl that promises death.

"North fence is holding," he barks, eyes wild. "Where’s Sutton?"

"Don't know for sure. She stepped out for some air. We lost visual on her just before the breach. She was alone, and the attack kicked off right after she left—too damn coincidental to ignore. That’s the last anyone’s heard—perimeter’s been breached."

His eyes darken. "We have to move. Now."

We split, each of us peeling off into the compound. Gage and Dalton are already herding Maggie and Kari toward the lodge, both of them shifted—massive wolves with fur bristling and fangs bared, their snarls a living promise of violence. Cassidy’s trailing them, covering with a weapon nearly as long as her arm. Her snarl is pure fury—sharp, human, and brimming with adrenaline—but her stance is rock solid, eyes scanning for the next threat.

But Sutton isn’t with them—she’s still out there, somewhere in the smoke and gunfire, alone and vulnerable while the battlefield swallows the compound whole. My pulse poundsharder at the thought, every beat another second too long she’s out of reach, too far from where she should be—by my side, protected. The image of her, hunted, flares behind my eyes like a brand. I can’t let it stand. I won’t.

I leap the shredded fencing and race into the open, gravel biting into my palms as I vault a fallen beam. My lungs burn with smoke, heart pounding with a furious, relentless rhythm in my chest. Every nerve screams with the need to find her—my focus razor-sharp, animalistic. There’s no room for pain, no room for thought beyond her. Just blood, smoke, and the drive to get to Sutton before someone else does. Every sense is narrowed, tuned for her. The others can shift, defend, bite, and claw their way through this. But Sutton? She’s pure human.

And if they touch her—if they've laid so much as a finger on her, if they've so much as looked at her like prey—I’ll rip them apart and use their entrails to mark every inch of this goddamn ground. Blood for blood. Her safety or their screams.

A fresh burst of gunfire spits from behind the storage barn. I veer right, dodging bullets that punch through the air too close to my ear. My boots slam into the dirt as I crash shoulder-first into one of the bastards trying to flank the lodge. We tumble hard, but I recover first, landing a knee in his throat before he can so much as blink. He doesn’t get up.

There’s movement behind me—a whisper of boots on gravel, smoke stirring in the air. I pivot hard, instincts snapping into place. Another one. Big. Confident. He steps through the haze with the swagger of a man who’s never lost a fight. But he’s about to.

He fires. I drop low, feel the hiss of the round buzz past my ear. I lunge forward, tackling him into the side of a scorched truck. My elbow drives into his nose with a crunch that echoes. He screams. I punch again. And again. His skull meets steel, and this time he’s quiet.

“Sutton,” I bark into the comm, “respond.”

Nothing. Fuck.

My throat tightens around the silence, bile rising with the fear that I’ve already failed her. The image of Sutton bleeding out, just out of reach, sears behind my eyelids. I can’t breathe, can’t think—only feel the fire racing through my veins and the savage promise in my bones that I will tear through whatever stands between us. If I lose her, there won’t be enough blood in this world to balance the scales.

A shadow stumbles through the haze—a limp, a bloody trail in his wake. One of theirs. Not ours. I don’t hesitate. I’m on him in seconds, my forearm crushing his windpipe as he claws for his sidearm. Too late. His eyes go glassy.

Another blast detonates, closer this time—close enough to shake the ground beneath me and slam a wave of heat into my side. My ears ring again, sharp and punishing, and my knees nearly buckle as I drop low, instinct forcing me to shield my head from falling debris.

I hit the ground, ears ringing. Something tears past overhead—roofing tile, maybe—and shatters against the dirt. I scramble up. Somewhere beyond the east paddock, I hear it—a scream.

Feminine. Familiar. Her scream slices through the air like a blade, cutting straight into the marrow of my bones.

My breath lodges in my chest, heart slamming once before adrenaline propels me forward. I bolt—lungs burning, eyes straining through smoke and chaos. The sharp tang of scorched earth and gunmetal fills my nose as I charge into the thick of it. My boots pound the gravel, each step fueled by fear and fury. The scream still echoes in my ears, a visceral hook that jerks my focus like a leash.

It’s her. It has to be. Her scent punches through the haze, laced with copper and sweat, faint but unmistakable. My pulsekicks up, heart hammering as I surge forward, blood roaring in my ears.

The smoke thickens near the mechanic’s garage, choking the air with the scorched stench of metal and diesel. It curls into my nose, burning down my throat and watering my eyes. My lungs seize for a second before I push through, blinking against the haze that cloaks the path like a shroud. Every breath is a fight, the heat radiating off the nearby flames slicking my skin with sweat as the compound turns into a war zone around me.