Page 21

Chapter

Twenty

Everything moved in slow motion.

One moment, they were coming back from a great date night, and the next, he’d been tackled by an unknown person. The only thing he did know for sure was that his mate and his alphas were in the car, their security detail had been attacked, and he was going to have to keep everyone safe.

And then some fucker tackled him.

He heard Jade scream for help and his wolf went crazy. No one puts their hands on his mate!

He leaped to his feet and grabbed the male, swinging him by the arm into the side of the SUV.

Then he jumped onto the hood of the SUV, using it as a launching pad.

He soared through the air, taking out the two males pulling his mate from the vehicle.

One managed to roll away, but the other hit the ground under Brick’s full weight with a groan.

Jade slumped to the ground next to the SUV, and Brick took a moment to check on her and found her unconscious.

Adam joined Brick, and the two fought several males together, claws out and growls echoing in the night.

The deserted stretch of road didn’t have any lights, but Brick and Adam could see thanks to their enhanced eyesight from their wolves.

The humans were nearly blind in the darkness, something they used to their advantage.

Someone punched Brick in the face, and he stumbled backward, nearly toppling over Jade.

He snarled, punching back and connecting with the male’s jaw, making his head snap back.

The man grunted, and then Brick saw a glint of metal and knew he had a knife.

Brick slammed his elbow down on the male’s forearm and the knife dropped to the grass, then he delivered a brutal punch that sent the male airborne and into the side of the van that idled nearby.

He saw something out of the corner of his eye and realized someone was trying to drag Jade away. No!

With a roar from some ancient part of him, he kicked out and nailed the male in the head, snapping it to the side with a crack, the male dropping to the grass in a heap.

As Brick crouched near Jade with his claws brandished, the van peeled away and he had to duck and cover Jade as gravel and dirt sprayed from the tires.

“Fuck,” Adam said with a snarl.

There was the sound of a punch and then nothing. Brick lifted his head and saw Adam standing beside a male who wasn’t moving.

Brick felt for Jade’s pulse and was thankful it was beating strong and steady.

“Baby, you okay?” Adam asked.

“Are they all dead?” Cinder asked.

“Two of the three,” Adam said. “Is Jade okay?”

“Unconscious. We need to get her to Doc’s.” Brick’s voice cracked with relief, but he was still furious. “Are Leo and the others okay?”

“I don’t know, I’ll reach out. We need to be picked up and the SUV towed.”

“I’ll call it in.” Brick touched his jeans pocket, but his phone was in the SUV.

He stood and moved to reach inside when the attacker, who was still alive, groaned.

Brick growled and took the steps to close the distance to him.

He grabbed his hair and lifted his head, wrenching it back hard until the male groaned in pain.

“Who sent you?”

“Fuck…you,” the male wheezed.

“I think not,” Brick said. “Tell us or suffer. You’ll wish you died as easily as your friends.”

Adam strode over, his eyes flashing to the amber of his wolf. “I think I’ll shift,” Adam said. “That way I can eat him and there won’t be anything to identify him with.”

Brick smiled at his cousin’s banter because he knew that Adam was absolutely not going to shift right now. But the shiver of fear that made the male in his hold shudder was all that they needed to happen.

“No!” the male whisper-screeched.

Brick gave his head a shake. “Answer me and you’ll live. Don’t and you’ll find out what it’s like to be peeled like a banana by a furious wolf.”

The male let out a low moan. “I work for H. A. S.”

No surprise there. But Brick was still pissed off.

“Why did you target us? How did you find us?” Brick demanded.

When the male hesitated, Adam took a menacing step toward him. He tried to shrink back, but Brick didn’t let him go anywhere. “She’s the mate of a high ranked beast. That makes her valuable.”

“The alpha female?” Adam asked.

“No, she’s magical, Foley said we couldn’t take her, but we could take the number two guy’s girl.”

“Foley tried to get to me through my mate?” Brick asked.

“You want to cause a ruckus in a pack and make a beast go nuts, you take away their mate. At least that’s what Foley said. He wanted to make an example of her and show that no one is safe. Shake your whole foundation.”

“What were you going to do with her?” Brick said with a low voice. Vengeance was singing in his veins, but he needed to know.

“Use her to get to you. We knew we were no match for you, but we could distract you and take her, then use her to lure you and your friends somewhere and…” He stopped talking like he realized he’d suddenly said too much.

Brick’s stomach churned with rage.

“And what?”

“And kill you all. Eventually, you’d all fall, Foley said so.”

“Where is he? Where is his headquarters?” Adam said, squatting down and looking the male in the eyes.

He swallowed hard, his bravado cracking a bit. Then he said, “I’m not saying shit. Not without a lawyer.”

Dropping his hold on the male, Brick opened his mouth to say that there wasn’t going to be a need for a lawyer because the male wasn’t going to survive if he didn’t talk, when the sound of engines drew close.

Adam rose to his feet. “It’s Leo and a few more vehicles with pack members.”

“Good,” Brick said, barely registering their arrival as he crouched beside Jade and kept his fingers on her pulse to reassure himself that she was alive. How the hell had the night gone so off the rails so fast?

Cinder dropped to her knees next to him. “She’s alive and that’s what matters. We’re all alive.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“About what?” she asked.

“About endangering you and your child, putting Jade into harm’s way, all of it.”

“Oh, Brick,” she said, resting her hand on his shoulder for a brief moment. “It’s not your fault. This is all on that bastard Foley. He’s the one who won’t leave us alone. We can’t spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders and never leaving town. That’s not living.”

“She’s right,” Adam said. “Tonight was awful, but we took out several of his people and we’ve got one of his males to interrogate. We’ll find out where he’s holed up and take him out once and for all.”

There was the creak of vehicle doors opening, and Leo rushed to them with Solan and Dove. “Is everyone okay?”

“I need to get Jade to Doc’s, and I’m sure Cinder needs to be looked at too. We were all knocked around pretty good with the crash. You guys are okay?”

“Yeah, we’ve got the males who came after us tied up in the back of the SUV, unconscious,” Solan said. “After we called for backup from the pack security team, we got here as fast as we could. We’ll handle things here. Go get them checked out at Doc’s.”

“I’ll follow you for security,” Dove said.

Brick nodded. “Get someone else too. We’ll take three vehicles.

” Brick carried Jade to one of the waiting vehicles.

Cinder got into the second row, and Brick laid his mate across the seat, her head on Cinder’s lap.

Adam got into the front seat and Brick got behind the wheel.

He gave final instructions to his people and got on the road, speeding away from the scene and heading for what he hoped was a safe place for his mate.

The hum of the truck’s engine was the only sound as Brick drove through the quiet streets toward the Whalen Family Clinic.

Everyone was tense and no one was talking, and that was okay with Brick.

His throat was too tight for him to speak, his wolf pacing in fury that their mate had been hurt and nearly taken from him.

He pulled into the parking lot of the clinic.

Adam helped Cinder out of the SUV and Brick lifted Jade into his arms. The security team that followed them split up to surround the building to keep an eye out for danger.

The door to the clinic swung open as Doc stepped out, his keen eyes assessing the situation. “Bring her inside.”

Brick followed Doc into an examination room. He sent Adam and Cinder into another room. “Alpha, I’ll send in my nurse to check Cinder over,” he said.

“I’m fine. Please help Jade,” Cinder said.

Brick settled his mate on a hospital bed and lifted her shirt sleeves, finding the location of the bruise where the needle punctured her skin.

Doc took her blood and sent it to the in-house lab to find out what she’d been injected with.

While Doc hustled to deal with the blood work and form a treatment plan, Brick undressed his mate and put on a hospital gown, then tucked her gently into the bed.

She was on oxygen and a pulsometer attached to her finger, her heartbeat beeping steadily in the quiet of the room.

Adam stood in the doorway looking grim.

“Is Cinder okay?” he asked.

“Yes, they called her OB and she’s coming in to give her a full exam just as a precaution. But I got a call from Leo.”

“Are they all right?”

“The police showed up.”

“They did? How? The road was deserted.”

“This is just a guess on my part, but I think Foley was watching us from somewhere out of harm’s way and called the police so that our people wouldn’t be able to interrogate any of his people and find out where he is.”

“Damn. Well, we can still hope the police figure out where Foley is.”

“We could have,” Adam said. “If the remaining H. A. S. people weren’t all dead.”

“What?” Brick barked the word, his fists clenching.

“The police were attacked. Some of them were taking the injured to the hospital and the rest were taking the others to the station for questioning. The H. A. S. members were killed by masked men and the police were unharmed.”

Brick was stunned. “Foley cleaned house. He didn’t want them talking to anyone, police or otherwise.”

Adam nodded. “One interesting thing, though, is that when a police officer called Solan to let him know what happened, he said that one of the dead males was identified as Paul Duggan, Brent’s second-in-command.”

“Wow,” Brick said. “If he killed his number two, then he’s desperate to stay hidden.”

“That would be my guess,” Adam said. “But desperate or not, I don’t think this is the last we’ll see of him. We need to find him before he attacks again.”

Brick looked down at his unconscious mate. He smoothed the hair from her forehead and leaned over to kiss it.

“I’m putting out the word that the pack is on lockdown.

We’re going to close all roads into town except for the main one, and we’re going to staff it with a security team twenty-four-seven.

We’ll be adding more security around the town—cameras, motion detectors, the works—and we’re going to deputize more people into the security team so we’re not caught off guard again,” Adam said.

“When Jade is better, I’ll help. I want to focus on her right now.” He didn’t want to say it, but it was hanging in the air anyway—he’d nearly lost his mate tonight.

“Of course,” Adam said. “You focus on her and don’t worry about anything else. Foley tried to come against us, but we survived without any losses. Tonight, we can celebrate that win because it matters. The war isn’t over, but we won this battle.”

Brick nodded and settled back in the chair next to the hospital bed. Adam wished him well and returned to Cinder’s room to watch over her. Brick stared at the empty doorway and then turned his attention to Jade.

He lifted her hand and kissed it. “Baby, I’m right here. You’re not alone and you’re safe. Doc’s going to get you fixed up and I’m going to keep you safe no matter what. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

His voice choked with emotion and he closed his eyes and held her hand, waiting for Doc to return.