Page 49 of Broken Souls

“I train. Now grab him,” I say, gesturing at the wolf I just shot. “I want him alive for questioning. And tell Leno to go to Mother.”

As the second car lands, I turn to the house. Keeping my gun up, I step inside and head towards the basement, drawn towards the monster I saw in the scry. To what its black-ash head mightmean.

You’re being paranoid.

And yet…I can almost make out a whiff of my mate. Of the blood I have tasted.

Fucking hel, Varius. She’s up in Tennessee.

Making my way through the house, I sweep my gun back and forth, ready to shoot any werewolf that’s still here. My pulse stays steady. My thoughts do too, but just beneath the surface, they are screaming.

Because as I walk through the carnage in the hall, I can’t deny the smell of her blood anymore. It fucking assaults my nose as I make my way up to the serpentine beast.

My girl has bled here.

Fought here.

What the fuck is she doing here?

And why did she kill one of Mother’s monsters?

Maybe it wasn’t a tame beast. Maybe Mother just opened up a portal and plucked out the first monster she could find. Or maybe Micha misfired. Was aiming for Antonio when the beast got in the way? That has to be it because she can’t be a fucking traitor. I just cleared her. Just started to fucking trust her.

The hairs on my arm rising, I make my way down the basement stairs, following the trail of her blood. A female wolf lies at the bottom, half her face melted away. There’s a burn mark on her back too that makes me breathe a little easier. Micha must have attacked her, which means she wasn’t fightingwiththem. She isn’t a traitor.

But then my chest squeezes again, my breath flees from my lungs. Because I’ve just noticed that the ward protecting our safe room has been broken. A werewolf couldn’t have done that. It had to have been done by a fucking strong witch.

Like Micha…

Stepping around the massive red bulk of fur, I enter the basement.

And now my blood is rushing out of my skull.

Filling up my lungs.

Until I can’t breathe.

Can’t think.

Can’t even feel the fucking gun in my hands anymore.

Because my mate is lying on the ground.

And she isn’t fucking moving.

Nineteen

HIM

My entire world pinpoints in on her. For a moment, there is nothing but the heavy weight of silence crushing my shoulders. An absence of life, of meaning, of understanding.

And then there is noise, a sudden explosion of sound as my brain screams for me to run to her.

And when I take that first step, my gun starting to drop, my calf muscles flexing, I realize it isn’t my brain that is screaming.

It’s me.

My mouth is open.