Page 53 of Broken Souls

Don’t you fucking be it.

The phone clicks over to voicemail, and I hang up. My eyes stay on my mate for a second longer before I turn and head for the door. I have two brothers to find; I can’t waste another second in getting answers.

But when I step out into the hall, I don’t turn towards Mother’s room. Maddox is coming back in from the other direction, and Talon is with him, leaning against him, one arm slung around his shoulders. His clothes are stained in blood in multiple places, and every time he puts weight on his left leg, he winces. His face looks pale as hel.

“Leno!” I shout as I head towards them. “T needs you.”

“I’m fine,” my brother says with a wince as he pulls away from Maddox. “Just got a claw to the thigh this time.”

“And a cracked skull,” our younger brother adds.

“No, I didn’t –” He yelps as Maddox clips him around the back of the head.Hard.

“What the fuck?” T snaps as he stumbles away, one hand to his head. His knee buckles when he puts sudden weight on it, and he twists towards the wall to catch himself. He isn’t graceful, and the crash makes his cut bleed more. He groans as he places one hand on the wall and pivots around to face us. But Maddox clearly doesn’t give a shit about his pain.

“That’s for being an idiot and running off on your own,” he shouts. “I told you to fucking wait.”

“He had Khalid!”

“Exactly! So why the fuck did you thinkyouhad a chance against him?”

“Enough,” I cut in calmly just as Leno joins us. “Where is Khalid?”

T’s annoyance dies under the emergence of pain and sorrow. He shakes his head as Leno rummages in his bag. “I don’t know. I was following one of his capos. Antonio’s – Holy fuck! What the fucking hel!Fuck!” He screams like a little bitch as Leno presses what looks like mushed up peas into his wound.

“Stop being such a pussy –”

“Ballsack,” Maddox cuts in. “Pussies can take a pounding, you know?”

“Stop being such aballsack,” Leno corrects.

“Where were they heading?” I snap.

Talon grits his teeth as he presses both his hands on the wall to keep his balance. “South,” he rasps, the word shaky.

I glance at Maddox. “Zita. Now.”

“No.” T groans, leaning his head back as he closes his eyes. “You want Micha.”

I still. Then ever so slowly, I turn my gaze back to him. “Why?” I ask, my voice soft, lethal.

Leno glances at me, and I can smell his nerves, but T doesn’t catch on, in too much pain perhaps. Too fuckingstupidperhaps.

“She took down the ward,” he says as he pants through the pain of his thigh. “She let the wolves in.”

My blood runs cold as I step right up to him. “How do you know this?”

He looks at me, and I finally smell it, that first tinge of fear. His eyes widen as he catches my gaze – the darkness there that’s ready to tear him apart if he’s merely guessing about what went down.

“Fuck, V, I’m sorry, but she’s the reason Khalid’s gone. She attacked his girl, and then he pierced her through the back, but Antonio took him out a second later. I tried to stop him, but he knocked me back.”

“You’re not dead,” I say accusingly.

He glances away, his lips tight. “He said I wasn’t worth the fucking hassle.”

“It would’ve taken him less than a second.”

His nostrils flare as he glares at me. “I think that was his fucking point.”