Page 20

Chapter twenty

Dirus Morales

I followed Rios’s GPS reader. Pierce hauled Rios forward. The pup’s face was unnaturally pale. He’d lost a lot of blood. “Pup, what did I say about dying?”

“You don’t like the paperwork,” he answered weakly, and tried harder to hold more of his own weight.

“That’s right,” I told him. Out of my half of the team, we were the only three left. The weight of my failure to protect them sat on my chest, but I didn’t have time to brood over it. If I wanted to keep who we had left alive, I couldn’t let sorrow win. I would drink the good stuff back home and ruminate over how everything went to shit later.

Right now, I was still the acting alpha of the leftovers of this pack, and they needed me.

I grabbed my walkie. “Wallace, report.”

Not a single damn answer.

Damn it, Kadeem. No one gave you permission to die on me. If that fucker was dead, I was going to– Not now, alpha . Keep your head straight.

“Find them,” Astria whispered, and stars blew past us. She ran after the stars without looking back. I shifted and jumped to run ahead of her. If there was a threat at the end of the rainbow, I would be the first one there. Not her.

Fire crackled nearby, and I knew we were close. I cleared the trees and found the ruins of the cockpit with Wallace kneeling on the ground. Bright pink burns were painfully obvious on his umber skin tone. He’d been close to the impact. He clutched a parachute wrapped body in his arms.

The body was too tiny to be one of our men, especially in his big arms. Giant holes were scattered around him where the meteor shower just missed him. “You idiot, you didn’t try to run?”

His brown eyes met mine, and the distress in them shook me. It took me back to the orphanage after being attacked when we were young, and how his brother, Elias, died in his arms.

“If I died, I wouldn’t have to tell her I failed.” His voice was full of gravel. I walked over and tried to pull the edge of her wrap back, but he pulled her away from me. “Kylie wouldn’t want Astria to see her like this.”

One glance over showed me his back was twenty times worse. I was surprised his shirt was still on, considering the back was hanging on by a literal thread. He tried to shield her from the blast.

I told him. “Let’s look for the others and get the fuck out of here.”

“She trusted me.” I understood the wounded sound in his voice. Her trust was a hell of a thing, and it wasn’t cheap.

“Get up, Wallace.” I killed the kindness in my voice, opting to deal with him as a subordinate. That way, I could bear the mental weight of motivation for him. I filled my voice with the alpha command. “Now, wolf.”

His eyes slowly lifted up to me. It didn’t work. Kadeem was on my level as an alpha. He could have been the alpha of his own team. The only reason he was still with me was that he didn’t trust anyone else to watch my back.

“Get up, Bubba. You know I’m not going to let you give up.” I put my best friend hat on instead. “Don’t make me drag your ass through this forsaken forest. It’ll make me throw my shoulder out.”

“I landed on my back trying to cushion the blow for her when the parachute failed.” He said.

“You can obviously move, so do it.” If he wasn’t a wolf, he’d be dead or paralyzed. A lesser alpha would be laying waiting for death to take him. He growled in pain as he struggled to his feet. He wouldn’t let Kylie go, so I grabbed his burned bicep and hauled him to his feet.

Astria cleared the trees and her eyes fell to the body in his arms. Just like that, Kadeem kneeled back down. “I’m sorry, my lady. I failed to complete my task.”

Her steps slowed and the last glimmer of hope faded from her eyes. But I could tell she’d already thought Kylie was dead. That was why she ran so slow, she didn’t want to find the outcome.

She took Kylie from his arms, and tears fell down her cheeks. “I’m sure you did everything you could.”

The agony in her voice ripped at me. My celestial was grievously injured, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to fix it. I wouldn’t be able to fix either of them.

She turned to head back to where we left the other two, cradling Kylie to her chest.

“My lady, take your pound of flesh.”

She didn’t pay him any mind and kept walking. Shuffling her feet, barely enough strength left to trek off.

I put my hand out to help him back to his feet again and put his arm over my shoulder. We started on our way back. We’d lost men. But we’d never been in a position to lose an omega before.

“I knew she wouldn’t punish me,” he whispered as he watched her back.

Back home, I’d seen wolves die for less. His death sentence would have been an example to the other wolves. The few celestials we managed to find would have their entire guard publicly tortured to make a point.

I knew he did everything he could. Even in her current state, she knew that, too. For him, I was sure the burden of her forgiveness was worse.

Living was always harder.

We found Rios struggling to breathe on the ground as Pierce came back. “I found all the bodies. No other survivors.” Eight men and one baby celestial witch were dead. Two more seriously injured. And not one person would ever be the same.

I did what I came to do, but this mission couldn’t be called anything other than a loss.

“Keep going,” I told Kadeem.

“Yes, boss.” But it lacked any fire or motivation. He was just going through the motions. Astria kneeled on the ground again, clutching Kylie to her chest.

“I’ve never seen her cry.” Kadeem’s eyes never left her..

I didn’t tell him that when that plane exploded her screaming rattled me to my bones until I was paralyzed. That anger and darkness I’d never felt before pushed me and I was sure many others back to their feet to try to fight another round.

“How can we give her anything? The only thing she wanted was for that baby to be safe,” he asked.

“We get her the fuck out of here, before Nadine’s clean-up crew gets here and takes out the survivors.” We couldn’t handle another round. Especially not from a team of wolves that were fresh and working at full capacity.

I let Kadeem go next to a boulder and went over to her. “Astria.”

She didn’t move. Tears hit the dirt below her hung head.

“It’s not over yet.”

“Yes it is.”

My dead heart wrench on itself. “I have reason to believe we were all set up and if we were, there is going to be a team that follows up to make sure we all died.”

“Okay.” As far as she was concerned, she was already dead. She didn’t care.

I couldn’t drag both of them. Since she was capable of walking on her own, I needed to get her moving. “They want Wallace, Pierce, Rios, and me dead, too.”

That managed to get a little more life out of her.

“Wallace and Rios are hurt badly. We can’t handle another wave. We need that plane you talked about.”

She nodded and magic blew out of her. Kylie turned into a star. Stars flew to her from around the island, and I realized it was the dead. Her hands filled up fast and poured over onto the dirt.

Rios grunted as he dug in his pack and handed her a small velvet sack that made me think the men had snuck in some whiskey.

She opened it and stars flew into the pouch. She pulled the drawstrings closed and rose to her feet. “I’ll get you there.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

But Kadeem and she would get on that plane if I had to force them kicking and screaming.