Page 21 of Never Tamed (Bad Wolves #3)
Torin
G ods, she’s incredible. Strong. Unbreakable. And she chose me . Even after everything I’ve done and all the shit that’s gone wrong with us from the start.
My pulse hammers in my chest and my wolf growls, content and satiated for the moment.
I trail a hand down her spine in a slow glide, savoring the feel of her bare skin against mine.
Water drips from the beams overhead and pats against the floor but neither of us moves.
We’re tangled in the ruins of a dining table with chairs half-knocked over and the entire room soaked but steaming from the heat of what just happened.
I’m surprised we haven’t set the damn place on fire.
I let her unravel me. And I let my own stupid mind and ego convince me I was protecting her and that my sacrifice was an undeniable power. The more I killed myself, the safer Ren would be, the stronger the Steel Claws would become.
None of it’s true.
I drag her closer yet and absorb the sensation of my mate in my arms. All I feel is her . The bond between us is stronger than I could’ve ever imagined. I’m ready to take on the world by her side.
I’d die for her if it ever came down to it.
The door slams open behind us.
Hendrickson bursts into the dining hall, his boots skidding on the wet floor, eyes wild. One look at him and everything in me goes cold. The warmth of before shatters into a million cold pieces.
“Sir,” he pants, not caring about our nakedness. “You’re gonna want to hear this. Now.”
My body tenses, the alpha in me knowing immediately that something is very wrong. Ren moves off me and starts throwing on her clothes.
“What’s happening? Is everyone okay?” The words thread together with a growl.
I automatically sweep out a hand and push Ren behind me to protect her. Undeterred, she steps to my side, pinching me.
Hendrickson holds something out in his hand. The rectangular box is an old thing and mostly a mess of wires and metals and dials.
“A radio?” Ren blurts.
“Where did you—” I start.
He thrusts it out until I’m forced to take it. “I found it in one of the supply sheds. I’ve been fiddling with it to see if we can tap into the radio waves and see what’s going on out there. It took some time, but I’ve finally gotten it to work. And…” He trails off and frowns.
Our afterglow is absolutely demolished. Whatever comfort Ren and I found in the aftermath of fucking might as well have never happened. There is only my wolf with his terror like a fourth person in the room
The hair on the back of my neck bristles.
“What? What is it?” I demand an answer.
“You’re just—you’re going to want to listen to this.” Hendrickson turns the knob and adjusts the dial until the station comes in clear.
A low, crackling voice finally filters through as my blood ices.
“…massive explosion earlier this morning at what authorities have identified as the former headquarters for the real estate megacorp known as Steel at that moment, I can’t breathe. The static voice echoes in my head like shrapnel.
“Alpha,” Hendrickson whispers. He adjusts from foot to foot with a dull whine. “What do you need me to do? Do you want me to inform the others?”
“What can we do?” I mutter out loud.
Not a fucking thing . There’s no going back from this kind of destruction and we all know it although it’s another thing entirely to say it out loud.
I turn in a tight line and kick out one of the nearby chairs. The wood goes flying and cracks into the wall but neither Ren nor Hendrickson flinch.
Our home is gone. The explosion took everything. Not like there was much to go back to. We’d escaped with only the clothes on our backs and as many wolves as possible the last time we were attacked.
“Torin, I’m so sorry.” Ren cuts after me and rests her hand on my elbow. “I’m sorry.”
Numb, I let her touch me, my grip loosening on the radio. Hendrickson plucks it out of my hand before I drop the thing, my head a clang of bells and a low roar torn straight from my wolf.
The Steel Claw building is gone. The place where I was raised…no more. The company my father built from the ground up and I expanded, where my wolves—my pack—used to live, is nothing but a pile of soot and warped metal for the human fire fighters to drench with their useless hoses.
All my hard work. My memories. All of it.
Only ashes now.
I stumble back a step as a tremor rocks me and knock my tailbone against the table. It skids out of the way, the heavy wood screeching and digging grooves into the floor.
Ren moves with me. “Torin…I don’t know what to say. What can I do?” Her hand finds mine. Her fingers tighten, grounding me.
“…investigators believe the blazes may be connected, even though the locations seem random…”
Blazes connected. Of course. The sound sharpens the blur in my head and makes sense of the situation, but only for a fraction of a second.
This wasn’t just a message. It was a fucking declaration.
Andras wants us to know that we have one option left. We can submit under him or be obliterated.
Anger helps, the way it always has. Cool control and colder fury have always gone hand in hand for me. I learned it at my father’s knee. As Noble is always so keen and quick to remind me, I’m more like the old man than I thought. What would he do in this situation?
He certainly wouldn't give in to the heartbreak and the agony of loss. He’d use them and forge them into weapons.
But I have one thing he never did: I have my mate, and through her, another alpha.
We have to be stronger than anything that’s come before us. Otherwise what’s the fucking point?
Ren grips my arm like she can feel it happening, my heart breaking in real time, and maybe she can through the bond. As much as I may want to, I can’t hide my feelings anymore.
Especially not from her.
I’d rather Mathis not know what the hell is going on but he does. And he shares it. I’m not the only one who lost his home.
I don’t know how long I stand there, staring at nothing, but I barely register the door opening again.
Mathis steps over the threshold and pulls a shirt overhead at the same time. Brown hair is swept back from his face, windblown from his shift. He stops cold.
His eyes flick to the soaked floor. The toppled chairs. The half-broken table.
Then to the radio in Hendrickson’s hands.
The announcer’s voice crackles again: “…this morning, a smaller fire had been set in an isolated section of the northeast woods. Authorities have confirmed that it was a man-made blaze, but luckily, the fire department was able to get the flames under control before it spread…”
My gut sinks and I’m not sure if the reaction is his, mine, or some kind of strange creation from both of us. Mathis looks at me and our eyes lock. We both know what this means.
“Is that…are you…” Mathis breaks off and storms forward like he’ll break the radio himself.
Andras has destroyed the Grey Valley homestead, too. The announcer’s voice turns into a waspy drone in the background.
The world spins and there Mathis and I stand, two alphas without our home base. Even if we weren’t connected through our mate, these circumstances unite us.
His hands curl into a fist. “Andras,” he growls.
“The Steel Claw building was burned down,” I say, voice hollow.
“The fires,” Ren whispers, drawing our attention. “He’s been a busy boy, hasn’t he?”
Mathis’s eyes are blank. “Andras destroyed my territory. My home. He kidnapped my omegas and slaughtered them.”
“Of course he did,” I rasp. “He’s pissed. Didn’t expect us to survive the church, and since we did, he’s sending us a message.”
It’s what I would do if I were the bloodthirsty kind of beast he is.
“He wants to make sure you have nowhere else to return to.” Ren shivers and leans in closer to me.
I wrap my arm around her shoulders, drawing her to my chest. My heart is far from steady but her nearness helps; my pulse slows to match hers.
There’s a long silence. The fire alarm light overhead flickers.
My chest feels heavy, my lungs tight. The Steel Claws are officially finished. And I guess, so are the Grey Valleys. Andras has made sure were nothing but boats cast adrift in an unfriendly sea. That makes it so much easier for him to come in and wipe us off the map.
He’s mostly there.
Another hit and we’ll never be able to rally against him.
Ren presses her hand against my heart, but a chill has set into my bones, one her warmth can’t even penetrate. She reaches out to Mathis with her other hand, but he shifts away.
He runs a hand over his face. “I need to—fuck. I need to think. I need to find Owen.”
“Mat—” She starts, but he’s halfway out the door.
I don’t stop him because I get it. Even if I couldn’t feel his torment through the mate bond.
We’re both alphas without a pack.