Page 24 of Never Tamed (Bad Wolves #3)

My head fills with whispers and I shut all my mental doors.

Scratch that. I am the one to do it. There’s no one else in this world like me.

I have the go ahead from the Moon Goddess, don’t I? She personally sought me out with a mission, and if I’m not the one to put a stop to this now—

Done . There’s nothing else. There's no happily ever after. There will only be pain and escape and loss.

“The VPN keeps my connection secure.” Nobe holds out his phone to show Mathis. “There’s no way Andras can track us through our software footprint. Even if he wants to.”

“You sure?” I ask, my teeth chattering.

“I’ve taken precautions. We’re about forty minutes out. It looks like that part of town hasn’t been tapped for redevelopment yet.”

Torin scoffs. “It would have been if we hadn't been interrupted.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Mathis blows us off. “Fucking march of progress.”

Our hastily gathered soldiers follow us. Dax rests in the trunk space rather than sit in the front with the rest of us. He’s silent, too silent, and I wonder if his head’s lost to that damn song again.

There aren’t enough of us to make a difference, and we know it. We’ll fight like demons to get our omegas back, though, and to leave Andras with a message: his reign ends now. Anyone who uses terror to gain power over others shouldn’t be allowed to continue.

“Thinking about neutering him, sweetheart?” Mathis asks at whatever feeling I’ve sent down the bond. “The idea has merit.”

“Gladly.” My knee bobs and I slap a hand on it. “Whatever it takes.”

I don’t know much about the liquor they used to make at the factory and that feels important.

The last time I’d seen it in person, Rudy was dusting off his last box. One of the bottles cracked around the seal and filled the break room at the bar with such a reek I gagged.

Rudy insisted the stuff was better tasting than it smelled. He was absolutely wrong.

Carrigan and I had both taken sips from the broken bottle and one gulp sent her straight to the bathroom. She’d come back with tears in her eyes and a flush.

“Damn, Rudy, you’re nasty,” she’d chastised in her familiar twang.

My gut twists. I miss Carrigan like a phantom limb. She’s one of the casualties of Andras and his war, although I hadn’t known it when I first got involved. How could I?

When we take down our enemy the first thing I’ll do is get her back on a plane and home again. If Torin is telling the truth and he actually did send her off to Guam instead of killing her.

I’ve always wondered.

The drive passes in a blink and my heart steadily crawls up to the back of my throat. Mathis parks several blocks away, but Noble grabs him by the shirt before we get out of the car.

“Look.” He gestures with his nose. “Cameras.”

Unease triples. “Can you…” I break off.

“Baby, who are you talking to?” Noble has his phone in his hand.

It didn’t take long for him to tap into the system and blank out the road cameras topping the stoplights, looping the feed so we pass like phantoms.

We want to make as small an entrance as possible. Let our actions once we were inside do the talking.

The building is three stories of warped steel and broken glass. Looping lines of blue and vibrant green decorate the empty spaces between windows. The kids have been busy.

Graffiti paints the sagging exterior in garish colors and swirled expletives. And I've got to say, it makes the place look a little cheerier. If Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory had been shut down for gross negligence and health code violations, they’d have this place.

“I’m surprised they needed this much space for their product,” Torin murmurs, standing shoulder to shoulder with me and Noble.

“They clearly didn’t, if the place shut down.” Mathis growls and slides his hands into his pockets.

Dax paces in front of us, scouting the entrance. He stops and zeros in on a direction with a long inhale. “They’ve got the front entrance blocked but there’s a sewer grate to the left and a clear path directly to it. There are still some lingering scents. Animal and human.”

His facial hair bristles and his lips peel back from his canines.

The closer we get to the building, the stronger the stench of the old liquor is combined with oil and gas belching out of the grate.

Andras certainly did a good job of covering his tracks. Anyone with even half a nose as good as mine, or Dax, wouldn’t be able to pick him out over those combined smells of stale liquor and rust. They’re too pungent to look beyond.

Who would want to?

We make it to the entrance and Dax steps in front of Torin and Mathis, cutting them off. He pries the edges of the access grate aside and holds it aloft, jerking his head. Go .

The sewers aren’t the kind of place you want to head for a happy jaunt on a Sunday. Not when the heat smoke billows out from the rectangular entrance reeks like roadkill. I glance back at the warehouse, then the sun. My gut clenches. My heart picks up the pace, frantic, traumatized.

Hopefully it’s not the last time I see either.

Noble presses his fingers to the small of my back. Are you sure you want to do this ?

You don’t have to if you’d rather wait in the car , Torin adds, his voice hard.

I bristle. I’m not backing down from this fight. If the others are down there, then I’m going to help get them out.

How could they even think I’d stay behind?

Sometimes men are ridiculous.

Mathis waits for me at the bottom and reaches out to catch me before my feet hit the ground. His large hands fall on my waist. Dax follows with a low growl, muttering something under his breath.

His body curved, he stalks off, pacing the walls, sniffing uncontrollably.

“He doesn't like this place,” Mathis explains. “It’s unnerving.”

The energy here is wrong. Agitation prickles the inside of my skin and the walls ooze some kind of brown liquid down to the winding stream of filth in the low parts. It’s tall enough to stand but not to reach my arms out to either side and avoid the ooze.

Our men fill the tunnel, united in their restlessness. The other wolves aren’t any happier to be here than we are.

“Spread out. Half go to the left and the other half with me to the right,” Torin says in an undertone.

The walls, instead of reverberating his voice back to us, absorb every bit of sound. And hopefully don’t send it straight to Andras.

“This is all wrong,” I whisper.

Dax bumps into me, using his groin to maneuver me to the left. “Just stick with me, Red. I’ll make sure the wrong goes right.”

“You’re not in a position to do anything,” I hiss back. “You’re losing it.”

Instead of taking offense, he chuckles darkly under his breath, pushing closer.

But damn, the heat rolling off of him is a comfort. His wildness will come in handy. A large part of that is how I always feel when I’m around him.

Dax is feral in the best way. His loss of control is a beautiful thing, and his bloodlust makes me feel powerful, like there’s nothing I can't do.

I twist my wrists to the side and force myself into a steady walk.

The tunnel branches off into three directions ahead of us.

I stop, lifting my face and forcing down gulps of stinky air, searching for something familiar.

My skin tingles and tightens. It’s either nerves, or I’m finally feeling the wolf inside of me for the first time.

It’s clearer now than it ever has been before, and the sensation is enough to rattle my teeth in their sockets.

Does my wolf know where to go without words?

This place is all wrong and no matter how Dax boasts, there's no way to make it right. It’s not just the warehouse above that deserves to burn to the ground. If it wouldn’t cause a massive explosion, I’d take this maze system down too.

“We go there,” I say.

I head decisively toward the middle tunnel and duck when the ceiling slants lower. Slimy stone brushes the back of my neck and I hustle forward with the echo of footsteps behind me. The sewage smell is worse but underneath it—

I recognize Flora’s perfume, that slight undertone of Japanese cherry blossoms.

She’s here.

So are the rest of them.

Disquiet shifts to elation.

The space finally opens up and the ceiling arches, the tunnels spanning out from a center point like spokes in a wheel. And out of two of the tunnels pour Andras’s men. They make no sound until they’re on top of us, one of their footsteps going rogue in a puddle of something better unnamed.

The closest man reaches for my throat to claw it out, and I duck, my eyes drifting shut as I arch upward.

The wolf takes over.

There’s no good way to describe the experience.

It’s instinct and natural and uncomfortable at the same time.

But there's no other choice. My body lurches and in the next breath I’m across the room.

I slam my palms into the spine of the nearest man and send him stumbling forward into one of his buddy’s.

“What the shit?” Another looks on, wide-eyed, but his features are clear even in the gloom.

Breathless, I slam my palms against his chest and send him flying into the wall. The stone caves around his body and his skull hits before he slumps to the floor.

A savage glee lights my face. Let’s see what I can do .

It’s a heady feeling. Intoxicating, in a way. I want to push my body to the limits of my capabilities.

I’m not human anymore. Maybe my heart will always carry too much of that soft vulnerability that comes with being so infinitely breakable. But the rest of me? Chosen.

Time to rise.

Time to explore my powers.

Diving into the depths of me, I let the wolf handle more and more.

The control is hers, ours. Is there even a difference between us?

The disgusting drip and stench of the sewers melts away and I blink, my form blending with the light, using the angles and the fractures from the grate somewhere above us to move.

The light bends around me and although it feels like time moves with its normal speed, I’m across the space. There, gone.

The speed draws a laugh out of me and when I thrust my arm against the watery streams of light, it seems to disappear.

Oh, this is good. This is so much better than I thought.

With power racing through my veins, I sprint around the room and knock down Andras’s men like dominoes. One after the other, the first three fall. Boom, boom, boom.

I spare a glance over my shoulder to see Torin and Mathis staring at me.

Whoever we come up against, it won’t matter, because I’ll take them down. The scents of the omegas swirl from the tunnel to the left. Just as I clear the last of the wolves away, a fresh set of soldiers march out from the tunnel to block our exit.

They take one look at their fallen friends and rush toward me.

My fangs lengthen. “Big mistake.”

And like a tornado, the rest of my men move into action with me, causing as much destruction as possible with every breath.